The issue opens in the North Atlantic where "A dangerous iceberg suddenly drifts into the path of a speeding super-liner", "But then, seconds before the fatal impact, a blinding, shattering, mysterious twin-beam shoots out, blasting the mighty iceberg into harmless fragments!!"; yes, you guessed it, the X-Men are aboard the ocean liner, and Cyclops has pulverized this quick-moving ice mountain with his eye beams.
Fortunately, nobody saw this, and as he (dressed as Scott Summers) collapses on deck, Warren Worthington III helps him back to his cabin. The reason the X-Men are taking a transport as speedy as ocean liner is that Professor X contacted them last issue about an emergency threat in Europe - a guy named Lucifer - who thankfully is willing to put his plans for world domination on hold while he waits the weeks it's going to take them to get there by boat to join the conflict.
Meanwhile, Professor X is captured and transported before Lucifer via artificial dust devil. Professor X is pretty mad since this is the guy that cost him his legs, but nevertheless, he stops when Lucifer says, "If I am harmed, the entire world is doomed!!" (with two exclamation points, so you know he really means it!!).
Meanwhile, in the quaint Bavarian village above, The Avengers arrive following "strange impulses" detected by Thor's hammer. They are flagged down by a passing motorist who asks for directions - but he barely gets a word out edge-wise before he is assaulted by Wasp. He zooms away, and nearly runs over the X-Men in their civilian clothes. When he tells them his story, Warren throws off his shirt and jacket, spreads his wings and flies off - thus accomplishing the twin tasks of further freaking out this hapless bystander, and totally blowing the X-Men's secret identities.
If you haven't guessed yet, yeah this is another sub-par issue of the X-Men. Basically, Lucifer has connected himself to a doomsday weapon so that if his heart stops the world goes blooey. The Professor tells his X-Men to prevent the Avengers from interfering, so basically that's as good a reason as any for the two teams to start pounding on each other rather than talking.
The really bad part of the issue happens as the battle concludes, however, when Professor X tells Thor, the whole story, and then rather than agree to help The X-Men against Lucifer (who after all, only plans to wipe out the entire human race), The Avengers decide, "It seems we've traveled clear across the Atlantic only to blunder into someone else's fight!" - and leave!
Which leaves the X-Men to deal with Lucifer and the superbomb. They do this by Professor X, putting Lucifer unconscious and then probing the bomb with his friggin' mind and instructing Cyclops on how to surgically disable it with his eye beams:
And then, despite the fact that the whole reason Professor X discovered his plans was because Xavier had a score to settle with Lucifer, and he says at issues end that it IS NOT settled; AND despite the fact that Lucifer just tried to kill everyone on the entire planet, they just let him go without so much as a promise that he won't try to annihilate all or humanity again.
And thus ends Avengers vs. X-Men, one of the most highly anticipated crossover battles in Marvel history, and what a dud it turned out to be.
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