There comes a time when the characters are so stupid, you have to stop thinking, “Yikes, they are stupid” and start thinking, “I’m reading this; am I stupid?”

“It’s comics,” they will say to me when they see this. We expect our comics to be serious-as-a-dead-child stories about open-mouthed dum-dums who could still believe in the Tooth Fairy. It’s not a bug; it’s a feature. That “Joker fell in water; guess he’s dead” thing alone has been done so many times this most recent one was probably a “reference.” But maybe we have put so many spins on that classic story (from the forties, for eight year olds) that we have upped the ante past the maximum safe ante height. Any more, it’s just rubbing our noses in the mess we’ve made. Imagine the next poor sap who has to write a Joker story. For Batgirl.

Jim Mroczkowski is finding himself wondering whether or not taking certain genre conventions for granted is a good thing or not. My general rule of thumb is pretty much, when you start thinking about this kind of thing too much, it’s time to give yourself and the story a break for a bit; otherwise, you will start to realize that, no matter how good Superman is at hunching over, someone would realize that he’s really Clark Kent.

Of course, there are times when the stories involved make ignoring the ridiculousness of some of these things particularly difficult; any time a story focuses on the importance of the secret identity, for example – as Scott Snyder’s been doing over in Batman, the book that Mroczowski is talking about – there is that moment of “You’re just reminding us how ludicrous this actually is, you know that, right…?”

I was surprised to see the upset online yesterday at the news – via DC’s latest round of solicitations – that Legion of Super-Heroes has been cancelled. What was surprising wasn’t that people were upset that the book was ending, but that there seemed to be this feeling that this was the first time that DC had cancelled the book, which… didn’t really make any sense, to be honest.

For one thing, the current volume of Legion was the seventh, and at 23 issues (24, once you include the zero issue), it lasted eight months longer than volume 6, which was cancelled to make way for the New 52 relaunch. That previous volume launched with a cover date of July 2010, meaning that it had been almost a year and a half between volumes 5 (which ended with #50, cover date March 2009) and volume 6. In the meantime, there had been the three issues of the seemingly-permanently delayed Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds mini and four issues of an abortive back-up run in the revised Adventure Comics (The Legion were theoretically headliners in the Adventure tie-ins to the “Last Stand of New Krypton” storyline, but that was more of a Superman event that featured the Legion than any attempt at a Legion book).

Even if seven headlining appearances in sixteen months falls within your definition of “continuous publication,” it’s still odd to see people assuming that DC cancelling the current series means the end of the Legion as a whole. Even the final solicit suggests an imminent reboot, with talk of the future of the DCU future looking different… In an era where, just in the last few years, we’ve seen the cancellation of long-running titles like Action Comics, Detective Comics, Fantastic Four, Uncanny X-Men and so many more, just to be relaunched months (in some cases, just weeks) later, surely the idea of a classic book ending “forever” seems ludicrous or at least amazingly naive, doesn’t it? Is there really anyone out there who doesn’t think we’ll see the announcement of a new Legion title – even if it’s not called Legion of Super-Heroes (We have, after all, had replacements with titles like Legion Lost, Legion Worlds, The Legion etc. in the past) – within a few months at most?

Axel Alonso on spoilers:

That said, there will always be people out there who delight in leaking information and spoiling it for readers. There are so many people who have access to information after the book goes to the printer, after it’s printed, after it’s distributed — it’s impossible to prevent leaks, even if it is possible to track down culprits after the fact. That said, I actually think pirates and gossips hurt fans a lot more than their intended victims: creators and publishers. Does it hurt sales? I dunno. The sales of “Amazing Spider-Man #700″ sure don’t seem to indicate that. Does it hurt fans that want to enjoy the surprise as a part of their actual reading experience? My guess is yes. I mean, if can get through “Madmen” Season 5 without someone spoiling the ending for me, it’ll be a miracle.

Two things:

1. I think it funny that his list of ways in which people can be spoiled for comics they’re reading doesn’t include “Publishers revealing big news in mainstream press outlets anywhere from days to months before the release of said comic,” personally. Although leaks happen (a lot), I think that USA Today or somewhere similar running a story about the ending of a comic tends to spoil the story for more readers ahead of time than some printer/retailer/fan getting hold of a copy early and releasing a smartphone pic online to a fan site. YMMV, of course.
2. How important are spoilers, anyway? I wonder that, sometimes. There are plenty of stories that rely on a shock last minute reveal for a certain amount of drama and tension, of course, but that is rarely the only value of a story; there has to be something more to it, surely, otherwise the story can only be read once, because any re-reads would be pointless in light of you knowing the big secret. While knowing a spoiler ahead of time can rob the story of one kind of appeal, shouldn’t good stories have more to offer, and therefore have a different-yet-equal appeal even if you know the ending ahead of time…?

Which is to say, spoilers might not hurt sales; as Alonso says, Amazing Spider-Man #700′s success would suggest that, along with countless other comics from Marvel and other publishers (Surely that’s why mainstream news outlets get the exclusives on things like Peter Parker’s death, Johnny Storm’s death, et al ahead of time, to help sell the books). But is it possible that, in the long term, they don’t really hurt the stories, either…?

At the Beat, David Carter offers up a sales chart for what comics and graphic novels are selling on Amazon. Besides what are now the usual suspects for bookstore audiences – The Walking Dead, Diary of a Wimpy Kid etc. – there’s an impressive presence for DC’s Injustice: Gods Among Us digital series, with thirteen placings in the Top 50, and once again, no Marvel presence beyond Hawkeye Vol. 1: My Life As A Weapon. That book really does seem to be appealing to a mass audience in a way that nothing else from the publisher can manage…

The winner of the bookstore market in April is unsurprisingly clear from this chart of the Top 20 graphic novels: It’s obviously The Walking Dead, which takes nine of the twenty slots (with three different volume ones, interestingly enough; the hardcover, the omnibus and the compendium), as has pretty much been the case for some time now. But there’s something worth paying attention to happening at the bottom of the Top 20.

Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye Vol. 1: My Life As A Weapon is at #15. That, in itself, is a big deal, because Marvel collected editions tend to fare pretty terribly in the bookstore market (No Marvel superhero book charted at all in December 2012, nor January or February 2013, for example; Avengers Vs. X-Men charted in November 2012, and then you have to go all the way back to May 2012 to find another Marvel U title, when Infinity Gauntlet reached #19 as a result of the Avengers movie), but it’s an even bigger deal when you realize that it’s the book’s second month in the Top 20; it actually debuted in March, at #9.

Two months in the bookstore market Top 20 is very unusual for a superhero book, which tend to peak in their month of release and drift off never to be heard of again… Has the buzz around Hawkeye gone outside of the comic industry, perhaps (If so, deservedly; it’s a really good book)? And if it has – and if Marvel keep it in print – could Hawkeye turn into Marvel’s first perennial seller in the bookstore market?

One of the casualties of the sudden closure of Comics Alliance has made its way online – Dylan Todd and Ziah Grace taking a look at the first year of the new Valiant Entertainment:

Yeah, there’s a lot I like about Valiant. They tend to have solid creators working on their books and, for the most part, they tell stories that are at least competent, and, in the case of Archer & Armstrong and Bloodshot, are often fantastic. I like that almost all of their books manage to take the superhero concept and blend it with another genre; horror for Shadowman, sci-fi for X-O, action for Bloodshot, historical conspiracy for Archer & Armstrong. Their books are well-designed and the fact that they seem to be organically expanding their line is admirable.

There are some rough spots, though: the coloring across the board is kind of boring, and the “just get it out the door” mentality to the art is often problematic, making the art fairly interchangeable, house-style stuff which I feel diminishes the role of a penciler from a collaborator to just a cog in realizing the writer or editor’s vision. These problems that I feel are present across the industry, though. Also: Harbinger. I can’t overstate how disappointed I am with that book.

Lots, lots more in the piece, which is well worth reading. So go do that.

Brett White suggests some things comic fans may want to keep in mind while enjoying this summer’s comic book-based movies, including this nugget of solid truth:

Not only is Electro going to be blue, he’s going to be Jamie Foxx. And Perry White will be played by Laurence Fishburne. Jimmy Olsen is possibly going to be Jenny Olsen. Idris Elba still controls the Bifrost as Heimdall. I don’t really know what to say to people that have a problem with this. Comic books have a race/gender/sexual identity/literally-everything problem encoded into their very DNA, since they were all created at a time before anyone other than straight white men had a say in things. And every one of those characters I just mentioned were white men. And if they weren’t being played by diverse actors, the majority of this summer and next summer’s films would be nearly 100% white. The comic book characters created in the 1960s do not reflect the world of 2013. They have to change.

Of course, it’d be nice if the comics changed to more accurately reflect the world of 2013 as well…

The right-wing Media Research Council looks at recent DC Comics news and doesn’t like what it sees:

In an upcoming release, DC’s openly lesbian Batwoman character will be shown kissing her lover while proposing marriage. And now, Batgirl has a transgendered roommate. These are not your father’s comic books.

Like the rest of American pop culture, comic books have increasingly included pro-gay propaganda pieces aimed at the children and young adults who read them. Not to be outdone by DC’s super-heroic sexual diversity, Marvel released a comic a few weeks ago where “Wolverine and Hercules share a gay kiss,” as reported by The Huffington Post.

Gay characters began appearing in comics in the early 90s but this agenda-based tactic has been employed more frequently in the past 10 years. In 2006, an Advocate story titled “How Gay is Superman?” led the way for the “turn your favorite superhero characters gay” trend. Since then, comic book writers have been aggressively promoting politics in their stories.

Ah, yes, “pro-gay propaganda.” That’s what DC is doing, of course. Not anything like trying to reflect the diversity of the real world in its books in an attempt to appeal to more readers, because that would be ridiculous. Not that I’m surprised by the lack of research that went into the piece, but “gay characters began appearing in comics in the early 90s” is nowhere near true; Howard Cruise even had a title called Gay Comix on the stands in 1980.

Even when it comes to the Big Two, DC’s first openly gay character debuted in 1987, by my reckoning – Superman and now Batwoman supporting cast member Maggie Sawyer – with its first openly gay superhero following months later. Of course, these days, few remember the greatness that was Millennium‘s Extrano. I can only imagine the reaction he‘d get from the Media Research Council…

Marvel may own Marvelman now (Well, some version of the character, at least), but it turns out the publisher could’ve made everyone’s lives a lot easier and bought the U.S. rights to publish Alan Moore’s run on the character way back when:

Shooter said, ‘We can’t do Marvelman,’ and I said, ‘But you ARE Marvel!’ He said, ‘Yeah, but the trouble is if his name is Marvelman, he represents the entire company. It would be like if this character was called DC Man, he’d represent DC. We couldn’t have a figurehead character who’s involved in a bizarre sexual triangle with the wife who’d rather sleep with the Greek God superhero than the forty-year-old pudgy secret identity and all this other stuff. Besides, he’s British, so how could he represent us?’ So he didn’t want it either.

Given the current status of Captain America as Marvel’s heart and moral conscience, could Marvelman represent the entire publisher these days? Turns out, the character’s name was also the reason DC didn’t purchase the rights when it had the chance the other day, according to Dick Giordano:

DC Comics publishing something called Marvelman; are you crazy? Do you know the problems we have with Captain Marvel, and you think we’re going to do Marvelman?! I couldn’t touch it. I love it but we couldn’t possibly do it.

The comics industries we could have had…! Just imagine.

While the Age of Ultron: UC solicit will grab a lot of attention in the latest Marvel solicits, I’ll suggest that the solicit for Indestructible Hulk #11 might be the one that’s really worth paying attention to:

“TIME TO SMASH” PART 1!
• Spinning out of the events of Age of Ultron!
Hulk’s sent on his most dangerous mission yet, working for a secret subdivision of S.H.I.E.L.D.!
History’s breaking–and only the Hulk is strong enough to hold it together!

“History’s breaking” is a particularly interesting thing to say – Not just in light of Age of Ultron, but also Bendis’ All-New X-Men. It’s been amusing to me that a relaunch called “Marvel NOW!” had such stock in time-travel, but I always wondered whether that was coincidence or intent. In light of Age of Ultron, I’m beginning to suspect the latter, and with this solicit, I’m starting to wonder whether this is all leading…

With Age of Ultron hitting the midway point this week, it’s maybe a good time to look at the series so far and consider the structure of the story. Maybe it’s just me, but there was a feeling that – due to the events at the end of the issue that I won’t spoil – this issue was in many ways the actual start of the story, and that everything prior to this had been prologue, and that’s oddly fascinating to me.

Certainly, the first five issues seemed to have little happening in the overall story, being more concerned with scene-setting and world-building, something that seemed curiously inconsequential considering the seemingly impermanent state of the world in question. By making such a dramatic swerve at the halfway point – The future issues will take place in different locales (temporal, if not physical), with a different mission statement and, we can but hope, more of a level or urgency – it’s hard not to wonder what the point of spending so long establishing the ruined Ultron world was.

Also, considering how well the tie-ins have done the same job – Avengers Assemble #14AU sets the scene far more effectively than the first four issues of the main book, for me, giving us an emotional “in” that the Bendis/Hitch team had failed to do in my opinion – it’s a question that feels more worth answering, and more confusing, than otherwise. The storytelling choices of Age of Ultron have been very deliberate: Not showing how the takeover happened, the pacing, the fragmented build of the story to date. But why were they made?

What happens in the second half of the series is crucial, of course; whether it mirrors, or builds on, the storytelling choice of the first half or not. When the “different artists at the midway point” structure of the series was first announced, I worried that it would mean that the second half would feel like an entirely different book. Now, I find myself torn on that – On the one hand, that would feel like the first half was even more of a waste of time, but on the other… I think I’d want a different book, based on the evidence of the first five issues. Is that just me?

I’m amused at the newest addition to Marvel’s Fearless Defenders. Here’s Cullen Bunn explaining how she ended up in the book:

I liked the thought of raising a character from the dead, but I was immediately met with a couple of problems. Firstly, the character had to fit what I was planing for the book. Secondly, when I went through all my old issues of the “Official Marvel Universe Handbook: Book of the Dead,” all the characters who were listed as deceased had already been returned to life! My short list had four characters on it, and there were a couple I was certain would be resurfacing in one way or another in other books. Ellie called me with the suggestion of Hippolyta, and I thought she could bring something interesting to the series.

Yes, now the Defenders feature Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. AKA, I kid you not, “Warrior Woman.”

Between this and Avengers‘ starring role for Hyperion, I feel that Marvel just needs to bring Nighthawk back to complete a trinity of some kind. I wonder what Marvel’s reaction would be if DC’s versions of Thor, Hercules and Loki started making appearances throughout the New 52?

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, the upcoming graphic novel by Prudence Shen and the spectacularly talented Faith Erin Hicks, is now available for pre-order (It’s also been serialized online for the last few months, for those who have no idea what I’m talking about. Spoilers: It’s really good). To promote pre-orders, publisher First Second has decided to incentivize the process a little bit, and offer a prize draw for those who have pre-ordered, with the scale of the prize dependent on how many pre-orders are confessed in their comments section.

Some of the prizes are wonderful, whether it’s the original Faith Erin Hicks drawing on offer for 100-149 pre-orders or the all-original, one-off, not-to-be-published short story featuring the cast of the book by Prudence Shen for 250-499 orders, but the top prize, if the pre-orders top 500, is pretty damn great:

Pre-ordering us to death is the only acceptable method of breaking our website, for those of you considering it, in case you’ve been wondering. At this level, in addition to all the previously listed and frankly baller prizes, you’ll unlock a magical, awesome present for everybody who’s enjoyed Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong along with you.

With 500 pre-orders, we’ll post a special years-later epilogue about our crew from Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, complete with awesome cover art from Faith. As you can expect, it will involve poor decision making, a series of escalating disasters, and college (the locus of possibly the most terrible decisions ever).

People, (a) go check this book out, because it’s good, and then (b) pre-order it. I want to read this epilogue!

After a year’s worth of speculation, now the first details of DC Comics’ Trinity War are beginning to emerge and the most immediate thing that springs to mind is… that wasn’t what I expected. It’s not just that the trinity in question are three Justice League teams as opposed to the more traditional DCU trinity (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) or the Trinity of Sin of Pandora, the Question and the Phantom Stranger, but that the whole thing turns out to be a six issue crossover between the three Justice League books instead of a multi-issue, multi-title massive event.

In many ways, it’s a smart move; it’s counter-intuitive, which is almost always a good idea in terms of getting people to talk about the storyline. It also means that DC’s first big event book since the New 52 won’t be competing against either Infinity or Age of Ultron aftermath from Marvel, and leaves the all-important post-New 52 event book premiere slot open to keep that speculation going (Who doesn’t think that Trinity War will lead into something bigger, especially now that Trinity of Sin has been launched as a thing for DC?).

However… There’s a certain sense of anti-climax to this, at the same time. Not only isn’t Trinity War a massive event, it turns out to be a crossover that’s actually smaller in scale than other, earlier New 52 line-wide crossovers. Even outside of the Batman events, there have been a couple of Green Lantern events that were bigger, and the recent “Hel on Earth” crossover in the Superman titles also spanned more than six issues. Didn’t Trinity War just… feel like it was going to be a bigger deal than this?

As to the story itself… Well, we’ll have to wait another few months before we know how that’s going to play out. But at least the whole thing will be over within a couple of months, no matter how good or bad it turns out to be.

Today’s Stormwatch issue from DC is an eye-opener in many ways, not least of which its seeming refusal to engage in anything that’s happened before in the title. Reading it brought to mind the fact that a lot of DC books are starting over right now with what are essentially reboots for the series, whether in small ways – Morrison and Snyder leaving Action and Swamp Thing, say – or big (Stormwatch, Jeff Lemire’s literal “blowing everything up” revision for Green Arrow). We’re only eighteen months into the New 52, and we’ve already reached the point where things are being revised, ignored or outright contradicted instead of being worked with and massaged, and (unless there’s more to what happens in Stormwatch than meets the eye), we’re less than two years into the New 52 and we’re already reaching the point of massive, intentional, continuity problems between books in the name of rebooting and revising.

I find myself somewhat torn about this. On the one hand, I guess we should be applauding DC being willing to make massive changes to their books if it’s deemed necessary, but on the other… Well, on the other, there’s the scale of the changes and whether or not they actually are necessary, really. Green Arrow definitely has more immediacy and intensity since Lemire came on board, sure, but Stormwatch‘s changes hardly seem like the kind of thing that are likely to rocket the title back up the charts, to be blunt, leaving #19 to seem like an issue that needlessly trashing the goodwill of those who had stayed with the book until now in favor of something that feels to me even more dated and unnecessary (Two words: “Jenny Soul.” Yes, this is definitely a Jim Starlin comic).

As becomes more clear by the week, DC is at a crossroads creatively, and seeming less and less like there’s a real plan behind the scenes when it comes to the New 52 as a coherent line. This isn’t to say that it’s definitively a disaster, but it is to say that it’s becoming more and more obvious that something needs to happen over there to reassure the faithful and show the rest of us that things aren’t, in fact, trending towards oblivion.

So, now that we know more about Marvel’s Infinity event, am I the only one who feels a little bit of deja vu? As Michael noted yesterday, Infinity sees the story unfold on two fronts as the Avengers go off into space to deal with one threat while another is revealed back on Earth… which kind of feels a little like Avengers vs. X-Men‘s early split of “You guys go into space to deal with the Phoenix while we go and fight with the X-Men” set-up.

On Earth, of course, things don’t go so well: According to the USA Today piece announcing the details, issues of New Avengers and Infinity “focus on Thanos’ secret agenda and the superheroes who are left to deal with him and his army running roughshod over Earth,” which… Isn’t the Earth already dealing with Ultron’s secret agenda and army running roughshod over the planet?

Meanwhile, the Inhumans are coming to save the day, which is great for everyone who wanted to see what Jonathan Hickman could do with the Lee/Kirby creations and had skipped the creator’s earlier Fantastic Four/FF issues featuring the Inhumans.

I don’t know; there are only so many stories that fit into the “event” format, ultimately, considering the scale and scope this kind of thing demands, and so perhaps the familiarity shouldn’t feel so surprising. And yet… Am I wrong to find myself hoping that there are some details that’re being kept back right now that will make this feel a little bit less like a mash-up of things that have worked out well in the past?

Thinking about the Uncanny Avengers/”Don’t Call Me A Mutant” thing a little more, two things become clear:

1. Marvel needs to release some kind of official press statement on the issue, and not leave everything to Rick Remender who may not be helping things despite his best intentions (Then again, Tom Brevoort kind of called it a stupid response over on his Tumblr, so maybe Marvel shouldn’t release some kind of statement just in case).

2. Whether intentionally or otherwise, there’s now a really interesting dynamic between the two Summers brothers in the X-Books, with Cyclops being a militant believer in – for want of a better phrase – a mutant agenda, and Havok being… what, a mutant apologist, of sorts? “Having an X-gene doesn’t bond me to anyone, it doesn’t define me,” Havok says during his speech, undercutting 50 years of X-Men books but also offering an alternate view to the dominant “We must stick together because we are Other” of the franchise. Ignoring, for a second, the tone-deaf nature of “I am not defined by what I am” – Steve Morris sums up my feelings on that nicely, and it’s telling that it’s a white, straight male mutant whose power is not visually obvious from the way he looks that gets that speech – there really could be some interesting plot potential here to be mined.

You know, the more I think about it, the less happy I am that Batroc the Leaper is going to appear in the next Captain America movie. It’s not that I’m not a Batroc fan; just the opposite, in fact. I think he’s a great character, and I’m always glad to see him, but I worry that a great deal of what I like about him – Mostly, that he’s a ridiculous, comedy character with an over-the-top accent – is likely to be lost in translation to the movie, which will in turn lead to an overly-serious “re-interpretation” of the character in the comics.

I may be worrying about nothing; Rick Remender is the writer in charge of Cap’s comic book fate these days, after all, and if there’s one thing he has shown in his career so far, it’s that a lack of subtlety is hardly something he has a problem with. But Marvel always strikes me as somewhat conservative with the characters that turn up in movies, in the sense of “those versions gradually – or less than gradually, in the case of Nick Fury – end up becoming similar to the movie incarnations for synergistic purposes” (Hey, remember the new Whiplash created to mirror the one in Iron Man 2?) In that we’re unlikely to see a comedy Batroc in The Winter Soldier, how long before we end up with a depressingly serious take on Batroc in the comic books?

File this under “Something Interesting to Think About, if Particularly Anal and Most People Don’t Notice This Stuff Really,” I think: Al Ewing riffs on Marvel’s shifting time scale and what it means for Captain America in particular:

Thanks to Marvel Time, he was constantly unfrozen ‘roughly ten years ago’. So he can come to terms with the Kennedy Assassination, the hippie movement, Nixon, Reagan, the evolution of the high and low arts, but then he has to do it all over again because time has shifted. Going by the ten year rule, he came out in a post 9/11 world, where even the incredible cultural shifts that he previously had to assimilate under people like Englehart and Stern were being forgotten, beneath notice compared to the massive changes that are still happening now.

I suppose the only workable thing – if you treat him as a soldier/fighter and nothing else – is that he ends up like Jamie McCrimmon, needing a thing explained once and then just accepting it as ‘the future’. I remember Jamie needing a train explained to him after he’d been on a spaceship. Or there was one time he and the Doctor came across a hovercraft and he just refused to believe it – “och, that’s daft” – again, after spending time in space. Later in the same story he demonstrated that he’d picked up enough modern culture to do a convincing James Bond.

So, yeah, Jamie McCrimmon. Or Buck Rogers, I suppose. We’ve reached the point where Cap’s ‘home era’ is so different from our own that he might as well be Buck Rogers.

So, yeah, I’ve rambled myself into a corner. Hopefully it was semi-interesting.

If I ever wrote Cap it’d be all about interrogating culture. He’d increasingly blow off his Avengers duties to spend more time in the library learning about Rod Serling and Busy Bee Starsky.

Every issue would end with him huddled in the foetal position in his room at Avengers Mansion, rewinding Nixon saying SOCK IT TO MEEEEE? over and over.

Fade to black.

Continuity – as opposed to consistency – is, as we all know, the devil, and trying to make it all “work” something that should genuinely be left to fans instead of creators (which is to say, I know that the New 52 timescale just doesn’t make sense if you try and work out how there could’ve been four Robins in five years, but let’s just move on instead of making Scotts Snyder or Lobdell try and explain it to us). The whole shifting timescale thing has always been the most ideal solution to me – essentially, leave things vague enough to have wiggle room, and allow for as many story possibilities as possible as a result.

Also, I would totally read that Captain America series.

I missed Paul O’Brien’s latest look at Marvel’s chart placings in Diamond’s sales rankings earlier this week, unfortunately. It’s particularly interesting in the wake of the various Marvel NOW! launches, because you can clearly see the relaunches that have worked – Superior Spider-Man and the Avengers books by Hickman – and those that, for whatever reason are struggling. To see Iron Man, X-Men Legacy and Avengers Assemble all at or below the order level they had pre-relaunch is surprising, and also depressing, as those are books I enjoy. One day, someone will work out a formula for what the audience does and doesn’t want…