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When the issues collected in Avengers Epic Collection: The Crossing Line were first published in 1990 and 1991, the Avengers were in a bit of flux. Writer Roger Stern’s acclaimed five year long run on the book had come to an end a few years earlier. Just prior to the start of this volume, writer John Byrne had abruptly left his stewardship of both Avengers and Avengers West Coast, a stewardship which had culminated in putting the Avengers at the center of Marvel’s line-wide crossover “Acts of Vengeance” just before he left the books. On the other side of these collected issues, the creative run by writer Bob Harras and (chiefly) penciler Steve Epting looms, a run that will come to define “Avengers in the 90s,” for better and worse. With the benefit of hindsight, this chunk of issues feels very much like it’s simply filling the gap between the Byrne and Harras/Epting runs, merely killing time despite the fact that Larry Hama – whose entire work on the Avengers is collected in this volume – had every intention of staying on the title for a good long while (more on that below). Yet for that, at least some of the stories collected herein are not without their charms, even if few of them rise to the level of all time Avengers greats. [Read more…] about Avengers Epic Collection: The Crossing Line Review!