The Avengers Volume 2 written by Brian Michael Bendis, art by John Romita Jr. and Bryan Hitch
Formerly defeated villain the Hood (aka Parker Robbins) has escaped jail and decided to restore his power by collecting all of the Infinity Stones. A secret cabal made up of Iron Man, Reed Richards, Charles Xavier, Prince Namor, Stephen Strange, and Black Bolt thought they had securely hidden the stones on Earth, each member in charge of one stone. Robbins collects two of them and has a run in with the Red Hulk (aka General Thunderbolt Ross), who goes to the Avengers and alerts them of the situation (Stark's stone hasn't been stolen (yet)). The Avengers begin to investigate and Steve Rogers gets mad at Tony Stark for hiding the information about the stones from him. Joining up with the Secret Avengers and the New Avengers, the three groups go after the other stones before Robbins can reach them.
The final story has Spider-Woman investigating a strange occurrence for S.W.O.R.D., the Sentient World Observation and Response Department. They deal with extraterrestrial problems and also have been off Steve Rogers's radar. Spider-Woman disappears during the mission, so a group of Avengers goes to rescue her, only to stumble on a secret cabal of super-intelligent villains who unwittingly bring a new problem back to Earth.
While the main story has an interesting premise, the execution was just mediocre. There were no clever strategies or "wow" moments. The story is so overstuffed with heroes that no one really shines out other than Red Hulk who is clearly looking for some redemption from whatever bad stuff he did before. The Steve Rogers/Tony Stark conflict reads like a re-run of previous conflicts between them.
Mildly recommended--I think I might be done with this run...there's too many other books out there that are more interesting to me.
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