I know there’s a self-imposed “No Industry Drama” rule on Comics Daily, but seriously, Marvel, you’re KILLING me here. With One More Day, readers face the challenge of knowing that this is one big editorially-driven clusterfunk of a story which seems to be heading towards some kind of demented reset-switch ending designed to excise a piece of continuity that encompasses ALL the Spider-Man comics that most of the readership has ever purchased. I’ve been reading comics for over a third of my life, and the Spider-Man I know has always been married, and an unmarried Spidey is like Hulk in the Avengers or Iron Man with a Tom Selleck moustache: The Past.

Still, there are 22 pages of story here that I’m going to consider on their own merits. Let’s start with the art. Quesada, for any accusation people like to level at him, is a Grade A artist. Every page is fantastic, though Miki and Isanove deserve as much recognition for that as the stellar Inker and Colourist that they are. The Cover (the real cover) is another throwback to past cover designs and evokes nothing but nostalgia and excitement. I look at the current covers of comics, and then at the One More Day covers, and I know which ones I’d rather read. But that’s an article for another time and place.

That, unfortunately, is where the “good” column stops for Sensational #41.

In Part #3 of One More Day, we see Spidey make some brief acquaintance with his potential futures, including a bitter, isolated games programmer and a wealthy yet lonely inventor. These versions of himself lead him to the offer of a deal with Maphisto - he can save May’s life, but in return he wants to erase Spider-Man’s marriage. (Mephisto appears to be standing in for Marvel Editorial here.) Drafting in MJ to help make the decision, he allows them…ONE MORE DAY. Dramatic!

Or rather, it would be, had Quesada’s opinion on the marriage not been made fully clear for several years. Right now, it looks like we’re going to be offered fairly little in the way of twists and the marriage is just going to be erased by Mephisto next issue, and I fail to see how it can be made reasonable. Peter should know more than anything not to trust Mephisto. It’s not a stretch to call this literally a deal with the devil. In fact, if Mephisto delivers on his promise, well, that’d make even less sense because he is, y’know, THE LORD OF LIES or whatever. Peter’s bitter and depressed alternate future selves don’t even really fit in with the idea that Peter is intrinsically a heroic character even without powers, but I can almost forgive it just because it’s Mephisto’s doing.

With one issue left, Sensational #41 leaves me desperate for some kind of sign that this story is a good idea and that the Spider-Marriage isn’t as dead as it might look, but my hopes are dim. Coming so soon after The Other, it seems like every attempt to rework the Spider-franchise is fraught with misfire and I wish they’d just get back to telling stories instead of trying to fix what isn’t really broken. Oh, and charging an extra dollar for a handbook-reprint of Mephisto and a Silver Surfer Omnibus advert. I mean, seriously, what the hell?

I have to admit, it’s been a long time since X-Men was on top of my reading list (years, in fact) but right now I’m on the edge of my seat whenever I check a new X-Men title out of the shops. It’s all because of Messiah Complex. I feel like my comics-reading credibility is shot to pieces, and let’s face it, with the amount of Marvel I buy it was never on solid ground.

Part 5 of the crossover sees the first big twist. It’s name is Cable, and just as I was starting to believe they might have killed him, he turns right up. Speculation at this point had largely pegged a reborn Cable as being the baby they were all fighting over, but rather it turns out that he’s alive, and what’s more, he’s the one who actually got hold of the kid. I have to admit, I didn’t remotely see it coming, but he makes sense as an player in the crossover, given the Sinister/Summers family connection and his own messianic role.

The rest of the issue has an excellent X-Men/Marauders fight scene (featuring this year’s best Gambit/Wolverine moment) and the New X-Men’s hubris catches up with them as they barely escape with their lives, spoiling the X-Men’s main plan and blowing Rictor’s cover in the process. Madrox-2 and Layla’s adventures in the future, however, are so far yielding nothing much different from the usual mutant-opression dystopia, so I’m hoping for a decent twist there.

There’s a lot going on right now in Messiah Complex, but so far it’s not become overwhelming and nothing looks too much like it’s barking up the wrong tree just yet, though the Sentinel attack and what I’m assuming will be the subsequent destruction-of-mansion seems far, far too much of an X-Men cliche, but at least it should, if I’m guessing right, mean that the O*N*E plot is at least finally tied up, because it’s been hanging around the fringes of the book without much to do for years now. If Messiah Complex accomplishes nothing else, that would at least make the whole exercise worth it.

Like many people, I bought Captain America #25 because I wanted to have myself a copy of the “death” issue. I picked up the Fallen Son miniseries, and the funeral/autopsy issue, and the next couple just to see where it was all going. Suddenly, for the first time in my life, I realise I’m a regular reader of Captain America, more by accident than anything. That right there is the best endorsement I can ever give Brubaker’s writing.

The comic, these days, is mostly basedaround the supporting cast that Brubaker was using prior to Cap’s, er, passing. That is, Sharon Carter, the Winter Soldier, Tony Stark, Falcon and the Black Widow. Although a new Captain America is actually due to turn up soon, the old one still remains a heavy enough presence in the title to justify it bearing his name even after the best part of a year without him actually being alive in it.

At this point, you probably know whether you like the direction the series is going or not, though. For months it’s been the same deal - plot advancement, revelationsm the slow unfurling of the Skull’s plot while the heroes rush around trying to figure it all out. If there’s any fault you can accuse it of, it’s that it seems almost too choreographed. In any case, I’m loving it and it’s not too much to describe it as a legendary run in the making.

Seems as I went on and on about Thunderbolts in that last entry, now seems like a good time to actually review this week’d Thunderbolts comic.

Thunderbolts is one of those rare, long-running titles that I’ve been with since the very beginning. It’s had its ups and downs, but generally it’s been pretty good. At the moment, for whatever reason, Ellis and Deodato don’t put it out on a monthly schedule, so every few months we get these fill-in specials. Fine by me, because as far as I’m concerned, the more Thunderbolts the better.

This month’s special puts under the lens the remaining two cast members from the original isues - Moonstone, an amoral, self-serving psychiatrist with an eye to wresting control of the Thunderbolts, and Songbird, one of the few genuine villains-turned-hero that remains in the team. The friction between the two characters has been a staple of the series, almost since the start, and it’s good to see a definite turning point in their relationship as Moonstone ultimately finds that her plan to break Melissa has backfired in a fairly big way.

Gage’s writing works well, showing these characters firmly as part of the Ellis-era Thunderbolts despite their ties to the history of the team. The manipulation, scheming and backstabbing that Ellis favours fits these characters well. There’s an amusing reference to the whole Mary Jane Statue matter which plays off the idea of licensing the team for toys and such. It’s hard to follow Ellis, but Gage manages to fit the tone without turning Ellis-Lite. Brian Denham on art seems to have taken his style in a slightly more Deodato-esque direction, but there’s nothing to complain about even if it’s not his best work (though the opening splash page of Brother Nature might well be.)

Even though it’s not crucial to Thunderbolts’ ongoing arc, Breaking Point is a great story and certainly one that any fans of old-school Thunderbolts should consider picking up if they’re not convinced by Ellis’ take.

The final issue of the Warbound arc takes place before, during, and slightly after the events of World War Hulk #5. There’s a small amount of danger in this, because going into it, we can already feel like it was largely irrelevant in the main story, but fair enough - this arc has always been the “Behind the Scenes” part of WWH.

The bulk of the issue features Cho, Wong and the Hulk-supporting renegades tracking down the demon Zom, who after being expunged from Strange after his defeat, has transferred his essence to Iron Man’s discarded Hulkbuster armour. Er, okay, sounds a bit strange, but I can deal with it. After clearing that mess up, they arrive just in time for the climax of WWH which honestly isn’t improved much by being shown from a different angle.

The high point of this issue certainly isn’t the plot, which is fairly generic background-filler for WWH, skirting around the main story but not actually interacting with it. Instead, the best stuff is the character interaction. A heavy focus obviously goes on Hercules and Cho, but Angel and Namora also get plenty of good material. In fact it’s quite damning to the X-Books that my favourite appearances for Angel - in this arc, and the time his guest-starred in Thunderbolts - didn’t even come out of the X-Office.

Ultimately, the Warbound arc is a fun one with great writing and art (Kirk’s pencils remind me of Mark Bagley, circa Thunderbolts, which is a good thing.) even if the sense of irrelevance permeates it all. Cho has been an interesting character to me since his introduction in Amazing Fantasy #15 (er, not that one) so it’s nice to see Pak making use of him. However, it’s not entirely nice to see how he’s going to in the future…

When I started this blog, I promised it would be about the comics, not about industry drama and celebrity. I got about 350 words into the entry for this issue before I realised I’d barely talked about the actual story at all, so I decided to be fair to the comic and to the creators, and I wrote the above review. If you’re actually interested in seeing what I have to say about comics marketing and politics, concerning the re-titling and re-casting of this series, click more to read it.

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Despite being a massive Whedon fan, I almost missed this one. Seems like the publicity for it has been going on so long, I almost forgot there was a comic at the end of it. Which, in retrospect, might’ve been a good thing. You can’t fault IDW for trying, but where Buffy Season 8 hits the spot, Angel: After the Fall largely fails to.

It’s not a criticism of the team, per se. The problem is two-fold. First, the age-old “licensed comics” conundrum. As much as people watch Star Trek for Picard, or The Simpsons for Homer, they’re also watching it for Patrick Stewart and Dan Castellaneta. It’s very difficult to remove that element of the dynamic and still end up with something that feels authentic. Secondly, something more specific to live-action licenses, there’s always, always a point where someone goes “now that we’re operating without a budget, we can do whatever we want!” and suddenly you find that Starbuck has to fight a cylon the size of a small house. This kind of thing violates the believability parameters established by the series it’s adapting, further removing you from the original property. It’s this area where Angel: After the Fall largely doesn’t work for me.

Following on from season 5 of Angel (and we’ll skip past the question of whether that was even necessary by simply saying that this was Whedon’s idea for the 6th Season, so what he says goes) Wolfram and Hart have sent the entire city of Los Angeles - and everyone in it - literally to hell. It’s overrun with demon warlords, and Angel rides a dragon around, saving humans and sending them back to a safehouse run by familiar, if unexpected, cast-members. LA itself is in ruins and overrun with demon activity and despite the decent attempts by artist Franco Urru at depicting this, I just find it too hard to resolve with the reality established in the TV series.

That’s not to say it’s all bad, or anything. Lynch’s dialogue is convincingly Whedonesque and he gets some good laughs in, as well as making the characters feel true to their own voices when they appear. The mysteries regarding Wolfram and Hart’s continued employment of Wesley are set up well, as is Gunn’s turn to vampirism. I’m still interested to see what’s become of Illyria, who isn’t mentioned in this issue.

There’s really no massive problems on a technical level, but for all the reasons above and more, I’m finding it very hard to get invested. It just doesn’t feel like the same group of people and it doesn’t feel like there’s any continuity with the show I loved. It’s also fairly hard to see much actual direction to the series because no actual goal has been established beyond the obvious “fix everything” which seems pretty insurmountable at this point. It’s a much shakier start than I was expecting - not enough to shake me right off the book yet, but I hope to see things improve in the next few issues.