"Virtual Reality Has Come a Long Way", in Avengers #468, by Kurt Busiek (writer), Kieron Dwyer with Rick Remender (artists), Tom Smith (colorist), RS & Comicraft (letterers)
The second half of Kurt Busiek's stint on Avengers, after George Perez left, was dominated by an all-out war to defend Earth against Kang. Kang brought along a big old spaceship base in the form of a sword, which he called "Damocles", because of course he did. Have to appreciate his flair. He blows up Washington D.C., which was promptly ignored by every other book. Which doesn't actually bother me much. What's actually smarter is he convinces a bunch of greedy, opportunistic warlords types already on Earth to throw in with him and take their shots.
So the Avengers are scattered across the planet trying to deal with fights on every front at once, plus other threats that crop up that are independent of Kang. The Presence comes out of the radioactive depths of Siberia. The old Alpha Flight enemy the Master shows up as a potential challenger, unwilling to let Kang claim a world that should be his. Which makes me wonder what Dr. Doom was up to during all this. And the arc with the Triune Understanding wraps up with the arrival of a giant alien space pyramid full of souls (which you can just barely see in the upper left corner, behind Kang's head, in the picture above).
The scope of things allows for a ton of Avengers to get pulled out and have nice moments. Stingray gets a few pages for a brief recon mission he runs solo. Quasar and Living Lightning pop up for the deep space segment of things. Black Knight's part of the science team trying to decipher the Master's base. Even though there were times it felt like the story was running long, I kind of wish we'd had more time to see some of the squads interacting more. Carol Danvers, Black Widow, She-Hulk, Vision, Silverclaw, for example. Interesting mix of personalities. Or Triathlon, Yellowjacket, Wasp, Jack of Hearts and Stingray.
There's also a whole subplot about two Hank Pyms running around (just what the world needs), Thor worrying he's too attached to these mortals with their brief lifespans. Kang's son is the spitting image of that Marcus guy who tricked Carol Danvers into joining him in some pocket dimension so she could give birth to him. Or something. I don't remember the details, only that I think Claremont went back and said Marcus controlled her into going along with it, and so she was fairly pissed at the Avengers for just grinning like idiots and waving "so long" when they went off together.
Anyway, this Marcus is also very into Carol, which rightly sets off all sorts of alarm bells for her. Frankly, I'm really hoping all the recent work that's been done with Carol has involved just quietly dumping that bit of her backstory into the garbage, then lighting said garbage on fire.
Art chores were handled by a shifting cast. The first few issues post-Perez were mostly the Alan Davis/Mark Farmer team. In the later stages it's mostly Kieron Dwyer, but Ivan Reis is in there (we're a couple of years away from him being one of the regular artists for Geoff Johns' Green Lantern run), Patrick Zircher near the end, Manuel Garcia for a couple of issues in the middle. Tom Smith is the colorist throughout, which helps keep the book having a similar feel across artists and plot lines.
Although most of the artists are close enough you aren't getting whiplash from issue to issue. Dwyer's style is certainly blockier, with heavier inks than Davis', but you don't feel as though you're looking at something wildly different from what you saw a couple of issues previously. Garcia and Reis are somewhere between those other two. It all feels like big, bright superhero action.
