House of Evolution
Walt Simonson and Mark Bright bring us Prometheus Mutans, the finale to 1988's Evolutionary War crossover, in which a team of Avengers fight against the High Evolutionary and attempt to stop his plan to detonate a bomb and avert his genetic war.
Walt Simonson's Avengers run isn't very well remembered. His short run lacked direction, quality stories and even a stable team roster which is evidenced here by a one-off assortment of Avengers gathering to battle the Evolutionary. With all that said, this is easily Walt Simonson's best Avengers issue and the best issue of the entire Evolutionary War crossover. The story is exciting and the fight between the Avengers and High Evolutionary is a good challenging fight for the team without descending into Thanos or Beyonder levels of futility. The Avengers team, who were sadly never seen again, just worked very well together as all the characters here ranged quite a bit. As a bit of an Avengers nerd, I feel it noteworthy to point out that this issue is also when the second Yellowjacket joins the team and is otherwise her only appearance as an Avenger.
I found Mark Bright's art to be pretty good here. If I remember correctly, Bright drew an Acts of Vengeance issue of Avengers Spotlight starring U.S.Agent fighting Scourge which I really do not enjoy the art on. It looks like poor caricatures but here it's so very different and looks good. Although, there's a major discrepancy with regards to Beast's designs in this crossover. We began with Beast in his human form in the X-Factor issue but by the time we reach Avengers, he has reverted back to his furry blue form.
The Evolutionary War has for the most part been an inconsistent and rather jumbled mess that, like most of Marvel's early crossovers, failed to gain momentum early on or even stick with one direction or story. It's a great shame because this issue of Avengers is pretty damn fantastic and to read it, it makes you seriously ponder why the rest of the crossover couldn't be this good and, well, this relevant to the actual story arc of the crossover. Some issues just featured a minor cameo of the High Evolutionary or a random appearance of one of his troopers. This issue actually has the Avengers fighting to stop the High Evolutionary's entire plan and coming face-to-face with the villain. None of the stuff we saw before hand really matters in this final part, and that's the one weakness of this issue. It would've been nice to see the X-Men, the Eternals, the Inhumans and Apocalypse showing up in some way rather than it all ultimately being irrelevant. With that said, it's unfair to really pick holes with what's the definite highlight of the crossover and even the highlight of Simonson's run on Avengers.