* In a masterpiece of understatement, Tony Isabella addresses the drop in quality of recent Marvel superhero comics. I’d track the plummet back to Grant Morrison’s departure from New X-Men, but Tony’s been keeping up with things better than I have. Tony champions Chris Claremont’s X-Men Forever in the same piece, but Claremont’s bag of tricks stopped working for me around the time Paul Smith stopped drawing Uncanny. I do know that in the past decade, Ed Brubaker is about the only writer working for Marvel that I’d consider a truly talented writer. Maybe there are great Marvel comics I’ve missed in recent years; if you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

* On the other hand, maybe Marvel is hot.

* As Love and Rocktober promises to spill over into November (yay!), Jaunty Sean T. Collins looks at one of the best single issues of all time, L&R Vol. 2 #20.

— Alan David Doane

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