[Jason Abbadon]

Well, the overall IG Avengers story WAS lame- they managed to give BLack Bolt the wrong damn gem for starters (Iron Man had the Reality Gem to protect, not BB!), but the part where Tony got the Gauntlet and gives his speech about all he could do with it, and why he did not ("and then I'd be Kang") really rang true to his character, and that what I was trying to point out. It was an Iron Man moment. No action required- and to me, that one page made buying the prior three issues totally worth it- Tony shows everyone exactly what kind of man he is and walks away- that was the big redeeming moment since Civil War.
If they'd used that storyline's basic premise with the same outcome instead of Seige, it could have been an epic event- Osborn trying to get the gems instead of the silly Hood.
Though I love JrJr- even have an original Iron Man he drew for me- he phoned his Avengers art in bigtime.

And I really loved Steve becoming one of the Illumaniti at the end- it shows that he's gotten that stick pulled out of his ass finally- being the Man in Charge means making comprimises, not some unyielding black or white morality. A lot of fans hated that, but I thought it showed rarely sen character development in a 70 year old character.

Funny- i'm so NOT an action junkie- my favorite marvel comic is Journey Into Mystery! If the story is moving along and interesting, I'm super happy. JiM has the best story and pacing around and does not need super-throwdowns...but the story is really tight. In IM, there is so much stuff that blows the pacing- battles are interupted for pages of meetings over whatever and though it's IRON MAN, it reads more like it should be a Stark Resilant team book.

That being said, different titles have different expectations- a LOT of fans dropped Avengers in Fear Itself when, instead of anything happenng, Bendis had six pages per issue of talking heads discussing what had already happened- man, that sucked hard. Avengers seems to be going back on track with this new storyline though...but my LCS lost a LOT of sales as marvel fans dropped out of Fear Itself- just as DC started it's new titles at a lower price than Marvel too!

I want a nice balance of smart story and kick ass action- stuff like Venom and X-Force, both by Rick Remeder- and soon he's taking over Secret Avengers -which despite the action, has sucked hard in my opinion.

To say someting positive about Fracton's IM, I was glad to see Fracton bring Henry Hellrung into this issue for a cameo- and it's interesting that he's suffering for having had powers instilled in The Order (which fracton also wrote) but also kinda jerky as the same character was just active with powers in Fear Itself- which was days ago in IM timeline.
More of IM nad Marvel not being on the same page...that's more a Marvel fault though- they really REALLY suck at crossovers, yet they just do one after another after another....