Avengers #29

Team vs team books can be hard to organize into a story, and if you want proof, I give you this comic, exhibit A. As a start, the premise is simple; one good guy team thinks the phoenix force needs containment, or better yet, elimination, while the other is not so draconian about it. Great reason for the two teams to conflict, even better than Civil War, where it seemed heroes were changing personalities for the sake of conflict.

Add to this mix a great penciller in Walt Simonson, and it should be a no-brainer classic yarn...except when the story is being padded (this issue), the story is hard to follow as the reader must decipher unattached word balloons because telepaths are "talking" (this issue), and who is fighting who, and to what end, is purposely concealed until the end when the ending becomes...still concealed (this issue). I've read Avengers and X-men in the past, I'm the casual reader, and this COULD be a way to hook me, but not like this. I'll skip some more padding, thank you, and wait until something important happens.