Between Siege 4 and NA 64, we once again had some other issues. Thor 610, featuring the epilogue to Siege, wherein the Asgardians dig out, Thor’s exile from Asgard is ended, and Thor destroys Ragnarok, finally, putting that all-time terrible stain on the Marvel Universe behind us. Gillen begins winding things down to make way for the incoming Thor creative team of Matt Fraction and Pasqual Ferry. It’s kinda funny. Gillen got the gig of saving the book from JMS’s hubris, but he wasn’t a Big Name, he was just a guy, and at the time, from the outside, it seemed like Marvel thought, “we can’t have just some guy on a book as big as Thor!” But in just a couple of years, Gillen will be a marquee name, shoulder to shoulder with Fraction and the others. He may not have been a star yet, but he was on his way. Also present is the final issue of Mighty Avengers, which sees a bunch of truly ridiculous nonsense happen that repeatedly contradicts what was going on in Siege, and then ends with Hank showing up to help. A truly ignoble final issue, and well earned at that. So that brings us to this issue.
Obsorn and Hood talk about loyalty and how Hood needs something to sell his gang on invading Asgard. Norman says when this is all over, he’s going to replace “the Avengers program” with the Thunderbolts, and put the Hood in charge, and his gang will be his “generals.” Haha, ok. Then it’s a few pages of the Hood telling the gang that this thing he talked them into so they could rob banks together is now them leading a paramilitary organization, and that goes over somehow. This is all ridiculous. Then it’s last issue, but from the gang’s perspective. And, eventually, Asgard falls yet again, and Madame Masque looks like maybe she didn’t make it out.
Is this Bendis doing Letterman’s infamous “Uma, Oprah” bit with Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston? What is going on right now? Well, neither woman is even injured, because of course, and the 2 couples run into each other, but before anything can happen, the Sentry/Void starts doing… whatever he was doing in Siege 4 to everybody, and also the Hood loses the Norn Stones to Loki, as seen in Siege 4, which is kind of not good for him.
What could that mean? Who could possibly care? But we’ll find out or something in the one-shot special New Avengers: Finale that wraps this era of the Avengers titles.