New Avengers #61 - Marvel

Well . . Steve seems to be back in the thick of things, even though I haven't even read Captain America Reborn #6 yet. Although . . that is the next book in my list. Anyways, the Hood has returned to his gang. And with the Norn Stones that Loki has given him, he's decided to amp up the powers of his minions, and give them the ability to find other people with powers . . as in, the Avengers. He wants them to hunt them down and take them out. They attack Steve and Bucky as they're on a stake-out, and Spider-man and Spider-woman as they're doing surveillance on Avengers Tower. First they attack, and then . . in both cases, they force one of the 'heroes' to take out their partner. Bucky is order to kill Steve, while Spider-woman is told to take out Spider-man. Steve appears to be shot, while Spider-man is thrown over a building. We don't know whether either of these attacks were successful. But after attacking Spider-man, on the final page Spider-woman is given a new set of orders. 'Before you kill yourself for me . . you need to show us where the other Avengers are hiding.' For being part of the Siege cross-over, there wasn't really anything to do with that in this issue. Well . . I guess when they were watching the Avengers Tower they saw a lot of movement and mobilization. So they know somethings up, just not what. I guess those 3 panels were how this specific issue was affected by Siege. Oookay! Anyways . . that's pretty much what happened this issue. Pretty simple. 'Wham-bam-thank you mam!' Brian Bendis wrote this rather trite tale, while Stuart Immonen and Daniel Acuna do the art. I'm sorry. It wasn't a bad issue . . per se. It was just . . of a single purpose . . to move the story-line with the Hood forward. It was what it was. I enjoyed it. But . . I wasn't thrilled. Sorry!