Looking over a decade of superhero storylines, it's easy to see two things: The repetition of ideas, and the genre trying to come to grips with what's happening in the real world (and often failing badly); just look at the increase of terrorist attacks post-9/11. The headlines below - matched to publication date where possible - may not be exactly how the last ten years played out in the real world, but it's possibly the way it happened in our collective subconscious. Well, apart from restarting reality four times, of course.

2000
January - Part of America literally becomes city of the future thanks to time-traveling evil robot (Superman: Y2K storyline).

February - Humanity defeats, kills "God," who is revealed to be a gigantic organic pyramid responsible for life on Earth. 20th Century ends late/early depending on who you talk to with death of Jenny Sparks (The Authority #12).

February - All of humanity temporarily gains superpowers as result of superhero from another dimension powering miracle machine that enables humanity en masse to defeat extra-dimensional being driving the world to the brink of destruction (JLA #41).

June - Earth is hit by artificially-induced natural disasters (New York hit by giant tidal wave, San Francisco partially destroyed by volcano, areas of Africa and Australia face plague of insects, etc.) as result of insane criminal with godlike power (The Authority, "Earth Inferno" storyline).

June-July - World transformed into alternate reality ruled by cartoon laws of physics as result of insane criminal receiving godlike power (Superman: Emperor Joker storyline).

July - New York attacked by alien terrorist whose path of destruction, when viewed from above, spells out "Fuck You" (Marvel Boy #2).

October-November - Earth temporarily designated a prison planet by consortium of alien races, becomes overwhelmed by amount of extra-terrestrial criminals (Maximum Security storyline).

November: Lex Luthor becomes President of the United States of America (Superman: Lex 2000 storyline).

2001
May - A time-traveling despot reveals horrific future if he is not given control of Earth, resulting in international wars as nations disagree on response (Avengers #42).

June - A terrorist attack decimates the homo superior population of Earth, killing hundreds of thousands in one sweep (New X-Men #115).

June-August - Earth becomes centerpoint for alien attempt to destroy the universe, resulting in universe-wide war (Our Worlds At War storyline).

September - The World Trade Center and Pentagon are targeted by terrorists, resulting in the destruction of the former and a worldwide reaction and rescue effort (Amazing Spider-Man #36).

September - A time-traveling despot declares war on humanity (Avengers #46).

October - Large numbers of people/animals become infected by "Joker" virus temporarily, resulting in worldwide insanity (Joker: The Last Laugh storyline).

2002
January - Earth surrenders control to time-traveling despot; large numbers of humanity placed within concentration camps (Avengers #50).

June - The mythical realm of Norse Gods, Asgard, takes up temporary residence above New York City (Thor #50).

July - Every male of every species on Earth dies suddenly. Well, almost every male (Y: The Last Man #1).

August - Capital cities across the globe disappear, only to be revealed to have become part of a giant uber-city as the result of a cosmic entity representing the concept of order (Avengers #57).

October - LA is attacked by giant black sperm as the result of a terrorist attack on behalf of an insane former pornstar (The Filth #5).

December - Mutant terrorists attack New York City, destroy the Brooklyn Bridge and kill eight hundred (Ultimate War #1).

2003
January - Norse Gods invade European nation to ensure religious freedoms (Thor, Iron Man, Avengers: Standoff storyline).

March - 1 in 1000 Americans gains superpowers due to alien virus (Action Comics #801).

March - Mount Rushmore and other areas of South Dakota are attacked by biological weapons (Avengers #65).

May - The island of Micronesia is destroyed in a nuclear explosion, an act that launches an invasion on Earth by alien forces (The Ultimates #10).

September - World transformed into alternate reality with alternate history merging it with parallel Earth as result of godlike beings indulging in wager (JLA/Avengers #3).

September - Mutant terrorists attack New York City, killing thousands and also manage to reverse the polarity of Earth's magnetic poles (New X-Men #147).

2004
February - San Diego plunges into Pacific Ocean, renamed "Sub Diego" after some inhabitants survive as mer-people (Aquaman #15).

February - The White House is attacked by superpowered terrorists (Ultimate Six #5).

February - American Government overthrown by superpowered terrorists (Coup D'Etat storyline).

April - One million people mysteriously vanish from Earth suddenly (Superman #204).

June - Superpowered beings invade Arab nation of Mazikhandar, depose ruler and install new democratic government (Avengers #83).

July-October - New York is attacked by indestructible robots, terrorist organizations and aliens as the result of a delusional superhero with godlike powers (Avengers: Disassembled storyline).

August - New York is invaded by aliens (Fantastic Four #517).

August - Thousands of people kill themselves as result of international broadcast from unknown source (Ultimate Nightmare #1).

2005
March - Europe erupts into riots against a newly announced European Union plan to create super-powered soldiers (Ultimates 2 #5).

March - Military installation is attacked by aliens seeking to prevent humanity from achieving space travel (Ultimate Secret #1).

April - Tens of thousands of people discovered to be nanotech-controlled drones in service to evil satellite orbiting the Earth (The OMAC Project #1).

June-October - World temporarily transformed into alternate reality as result of insane superhero with godlike powers (House of M storyline).

October - Genetic evolution is reversed worldwide by insane superhero with godlike powers, undoing homo superior strain granting superhuman abilities to thousands of people worldwide (House of M #8).

November - Tokyo is attacked by a collection of giant monsters (Fantastic Four/Iron Man: Big In Japan #1).

December - Earth overrun by zombie plague (Marvel Zombies #1).

2006
January - Multiple Earths appear in orbit around Earth (Infinite Crisis #4).

April - Reality is restarted, resulting in a new Earth with altered history (Infinite Crisis #7).

May - Humanity defeats "Galactus," a swarm of alien ships known for destroying planets (Ultimate Extinction #5).

May - Hundreds die in Stamford, Connecticut as a result of superhero negligence; in response, the US Government announces the Superhero Registration Act which will regulate superhuman activity (Civil War #1).

June - Reality is restarted, resulting in a new Earth with altered history (Captain Atom: Armageddon #9).

September - "The Everyman Project" is announced, which can give people synthetic superpowers (52 #21).

October - A cosmic event known as "The White Event" occurs, resulting in people around the world manifesting superpowers (newuniversal #1).

2007
January - All participants in "The Everyman Project" simultaneously lose their powers, resulting in worldwide destruction and death (52 #35).

February - The 50-State Initiative is unveiled, with each state of America given its own superhero team (Civil War: The Initiative #1).

April - Washington DC is invaded by mythical, warlike women (Amazons Attack! #1).

May - Earth is discovered to be one of 52 parallel Earths with alternate histories (52 #52).

August - Earth is invaded by alien gladiators led by the Hulk, returning from interplanetary exile (World War Hulk #1).

August - The mythical realm of Norse Gods, Asgard, takes up temporary residence above the state of Oklahoma (Thor #2).

September - November: Earth is invaded by aliens with magical rings (Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War storyline).

December - History is altered after ill-considered pact between satanic demon and naive superhero and wife (Amazing Spider-Man #545).

December - Alien body-snatching conspiracy is uncovered (New Avengers #37).

2008
April - Alien body-snatching conspiracy turns into full-blown invasion of Earth by shape-changing aliens (Secret Invasion #1).

July - Earth becomes a post-nuclear wasteland (Number Of The Beast #8).

July - Humanity loses free will as result of arrival of godlike entity on Earth (Final Crisis #3).

August-November - World temporarily transformed into alternate reality with alternate history as result of criminals assuming godlike power (Trinity series).

August - Now an endangered species, homo superiors declare San Francisco, CA, to be their new home (Uncanny X-Men #500).

October - Earth becomes home to 1,000,000 refugee aliens (Action Comics #870).

November - Alien shapechanging invasion is finally repelled, ushering in a new era of corrupted authority in incredibly ill-timed political metaphor (Secret Invasion #8).

November - The world is hit by multiple seemingly-natural disasters, including a tidal wave that floods and partially destroys New York City, as first wave of attack by superpowered terrorists (Ultimatum #1).

2009
January - Reality is restarted, resulting in a new Earth with altered history (Final Crisis #7).

March - The United Kingdom is invaded by a vampire army (Captain Britain and MI-13 #11).

August - (ongoing): Earth becomes overrun by reanimated corpses of the dead (Blackest Night storyline)

Marvel Comics' reaction to 9/11 was both heartfelt and far-reaching, understandable for a company not only based in New York but one so tied to the city in its demeanor and subject matter (Marvel's New York state is the setting for the majority of its line, being home for years to Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men and Daredevil, amongst many others): Not only did they publish the prerequisite memorial special editions (Heroes and A Moment Of Silence), they also created a short-lived line of emergency services comics (The Call), relaunched Captain America as a hero hunting terrorists (with patriotic covers announcing things like "Fight Terror" and "Never Give Up"), placed a memorial logo of the World Trade Center Towers on all of their comics published for more than a year afterwards, and published a very special issue of Amazing Spider-Man where the company's most well-known character visited Ground Zero to help with rescue efforts, and found that it wasn't only the heroes who realized how terrible the terrorist attacks were:
Yes, Doctor Doom crying may have been a little too much - writer J. Michael Straczynski later denied asking for that in the script to avoid a backlash - but the meaning of all of this was clear: As a company, Marvel Comics had been severely affected by the devastating attacks, and had not only faced up to the reality of such widescale destruction previously fantasized about in their books, but also felt that reality for themselves. This was a sobered company.

Cut to last week's Siege: The Cabal, the prelude to next month's Siege event running across their entire line. Following September 11th, an increasingly political subtext has crept into Marvel's superhero lines, whether it's the "Personal Liberty or Safety" question at the heart of Civil War, terrorist sleeper cell paranoia of the run up to 2008's Secret Invasion or "The People Running Our Country May Not Have Our Best Interests At Heart" theme of this year's Dark Reign, and it's been something that's worked very well for the company: A decade ago, they were coming out of bankruptcy and their future looked uncertain, and now they're being bought by Disney for $400 billion. Siege: The Cabal acts as prologue to the big Final Act of the uber-storyline that's been running throughout their titles since 2004's Avengers: Disassembled, and ends with Norman Osborn - onetime Green Goblin and now head of what is essentially Marvel's Homeland Security department - talking with Norse God Loki about how he can make a pre-emptive strike against the mythical realm of Iraq. Wait, I mean, Asgard:
This explains the opening of next month's Siege, which was released in previews last week:

That's Chicago's Soldier Field getting destroyed, by the way. While there's a game going on, and the stands are full of people. Considering Soldier Field's seating capacity is 61,500, it's probably safe to say that we're talking about upwards of 50,000 fictional deaths in the stadium alone, even going with a "Well, it wasn't sold out" defense, and that's ignoring any damage and deaths in surrounding areas.

I think I'm allowed a W. T. F. around now.

There are so many things that come to mind from seeing this preview, and this amount of devastation for the purposes of getting a plot about good guys teaming up to reform the Avengers going, and to prepare for a new, optimistic status quo called "The Heroic Age". Primarily, it's the thoughtlessness and/or bad taste of the whole thing, especially coming from the publisher who seemed so affected by - or, perhaps, just displayed more of an emotional response to - September 11th (Which resulted in almost 3,000 deaths) and seemed to have come to some level of understanding of what an event of that scale actually means (Hint: It's not four issues of Cap and Iron Man and Thor getting back together to kick some bad guy ass, True Believer!). Don't get me wrong, I understand the difference between fictional death and real death, but that doesn't excuse the strange insensitivity here.

Secondly: Killing tens of thousands of people as an excuse to go to war? This is supervillainy on a ridiculous scale here, way beyond anything we've seen in a long time and not only completely removed from the intentional scale and bombast of old school supervillains, but (a) literally collateral damage given little thought on the road to Osborn's true plan, and (b) unlike other supervillain's genocidal plans, apparently completely successful (I hope that the next scene, not shown in previews, will reveal the Soldier Field destruction to be a fantasy sequence, but somehow I doubt it - And, if it were, it'd seem even more ghoulish to release these pages to get fans excited about reading Siege: "Look, kids! WIDESCALE DEATH TWENTY TIMES LARGER THAN 9/11! THIS IS THE BIG ONE YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR! EXCELSIOR!"). I'm all for demonizing bad guys, but this is just insane; even going on the "Well, he's mentally unbalanced" explanation Siege writer Brian Michael Bendis has been giving in interviews about the character and project, it makes mastermind Norman Osborn into a character that is impossible to sympathize with, and reduces him to almost cartoon proportions and ideas about evil. All he needs now is a moustache to twirl when explaining his plan to the heroes.

(Second-and-a-half-ly: Killing tens of thousands of people as an excuse to go to war? Is this some kind of veiled "The American Right Wing Were Behind 9/11 As A Way Of Motivating People To Back An Invasion Of Afghanistan and Iraq" thing? After all, Bendis has said about the plot, "much like we've seen in our own modern history, it's not beyond world leaders to fabricate incidents if it serves a purpose." Hmm.)

Thirdly: We've seen this before, in more than one sense. Not only is this a deliberate and literal call-out to the accidental explosion that launched Marvel's Civil War, but the idea of using the destruction of a sports stadium to launch a war is from Tom Clancy's 1991 novel The Sum Of All Fears (adapted into a movie in 1999, but not released until 2002). Of course, in that case, it's a neo-Nazi trying to convince the US and Russia to go to war by placing blame on the event on the Russians, but still, the tone-deaf quality of the plot device becomes even stranger when you realize that it's not even original.

So what to make of Siege's Destruction McGuffin? A sign that, even if the rest of the world hasn't gotten over 9/11, Marvel has managed to move on and enjoy fictional slaughter as a motivator for superheroes to team-up again? Proof that cynical shock tactics outweigh genuine emotional responses when it comes to upping the ante in the name of sales? A thoughtless plot that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth? Maybe I'm just too sensitive to these kinds of things; it's been eight years, after all. Perhaps I should shut up and hope that they blow up an entire continent next so that Doctor Doom can reveal that he really did only have something in his eye down at Ground Zero. After all, destroying Antarctica would be really bad-ass, wouldn't it?

Over at the Savage Critics, Khosla puts Marvel Comics' fear of women into some worrying perspective:

"Man Versus Castration Anxiety" has been a recurring theme for this generation of Marvel Comics "events". The first major "Event" Civil War began when Captain America was asked to submit to the authority of a woman named Maria Hill.

Captain America then initiates an all-out superhero civil war rather than take orders from a woman. At the conclusion of the comic, Iron Man has won that contest; however, the comic goes bizarrely out of its way to assure the reader that the patriarchal order has been restored: the comic's celebratory final three pages feature Iron Man forcing Maria Hill to get him coffee.

The Civil War can only truly end once a woman is put back in her "place". Civil War was then followed by a comic called— oh God, here I go again— Secret Invasion, in which an alien Queen attempts to institute a matriarchy on Earth. In response, the Earth's superheros murder the Queen, specificially by repeatedly destroying the Queen's head. In issue 7 of the series, her head is shot through with arrows. In issue 8, it is revealed that she's survived the arrows, but then her head is blown off by the Green Goblin. In the same panel as her head being blown off is a drawing of Wolverine, poised to slice into her head with his adamantium claws.

The comic takes a perverse glee in damaging this woman's head, basically. Freud often suggested that the head was a symbol of the repressed desires of the lower body, that is to say, he often associated the female head with a vagina. As David D. Gilmore explained in "Misogyny: the Male Malady": "Freud wrote a paper specificially on this subject, 'The Medusa's Head' published posthumously in 1940. [...] Freud argues that Medusa's head represents the vagina in general and the mother's vagina in particular, the archetypal 'hairy maternal vulva'. Here is the Oedipal terror displaced to the head: Medusa embodies both mother and woman, and the hairy vulva typifies incestuous temptation." The Secret Invasion can only end when the offending vagina has been destroyed.

Lots more at the link, including the comic that started off his observation, in which the monster is a woman who became a monster because she was horny. And, no, I'm sadly not even exaggerating.

It's worth pointing out that Khosla doesn't mention House of M, Marvel's superhero crossover event prior to Civil War, where the plot was essentially "That woman is too powerful and must be stopped before she destroys reality." Which was also the plot - and the same woman, for that matter - as the event prior to that, Avengers Disassembled. Ironically enough, March 2010 starts a year-long program called "Marvel Women" at the publisher, which according to Marvel Snr. VP of Sales David Gabriel, is intended...

...to celebrate the women of the industry, whether they are super-heroines, super-villainesses, artists, writers, editors, colorists, inkers, proofreaders, models, and on and on.

Here's hoping there'll be less disturbing undercurrent to Marvel's stories for that year, as well...

Abhay Wrote a Quick Description of Dark Reign: The List — X-Men #1, For No Reason [Savage Critics]

The company's net income dropped from $50.6 million to (a still impressive, let's face it) $20.4 million in Q3 of 2009, and it's not just down to the lack of a movie in theaters; earnings in every department, surprisingly including publishing, were down compared with the same period last year.

So, should Mickey and his friends be worried? Not panicking, perhaps, but the drop in publishing is concerning; while last summer had Marvel Comics' Secret Invasion mega-epic, this year has seen both an increase in the prices of individual issues as well as the volume of releases and successful "mini-events" like Dark Avengers/X-Men, Dark Reign, the relaunch of the Ultimate line and Captain America: Reborn, which most would've thought should've kept earnings level at least. Is this just another sign that Marvel's strength is now movie making and IP library? And if so, what happens if future movies are more Hulk or X-Men Origins: Wolverine than Iron Man?

Marvel Net Income Declines 60% on Lower Film Revenue [Bloomberg]

Firstly, let's get Marvel and DC out of the way; the former is pushing Secret Invasion pretty hard this week, with four collections from the storyline coming out (Frontline, Incredible Hercules, Thunderbolts and the definite pick of the bunch, Captain Britain and MI-13, written by Doctor Who's Paul Cornell and highly recommended). DC, meanwhile, offers the final Diana Prince retro Wonder Woman collection, as well as the somewhat pricey ($295) Rorschach Prop Gun and Mask Set, in case you want to pretend to be a crazy guy who eats too many beans.

Of course, if Watchmen isn't your 2009 movie of choice, IDW would like to have a word... Especially this week, when they're releasing the first collection of their alternate world Transformers epic All Hail Megatron and the first issue of the self-explanatory GI Joe: Origins series.

If you'd rather get a jump on the movies of tomorrow, however, perhaps you should take a look at The Zombies That Ate The World, the undead satire from French publisher Les Humanoids, or perhaps Andrea Atoms, the debut of a new Flash Gordon-esque female space hero. You can even catch up on indie superhero soap Dynamo 5 with a specially-priced "zero issue" to fill in all the gaps in your knowledge.

Pick of the week, though, is The Great Unknown, a series we've previously covered, and one that simply doesn't disappoint: What if someone really was taking the best ideas out of your head? This new series will answer that question... and teach you new reasons to be paranoid in the process.

Remember, your local comic store can always be found, of course, via the Comic Shop Locator Service, but this week more than many offers the chance to meet the new. Check the complete list of this week's new comic releases if you don't believe me.

The best part about the appeal of SF monkeys is that they pop up in two different books this week. But before we get to those, who don't I tell you about the other books you might want to pick up in order to come down safely afterwards? DC Comics is starting their Faces of Evil branding with Faces of Evil: Grundy, which follows Solomon, the Florida swampland's own undead supervillain, as he prepares for a new series starting later this year. Not to be undone, Marvel launch Spider-Man: Fear Itself, in which ol' webhead comes face to face with Man-Thing, Marvel's version of Swamp Thing who... lives in the Florida swampland. What are the odds?

Less likely to find strange parallels, DC's DC Universe Illustrated By Neal Adams is the first of three hardcovers collecting all of the popular artist's DC work throughout the years that doesn't feature Batman, Green Lantern or Deadman (because all of that stuff has been hardcovered already). On the more recent front, Marvel's Secret Invasion finds itself in paperback form even as its spin-off, Secret Invasion: War Of Kings gets started in a one-off special issue. When it comes to hardcovers, Marvel is doing their best to own that market this week, with Fantastic Four: World's Greatest (the first storyline from Kick-Ass and Wanted's Mark Millar), Spider-Man: Blue (from Heroes' Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale), Ultimate Origins and Universal War One all getting released in the format. They're also putting out a hardcover collection of the first issues from the third series of Runaways, but without creator Brian K. Vaughan writing... Well, it's not as fun anymore, to be honest.

Novelties of the week are the first collection of Rasl, the new SF series from Jeff Smith, creator of the awesome indie comic Bone, as well as the American release of the 2009 Doctor Who Storybook, which I recommended as a Christmas gift last month when it was available on import. But as great as both of those are, neither of them feature science fiction monkeys... unlike these two books:

Marvel's Agents of Atlas resurrects the so-called 1950s Avengers in a story that offers a pretty much perfect mix of thrills, spills and humor... and a super-intelligent gorilla who also happens to be a member of Marvel's favorite spy organization. If you can resist that, then you may have no heart... in which case, you'll also get absolutely nothing out of Showcase Presents Strange Adventures, a 500+ page phonebook collection of stories from 1950s SF anthology series Strange Adventures... which is just a sad, sad thing. Take a chance to become a better person, why don't you? Make 2009 the year you let science fiction monkeys into your heart.

Even the monkeyphobic will find this week's shipping list to be full of joy and happiness this week, before using the Comic Shop Locator to find out just where to buy said happiness. Just remember: For most of the people in the world, happiness is monkey-shaped.

In terms of SF comics, 2008 feels a bit... lacking, to be honest; there was nothing with the energy of King City or Wonton Soup, and a lot of the best books were final issues, instead of the start of something new (Collections and reprints-wise, it was a great year, however - I'd point you in the direction of Skyscrapers of the Midwest, The Babysitter and Jack Kirby's OMAC, to begin with - but they weren't really created this year...). It might just be a necessary lull; next year has new work from Paul Pope, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Brandon Graham, James Stokoe, et al, after all. But it did make this year seem curiously anemic in retrospect. So here is the pick, perhaps, of a poor bunch:

BEST
All-Star Superman
Quite simply, the best superhero comic of the last few years. Tapping into the awe-filled tone of the 1950s and '60s Superman stories while still seeming contemporary, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's twelve-part reinvigoration of the Man of Steel finished this year with the perfect send-off: Something positive, optimistic and just a little melancholy.

Casanova
Matt Fraction's sci-fi superspy series filled its second run with time-travel, sex and gigantic reality-altering weapons before, in its final issue, folding in on itself with a reveal that, at first, felt like a cheat but ultimately recast everything that had gone before and made you need to re-read it like you need to breath. If only everything was this fearless.

(Fraction almost ended up on this list twice; his Invincible Iron Man series for Marvel was, to my mind, the ideal follow-up to the movie, finally figuring out a way to make the character interesting without making him an asshole.)

Fight Or Run: Shadow Of The Chopper
You can argue amongst yourself whether this silent series of strips is really science fiction or not, but Kevin Huizenga's videogame-inspired shorts that bring two surreal characters face-to-face to see their response works both as an exercise in comic formalism and experimentation, and as a funny, surprising reading experience. Me, I'd probably run.

Final Crisis
Yes, there have been a lot of problems with DC's big 2008 "event" - the seeming inability to hit deadlines and switching of artists midway through the story, to start with - but despite it all, Grant Morrison and company's slow-motion apocalypse has been creepy and hypnotic, all the moreso for the way in which it refuses to play by the rules.

Love & Rockets: New Stories
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis analogs slaughter aliens. Surely I don't need to say anything else.

Patsy Walker: Hellcat
I don't know if it's the lightness of Kathryn Immonen's writing, the pop of David LaFuente's artwork, or just the sass of the book's star, but there's something wonderful and unexpected in this lowkey miniseries from Marvel about a fashion model-turned-superhero fighting magical demons in Alaska. In the middle of the publisher's highly successful year, this hidden gem is easily the best thing they put out.

Project Superpowers
Again with the "unexpected" thing, I didn't expect much from Alex Ross and Jim Kruger's 1940s superhero revival... and certainly not the most strange and unusual superhero series of the year. The US government creating zombie soldiers in the Middle East? Lying ghosts with hidden agendas? An evil corporation of robots manipulating everyone that just so happens to have the same name as the parent company of the publisher? It's all here, my friends. Just don't ask me what it all means.

Teen Titans: Year One
It took animation writer Amy Wolfram and artist Karl Kerschl to finally fulfill the potential of DC's team of sidekicks, by offering a story that stayed on the right side of cartoony, but kept an undercurrent of angst and insecurity to provide characters who actually acted like teenagers, for a change. Add some of the best art to appear in any comic book this year and you have a very underrated winner.

WORST
Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes
A strange one, this. It's not really the quality of the comic strip itself that lands it in "Worst" position - although the comic strip itself was nothing to write home about, pretty much generic "alternate world"isms from Warren Ellis and friends - but the format. Charging $4.99 for 16 pages of comic book would be a bit much for a small indie company with a lot of overhead and little say in the matter... but for Marvel to do it, especially without letting fans or retailers know that that's what they were doing...? Kind of an unnecessarily low blow.

Batman RIP
It started so well, but... well, finished so badly. There's very little way to look back at RIP without getting frustrated at the lack of resolution and all the unfulfilled potential left untouched. It's called Batman RIP people - Couldn't you have done something with that that didn't have a villain who may or may not have been the Devil and the most unconvincing, inconclusive death scene ever? Or, for that matter, had a story that actually ended in its final chapter?

Countdown To Final Crisis
DC's Final Crisis may be flawed but great, but the 52-part prelude series kind of missed out the "but great" part of that idea. As well as missing out the "coherent plots, interesting dialogue and story you feel involved in" bits. And, to make matters worse, it outright contradicted multiple points of the series it was created to lead into. Worst of all, perhaps, was the fact that it took the goodwill that DC had gained from their first weekly series 52 and pissed it away in record fashion. An own goal of almost cosmic proportions.

DC Universe: Last Will & Testament
What do superheroes do when they expect to die the next day? Exactly what you'd expect them to, sadly, according to this uninspired, ponderous comic. While not as much of a disaster as Countdown, Last Will & Testament may have actually been a worse comic by dint of just being... well, not unlike well-illustrated fan-fiction.

Jenna Jameson: Shadow Hunter
From its very conception, you knew that a comic that recreated pornstar Jameson as a comic book demon hunter was a bad idea, but only the comic itself could convince you just how much of a bad idea it actually was. Confusingly written, with overwrought narration and a plot that didn't really go anywhere, this was a celebrity tie-in that made Ed Burns' Dock Walloper look like a good idea.

One More Day
This is, of course, a bit of a cheat; One More Day started in 2007, and the final issue came out in the dying days of that year (December 27th, I believe)... But nonetheless, the full effect of it was what started off this year in comics, and pretty much sabotaged the start of Marvel's (remarkably not-as-bad-as-you-think) Spider-Man relaunch - all because Peter Parker made a deal with the devil just to get a divorce (Note: This may be a somewhat biased take on what actually happened in the story itself). Who would have thought that a boneheaded, out of character move that turned your everyman character into a Satan-handshakin' single man would have been one of the big comic news stories of the year? Oh, that's right - everyone.

Secret Invasion
Yes, it was hugely successful, and yes, it was on-time (unlike Final Crisis). But if there was a point to Secret Invasion beyond "Let's try and sell lots of comics," I must have missed it. With a story that lacked plot - or, for about half the series, anything actually happening - based around a premise that was abandoned almost immediately (What if aliens had invaded without us knowi- Oh, wait, they've started blowing things up and coming to Earth as giant green monsters), this was slick, showy... and entirely hollow.

Ultimates 3
I was no fan of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's Ultimates, but Jeph Loeb's follow-up was a mind-blowing miscalculation that offered fans of the series almost no continuity with its previous incarnation, garish art outshone only by insanely overblown dialogue and, in a reveal that still boggles the mind, a Black Panther who turns out to be the most white of all superheroes. Pretty much an entire series of WTF that led into Loeb's Ultimatum

The theory was initially put forward by comic critic Abhay Khosla, who pointed out a particularly unexpected scene in the sixth issue of the publisher's high profile Secret Invasion series:

Finally! Finally, we get page after page attacking the true enemy: LIBERAL PROTESTERS.

Where the fuck did that shit come from??

Page after page, not of the first or second or even third issue, page after page of the SIXTH ISSUE— it wasn’t spent escalating the stakes of the comic, it wasn't spent dealing with characters we care about, it wasn't spent paying off earlier scenes. The fucking SIXTH ISSUE was spent introducing an entirely new cast of straw-men liberal characters, and then attacking them for being naive about the nature of evil.

First, let me just say, on a political level, this comic can go fuck itself. You know— one pretty easy way a person could read this comic if they were so inclined is that it equates protesting wars with supporting terrorism. I don't think the people who made the comic think that. I don't think they were thinking at all. I don't think they made a big priority of thinking.

The point was recently picked up by the blog at comics news site Newsarama.com, where other examples of the publisher's supposed anti-hippie agenda were displayed:

[In 2006's Civil War, i]t was the bottle-throwing, “baby-killer”-shouting demonstrators that attacked Johnny Storm and put the momentum of Marvel America behind Superhero Registration Act, and it was a Cindy Sheehan-like grieving mother who acted as Tony Stark’s conscience, as he embraced his emerging fascism (The trappings of these characters are those of the anti-war left, from the Vietnam war and the Iraq War, but, oddly, they were pushing rightward rather than to the left)... Those damn hippies were again causing problems for the Marvel heroes in Avengers: The Initiative #19, a story entitled “V-S Day,” dealing with the end of the Skrull threat. A Washington mob was swarming Jocasta and a partially surviving member of the Skrull Kill Krew, stopping them from taking down the Skrulls in their midst.

Peace signs, beads, braids, beards, John Lennon glasses, “Make Love Not War”…there’s nothing subtle about the depiction of the Embrace Changers in the scene.

A fairly flimsy case? Not for some fans, who were perfectly convinced by the argument, and ready to be offended:

This is pretty much all about [Marvel Editor in Chief] Joe Quesada.

He’s done his best to turn the Marvel universe into an unreadable, unrecognizable reality. He erases years of continuity for characters he doesn’t like. Hell, he wiped out most mutants because he always hated the X-Men. He killed Captain America because he didn’t like the way he represented America. Hell, he banned all characters from smoking due to a personal issue.

Odd that a right wing-nut like him has taken it upon himself to centrally plan every character in his universe, and plan them extremely badly. Well, given the right’s tendency towards authoritarianism, it isn’t that odd.

Quesada was so moved by fans believing that Marvel was, in fact, pursuing some anti-hippie agenda that he felt moved to respond - twice, on Twitter:

This article misses the point, I hate everybody.

I love when people try to read more into our stuff than is actually there. We sit around and go, "Wow, we had no idea that's what we meant?"

A likely story, Joe. After all, if you really meant it, then why only deny it on Twitter... where only 140-character-fetish hippies will see it?

It was Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee who (aprochryphally) told his creators that Marvel Comics didn't give its fans change but the "illusion of change," something that today's Marvel is taking to heart. Here's editor in chief Joe Quesada talking about their universe post-Secret Invasion:

I'd say less "dangerous," more "unpredictable." At least I hope that's what I've been saying! It is a more dangerous place, because Osborn's in charge. But the truth of the matter is, we wanted it to be more unpredictable. Being unpredictable, I believe, leads to better storytelling. It's not clichéd storytelling. Again, we get or characters in a place that readers don't necessarily expect, get their backs against a wall, and see what happens. Look, at the end of the day, I think that's what leads to great storytelling—put your characters in a place that readers never saw coming.

Sounds exciting, right? After all, who doesn't want unpredictable stories and better storytelling? Only problem is, there was very little unpredictable about Secret Invasion; everything you'd expect to happen happened - including the "shocking death" of a beloved character and last minute reveal of a new status quo. For those unfamiliar with the series, Secret Invasion was a summer series of comics (a lot of comics) that acted as the culmination of five years of planning by Marvel's de facto head writer Brian Michael Bendis; familiar characters had been removed over the last five years and replaced by aliens, and now everything was coming to a head as the aliens declared war on Earth. To the surprise of no-one, the aliens lost; to the surprise of some, the status quo was pretty much reset at the end of the story to what it had been before.

There were two parallel WTF moments during the series, for different reasons, that ultimately show the lack of conviction in being "unpredictable" that the story had, both involving spaceships with unexpected occupants. The series opened with a crashed ship full of superhero duplicates who may or may not have been the real thing, meaning that the heroes everyone had been reading about for years had been alien fakes - except, of course, they weren't. After three issues of doing nothing with the idea, magic technology was invented that revealed that, yes, all of the ship's occupants were aliens and everything was exactly the way that you thought it was in the first place (Magic technology was a running theme of this series; things were scientifically impossible until they weren't: "We couldn't duplicate the abilities of the humans until I invented this new technology!" "We couldn't detect the aliens until I invented this new technology!" and so on; it was an ongoing cheat that, ultimately, neutered the impact of the story. The big death at the end of the series fell victim to it - the Wasp died because somehow she became a nuclear bomb through an injection or something? Maybe? It's hard to care about something when you don't even really understand what's happening). The same kind of letdown happened at the very end of the series when another spaceship opened up to reveal everyone who had been replaced by the aliens, completely healthy and awake, because the aliens needed to have the originals alive in order to impersonate them. Despite, you know, having impersonated two dead heroes earlier in the series (Captain Marvel and Captain America; they don't count because hey, why are you asking questions, okay?, as far as I can tell). In both cases, the creators - and I don't think that blame can really solely been laid at the feet of Bendis here; editors and, most likely, licensors would've been unhappy to have seen characters revealed to have been alien imposters had it happened - went with the safest, less interesting, more comforting to fans, route possible: It's okay, they said, things aren't really changing.

Publicly, of course, it's a different story. Here's Bendis talking about just how the end of the story - in which Iron Man's SHIELD Homeland Security-style organization is replaced by a new Homeland Security-style organization headed up by Norman Osborn - changes everything:

What I pitched was that what happens at the end was there's a power shift in the Marvel Universe that creates a situation where most of the heroes get to feel what it feels like to be Peter Parker all the time, that even when you win you lose. And it was interesting to me to have Luke Cage or Clint Barton or even Captain America feel like they know what Peter Parker always feels like. And everyone got charmed by that idea at Marvel.

See? That's entirely different from the status quo of the Marvel Universe for the past few years, where America's become a police state where the government controls the superheroes and Luke Cage or Clint Barton or even Captain America have been forced to work underground because they refused to sign up! Except, of course, it's not; the identity of the head of the superhero police may have changed - and even then, barely; Norman Osborn has been in charge of a government superhero task force since the end of 2006's Civil War series - but the dynamics of a world in which you do what you're told or you're unpopular ("Feared and hated by a world they've sworn to protect," as the X-Men used to be described as, and this particular paranoia about authority and popularity is so much more an X-Men outsider fantasy than a nerdy highschool Spider-Man one) are essentially the same.

By the end of Secret Invasion, all $400-or-so of it, nothing of note has really changed (One character died, yes, but another one was revealed to have never died at all, so even that's a wash). The status quo has been successfully maintained, as has the continuity of fans' collections the world over. And, most importantly for Marvel, a lot of comics have been sold by successfully baiting and switching readers with the possibility that everything they know is wrong... Nah, only joking.

Accompanying his photo of the spines of each of the Secret Invasion collections (although there may be more to come - There's a Mighty Avengers Book 1 in there, which suggests a Book 2 would be on the way), Sime (who runs San Francisco's Isotope - The Comic Book Lounge) comments that,

The first book in your Secret Invasion collection is only going to run you $29.99. It's $14.99 for the rest (thereabouts).

For those too lazy to do the math, that's an approximate cost of $344.78 for just those books alone, and that's avoiding all of the prologues that trailed the main Secret Invasion event. Weirdly enough, that total isn't too different from Newsarama.com's total for what you'd have spent if you had bought everything to do with the series - including the prologues - in single issue format ($378.78; you can see their math here).

Everyone involved with Secret Invasion has said on numerous occasions that you don't have to read every book to understand the story, with main writer Brian Michael Bendis putting it best:

The final call will be the readers’ call, but whatever you chose to read will only accentuate the experience for you. If you want the single disc DVD, you’ll get the full story. If you want the double disc edition, fine. If you want the Blade Runner five discs with the toy in the briefcase, we’ve got that too... It’s our goal to make you want to buy them, not to make you have to buy them.

Nonetheless; almost $400 for the five disc Blade Runner? Those had better be some awesome extra discs...

That's a Whole Hell of a Lot of Some Serious Crossover Shit. [Flickr]

Openly Aggressive Alien Invaders
You know the type; they come with their guns and their bombs, to quote Dolores O'Riordan, and just try to blow shit up until we surrender. We've seen their kind in War Of The Worlds (whichever version you want), any Dalek-themed episode of Doctor Who, Independence Day or even Transformers, and they're the kind of alien invaders that the world expects - Straight, to the point, and despite their superior firepower, ultimately prepared to fall to our superior intellect, pluck and whatever contagious diseases may be going around at the time.

Passively Aggressive Alien Invaders
These aliens are much sneakier and more difficult to deal with. Oh, they come with promises of all manner of intergalactic treats and peaceful transactions, but behind their oddly perfect grins, they're really lizard people who eat mice whole. I speak, of course, of the aliens from V, but we've seen similar tactics from Secret Invasion's Skrulls ("Embrace change," indeed. The only change they want for us is the one from breathing to six feet under) and, memorably, Mars Attacks's big-brained psuedo-pacifists:

Secret Invaders
Where the Skrulls went wrong, of course, was coming out of the alien closet. If they'd just stuck to their original plan of being undetectably undercover, then world domination could've been theirs much more easily - if less profitably for Marvel Comics. Think of how successful the 1970s Invasion of The Body Snatchers was (and try to ignore Nicole Kidman's shameful The Invasion, while you're at it), or the fact that poor David Vincent never quite managed to completely save the day in The Invaders. Particularly popular in times of American foreign affair paranoia, secret invaders can also generally be identified by the nearby presence of a title that includes some variation on the word "invasion."

Accidental Invaders
It's not just The Day The Earth Stood Still's Klaatu who found himself mistaken for a hostile force; poor ET almost got himself dissected by an overzealous government with cell-phone handguns, as well, and don't get me started on those poor musical bastards from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Call it the human disease: seeing something different and just expecting the worst without provocation. I mean, sometimes, even those who do intend to cause destruction aren't really entirely bad guys: think about the Vogons in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, who destroy the Earth only because it's in the way, or Star Trek: The Next Generation's Borg, who only want us all to be brothers and sisters and share the same interests, likes and dislikes, and hive mind. Is it that wrong to condemn them?

Well, yes. After all, if we don't condemn them before they destroy our planet, how are we supposed to do it afterwards? If there's another thing that science fiction has taught us, after all, it's that whichever aliens are going to make contact with the human race, there's a very high percentage that their language's version of the words "widespread destruction and/or subjugation of the native population" are going to appear somewhere on their list of things to do. It may seem cruel and overly suspicious, but in this dog-obliterates-dog-with-raygun universe, the case can always be made that it's worth cutting open a couple of friendly aliens who just want to phone home if it means that we don't end up under the extra-terrestrial boot heel of some inhuman Space Hitler. Take my word for it, people: hope for the best all you want, but if you happen to make first contact with an alien, make sure that you do so with at least a knife handly, just in case. And whatever you do, remember: Don't cover your mouth when you sneeze.

We've spoken to the man in charge of this campaign before, Marvel's Mike Pasciullo, who told us that the campaign was created to get non-comic readers interested in the series... but still, we can't help but wonder what basketball fans made of being told about visitors from beyond the stars coming to help us out of the mess that we've made of our existence.

Embrace Change [Marvel.com]

As is Marvel's way, Dark Reign exists as little more than a name and a tease right now. Announced at last week's Diamond Retailers Summit in Las Vegas, all that's really known about it is that it's a brand that indicates that any comic using it will reflect the post-Secret Invasion status quo for the Marvel Universe... even though we don't really know what that status quo actually is. It's all the brainchild of Secret Invasion and New Avengers writer Brian Michael Bendis:

This was an invasion, and from the invasion, certain people take the hit, certain people rise up as the heroes who you wouldn't expect, and from that comes a new power status in the Marvel Universe that some would consider a dark reign and some would consider heaven. One man's dark reign is another man's 'Finally!' ...There's going to be new alliances. There's going to be new teams and team dynamics. A new world dynamic. What people said about [Marvel's 2006 series] Civil War is that it really changed the dynamic between the super heroes and the rest of the Marvel Universe, and this is even a newer dynamic between the Marvel characters and the world they live in.

Such talk brings up some interesting possibilities: One of the recent twists in Secret Invasion has been a portion of humanity turning towards accepting the alien invader's "embrace change" occupation philosophy, so does that mean that Dark Reign will feature a Skrull-occupied Earth? And given the image of a fallen Iron Man above, it's looking likely that Tony Stark will be one of the people taking a hit... but how much of one? Well, the Iron Man: Director of SHIELD book is going to be replaced with an ongoing series starring Jim Rhodes as kick-ass cyborg War Machine, but does that mean that Tony's losing a series, a job, or his life altogether (His other series, The Invincible Iron Man, is continuing - but that doesn't mean that Tony will still be the one wearing the armor, necessarily)? They did kill off the original Captain America, after all...

Of course, if this other untitled teaser image is anything to go by, the Skrulls may be a red herring. Maybe it's Doctor Doom who gets to Reign, Darkly or otherwise, with his new cosmic-powered bling?

(Bonus points to people who can work out why the Kirby and Secret Wars shout-outs are in there.)

Prepare for a Dark Reign [Marvel.com]

Revealed in the most recent issue of Marvel's Secret Invasion, the agenda of our latest alien invaders isn't exactly the conquering and destroying one that you may have expected. Instead, they want to save us from ourselves:
This new kinder, gentler alien invasion is reflected in the new ad campaign for the series, created by Marvel's VP of Marketing Mike Pasciullo. We asked Mike what was behind the shift from the more traditional "images of heroes looking serious" advertising to this creepier, funnier, promotion:

This ad campaign was designed to entertain comic fans but more importantly to intrigue and entice the mainstream audience so that they want to learn more about what Embrace Change means and then hopefully pick up an issue of Secret Invasion. [The print ad, below] is just the first ad in a series that the Skrulls have planned to get humankind to Embrace Change. In fact, they have an entire marketing campaign that has begun with the use of MySpace and Twitter acting as precursors to a stronger push in the next few weeks.

So, expect to see your world invaded by yet another party promising change over the next few weeks. And, hey - about that. With both Obama and McCain's Presidential campaigns being based around the idea of "change," how much of this campaign is a party political parody? Pasciullo denies it:

The Embrace Change mantra had actually been part of [Secret Invasion writer] Brian [Michael Bendis]’s Secret Invasion storyline for a long time. It truly was just a coincidence that when it was time to introduce it, that the candidates had begun to use similar slogans.

Total coincidence... or perhaps both Obama and McCain have secret parts of their history that haven't been discussed at the conventions. Secret alien parts.

[Embrace Change]

Marvel's third issue of Halo: Uprising (delayed, if rumors are to believed, because Bungie changed the direction of the next Halo game mid-production) isn't the only treat that the House of Ideas has in store for you this week - They're also expanding their Secret Invasion with three new mini-series about the Skrull attacks starring the Inhumans (written by Heroes writer Joe Pokaski), Thor (written by Casanova and The Invincible Iron Man's Matt Fraction) and the X-Men. And if even that just leaves you hungry for more Mighty Marvel Action, then there's also X-Men Origins: Jean Gray, a one-shot starring everyone's favorite telekinetic redhead with some stunning art by Mike Mayhew.

DC Comics, in comparison, take it relatively lightly; in addition to the fourth part of Batman RIP, there's the launch of Final Crisis: Revelations (which sees the new Question take on her former partner-turned-official-personification-of-the-wrath-of-God, Cris Allen) as well as the long-awaited (by me) collection of 1988's most awesome crossover, Millennium. Alternatively, you could take that $100 you have laying around and spend it on the oversized hardcover Absolute League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier.

To get back to the tie-in books of the week, though: Moonstone has the first issue (of two) for Buckaroo Banzai: The Prequel, while IDW pushes both boundaries and your wallet with the following: Transformers Best Of The UK: Time Wars, Transformers Animated: Arrival, Igor: The Movie Adaptation (in both comic form and collected edition), as well as the first issue of Scott Lobdell's Galaxy Quest: Global Warning. Most importantly of all, however, is Viper Comics' sole release of the week, The Middleman: The Collected Series Indispensability, which collects all of the original comic series into one handy-dandy, easy-to-carry-and-just-as-easy-to-read 336 page book for your entertainment enjoyment. If you like the TV show, you owe it to yourself (and your local comic store) to pick this up.

That local comic store can be found here, in case you're wondering. And if you're also wondering what else is coming out this week? You can find your answer here. You can thank me later.

One of the traditional joys of San Diego Comic-Con - or any comic convention, really - are all the strange and wonderful costumes that fans wander around in for days on end. From Hello Kitty Darth Vaders to creepily lifelike Simpsons characters, we've seen them all... or, at least, almost all. Under the jump, we'd like to suggest some characters that we're hoping will be brought to life during next week's nerd prom.

Old-School Star Trek Characters: I know it's a cliche, but when was the last time you actually saw Vulcans at a comic convention? Sure, every year brings a smattering of Klingons out of the woodwork, but even they've been falling in number in recent years, replaced by even more Stormtroopers and men and woman treating Johnny Depp's Pirates of The Carribean outfit as a lifestyle choice. With JJ Abrams' Trek reboot building buzz, here's to seeing some people in black slacks, blue sweaters and pointy ears wandering around the convention center.

Torchwood's Cyberwoman: Why should the midriff-revealing Stormtroopers get to hog all the uncomfortable attempts to sexualize faceless soldiers? And unlike the Britney Spears-esque female clone warriors for the Empire, this "sexy" cybernetic killer is even in continuity!

Skrullized Superheroes: If we don't see versions of our favorite superheroes with large green rippled chins, then quite simply, Marvel Comics' Secret Invasion series - where our favorite superheroes discover that some of their number have been replaced by alien versions of themselves with large green rippled chins - will have failed. It's the ideal outfit for the lazy costume fan, requiring very little editing to be completely topical.

Dr. Mrs. The Monarch/Lady Au Pair: Don't get me wrong - I'm as happy to see women dressed up as the husky-voiced femme fatale Dr. Girlfriend from The Venture Bros. as the next man, but now that we've seen a couple of her other identities, it's time to ditch the Jackie O-inspired pillbox hat and get more inventive. Remember, it's just like Dean said: Go, Team Boobies.

One-Legged Singing Gaeta from Battlestar Galactica: The rise of Colonial Warriors has been noticeable at various conventions over the last few years, but very few seem to want to emulate specific characters. Maybe they've been put off by the lack of distinguishing features - in which case, poor Mr. Gaeta's leg amputation is a gift to any ambitious cosplayer. Who wouldn't want to see a hobbling hero in line for Ron Moore's autograph, singing painful space shanties?

Let's get the bigger publishers out of the way first: With the exception of a preview of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's next project, Captain America: White, Marvel pretty much lets this week slide to focus on the latest issue of Secret Invasion and a hardcover collection for Joss Whedon's (disappointing, let's be honest) Runaways story. DC, on the other hand, just seem to be letting it slide altogether, with the exception of Final Crisis: Requiem, a one-shot memorializing the dearly-departed Martian Manhunter. Instead, turn your attention to Dark Horse Comics, which is happy to fill the gap with their new Hellboy spin-off, BPRD: The Warning and equally new Indiana Jones series, Indiana Jones And The Tomb Of The Gods.

Perhaps, however, you'd rather read about robots in disguise who don't go around raping each other; if that's the case, then you should definitely pick up the first issue of Transformers: All Hail Megatron, the "What if the Decepticons took over the Earth?" series that we've told you about already and happen to be waiting for with baited breath. Watching Megatron rule our planet with a literal iron fist seem too much of a downer? Then there's also Transformers Movie Prequel: Saga Of The Allspark premiering this week, giving you all the backstory about the deus ex machina that Michael Bay didn't quite manage to get around to.

For the books of the week, however, you have to go to Image Comics and Ben 10 co-creator Joe Kelly. Not only does his new series I Kill Giants launch on Thursday (featuring Barbara Thorson, a fifth-grader who either has a very, very active imagination or really does kill giants, pixies and other mythical creatures in her spare time), but his children's book Captain Stoneheart And The Truth Fairy also gets a fine re-release. Stoneheart, which started life as an issue of the Elephantmen series, bills itself as "a grim tale of broken bones and broken hearts," but really it's just a beautifully-written, wonderfully-illustrated (by X-Men and Amazing Spider-Man artist Chris Bachalo) children's story... albeit one that you can now get in a deluxe package including the original script, uncolored pencil artwork and CD of the audio version of the story. You can see a trailer for the book here.

As is really honestly always the case, you can find the complete list of everything hitting stores here and then go and buy whatever you want at the store closest to you, a fact that you can work out by going here. Just make sure that your stack has a hippo or robot somewhere in there. Preferably both.Hel

So now that we solved the problem about the individual spoiler pages turning up in your RSS feed, we've decided to try this new format for the next week. Let us know how you're liking it. I thought it was a good sign that we had comment threads happening in the individual spoiler posts, which wouldn't show up on the front page as featured comments. Also, this gets around the "videos all start playing at once" problem. But let me know what you think!

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