Gabriele Del'Otto steps in with beautiful art for this annual. It's dark and moody and while he didn't have a great deal of action in this book, he didn't really need it. His art tells the story well and gets the point across that the Avengers are targets from within as well as without. It's definitely much more of an art piece than most Avengers books and just a joy to look at. Read Full Review

The sheer look of shock and horror on Beast's face in response to the question was superbly depicted by Gabrielle Dell'Otto. This is a continuation of what began in the New Avengers Annual in September.  I could not say enough good things about that book and this issue is no exception.    Read Full Review

The Avengers finally get to react to the attack by Wonder Man (and his team of Revengers) on the Avengers Mansion. The unfortunate delay (not sure why it took four months) takes a little of the oomph away. But the story we get is great. We now know what it takes to piss off the Avengers. Dell'Otto's art depicts this nicely and seeing their reaction is great. You'll definitely want a ring side seat for this fight. The story might be over but you get the feeling that Bendis still has more up his sleeve. Read Full Review

An above average comic that features some pretty good art, Avengers Annual #1 is worth a buy if you are a regular reader of this corner of the Marvel Universe. It gets a bit confusing for the more casual segment of the readership, though, owing mostly to the months-long delay. The title also incorporates a fair amount of continuity. In retrospect, the title is (naturally) geared towards the more completionist crowd than the potential newcomers, and that works with all the benefits and drawbacks that would suspect. Read Full Review

It does allow for a powerful final moment for Simon, even as the Avengers are yet again mired in all-too predictable public reprobation. Bendis creates another death knell for the illusory Heroic Age, but I'm choosing to see it as his swan song; he's really got nothing left to say about the Avengers, and can't be off the books soon enough for my taste. All of them. Read Full Review

"Avengers Annual" #1 raises some interesting points and seems to be a part of a larger story Bendis is telling about the public turning on the Avengers. Wonder Man's argument against the Avengers has some merit and doesn't get the follow-through it warrants, especially in the response from the Avengers. Hopefully, Bendis will return to the ideas raised here and develop them further. Read Full Review

This annual does finally pick up a bit of steam at the end. In the aftermath, Simon is written in a more evenhanded fashion, finally explaining hi position and motivations in a more convincing fashion. The interaction between him and Beast is also a nice touch. Ultimately, with as much as this short crossover did wrong, it does do its part to establish the general sense of unrest and anti-Avengers paranoia running rampant in the ongoing books. Ideally, this story should have unfolded several months ago and in a more intimate form without all the useless flash and noise. Read Full Review

The only thing that saves this book is a golden moment towards the end, where a captive Wonder Man muses to his former teammates whether he even exists at all, or is simply a construct of the Scarlet Witch's imagination built out of grief all those years past. Read Full Review

Except that you, the reader, are out 5 bucks. Read Full Review

I suspect that this issue (and it's predecessor) were created with the though that people would jump at the chance to see the team behind Secret War working together again, but Secret War, for all it's faults, had more story behind it than this. At $4.99 for 25 pages of story, I'm already miffed, but $4.99 for the second half of a four-month-old story, one which has already been essentially duplicated in New Avengers, not to mention negated by Fear Itself? Stick a fork in this one, because I'm about done. Avengers Annual #1 is nothing more than another Brian Bendis "Why SHOULD the public trust the heroes?" tale, covering ground which was done to death long before the first half of this story came out, earning a disdainful 1 out of 5 stars overall. If Marvel editorial wants to address the reality of their characters, that's fine, but you can't keep asking the same rhetorical question over and over without either answers or anything new to say about it... Read Full Review