How do I love Acts of Vengeance?

Let me count the ways.

1) The premise is superb.  In case you don't already know, here it is in a nutshell.  All the super-villains, led by a secret cabal of the meanest bad guys in the Marvel Universe, decide to swap super-heroes.  For example, if Iron Man kicks your ass every tme, then don't fight Iron Man...fight Hawkeye instead.  I also love the concept because it really highlights the strengths of a shared universe.  Readers of individual titles are exposed to new villains.  Longtime fans (aka nerds) are to a logical conclusion: why wouldn't the bad guys all gang up and take out the heroes at once?

2) The execution is, well, excellent.  I'm going to be re-reading a lot of these issues and reading some of them for the first time.  My recollections may be hazy.  But these issues do contain a broad range of some of the finest comic professionals of the time.  Walt Simonson, John Byrne, Erik Larsen, Mark Gruenwald, John Romita, Jr., etc. etc.  And those are just the guys I can think of off the top of my head.  In fact...

2b) The more I think about it, 1989 might be my favorite year of comics.  It has three of my favorite crossovers ever (Acts, Atlantis Attacks and DC's Invasion!).  Grant Morrison is in full swing with Animal Man AND Doom Patrol.  Giffen and DeMatties are on Justice League, Scott McCloud is on Zot!, and Neil Gaiman is on Sandman.  Sure, when I was eight, I didn't know anything about most of these things, but I sure did love Atlantis Attacks.  It's only in retrospect that I've come to this conclusion and I will probably want to amend this decision in the future, but, right now, I'm hard pressed to think of a better comics year in my lifetime.  

3) My twisted childhood.  You see, I was the kind of kid that loved the villains more than the heroes.  I'm sure that many comic obsessed kids have dressed up as the Joker for Halloween in their lives...but how many dress up at Doctor Octopus?  It might just be me.  At any rate, for a kid that loves the villains, a crossover that has at least two different covers proclaiming "the ultimate super-villain team-up" becomes the greatest crossover ever.  

4) Compression and decompression.  It doesn't hurt that this story really lends itself to the necessities of the major crossover.  This event affects every hero at the same time, but, due to the nature of the threat, affects them all in a different way.  Each hero has a new villain to face and a unique challenge which needs to be met.  It may be part of a larger scheme, but, on the individual level, the threat is personalized.  As a result, your average comic book reader can follow as many or as few of the crossovers as they choose.  

It is certainly possible to follow the main plot by only picking up the central issues, primarily the Avengers titles and the individual spinoffs.  It's also possible to only follow the story of the characters you like most.  For example, back in 1993, I purchased the now out-of-print trade paperback Spider-Man: The Cosmic Adventures which collects Spidey's involvement in Acts of Vengeance.  This just happened to coincide with him receiving cosmic powers, but that comes later.  The point is that I didn't even know that was an Acts of Vengeance crossover until I received it in the mail.  It certainly makes reference to the overarching storyline, but the TPB has a more or less self-contained arc.  Of course, if you love the premise (like me) it's certainly possible to track down every single tie-in across the entire universe.  

Well.  That turned out long-winded.  Those are my preliminary opinions, at least, as to why I think this deserves memorializing in a project like this.  If you're lucky, and everything goes well, you might get a rundown for Atlantis Attacks.