I thought this was the best tie in to World War Hulk yet! And believe me there are a lot of crappy tie ins. This issue explained a lot. The whole thing with Hardball putting a fake SPIN dart in place of a real one was great. This explains why Tony wasn't able to take him down with it. War Machine is not feeling too cool with Tony's choices of late I think. War wants more attention possibly. It was nice to see more of the other recruits like Rage, Slapstick, and Thor-Girl. Gyrich is a bastard. This is NOT new news. The whole thing with another MVP is weird. Possibly a clone or even more probable a shape changer. If the team scrap with the Hulk they will die...it is shown a lot of other heroes down...I need to read the next part of World War Hulk...when did this happen?

So far I've been a fan of Avengers: The Initiative. The whole concept provides a fresh spin on the idea of the new, government sponsored super hero. We've followed this group of students through Tony Stark's development program. With this issue we see our heroes in training lending a hand in the efforts to aid the Earth in the time of crisis that is World War Hulk. This issue is worth checking out, but certainly not a must read. I gave it a middle of the road rating because it is a middle of the road story. On one hand you have the students helping uphold the law from looters and helping evacuate the city, but on the other side is the mysterious reappearance of formerly deceased student, Michael Van Patrick. I guess this is a good way of not completely neglecting the main arc while taking the time to tie in to the big Marvel event for the summer. Of course we get to read the Hulk's declaration of war for umpteenth time, but what was a nice touch was the conversation between James Rhodes and Tony Stark. I would have liked to have seen more of that seeing as Rhodes' job is a smaller parallel of Tony's. The book ends leading into a showdown between our young Avengers and The Hulk and his warbound allies. This I felt was a little much as I don't see any of them realistically standing a chance. It will be interesting to see how Slott can produce a realistic and satisyfying resolution for the story. I would actually have preferred to see the students looking completely from the outside and discussing where they stand in the conflict, but I guess World War Hulk plans on being more action given driven than Civil War was. Either way it'll still make for some good reading.