- Is it just me, or is it really weird that Joe Quesada has put a unilateral "no smoking" rule in the books these days? Maybe it's just me, but I find it wholly bizarre that it's okay for Wolverine to impale and eviscerate people, but it's not okay for him to light up a cigar.

- Remember when Jeph Loeb didn't suck? I know, it's a long long time ago, but think back. Before this "Red Hulk" snooze fest that blatantly disregards what goes on in other books. Before "Ultimates 3". Before that Heroes Reborn retread he and Liefeld did a few years back. Yes, Virginia, there was a time when Jeph Loeb didn't suck. But I'll be damned if I can actually remember what he did that didn't suck, because his current suckiness is so sucky. Oh yeah, his Tim Sale collaborations. Those things were great. So why is he so awful now?

- I don't know about you, but I still cannot wrap my brain around "Dark Reign". It's not that it's complex and deep or whatnot, it's that the basic premise makes no damn sense whatsoever. It'd be like if we appointed Ted Kascynski (sic) to head up the Homeland Security department, or if a movie came out that made Hannibal Lecter the head of the FBI. Norman was publically outed as the Green Goblin in Mark Millar's "Marvel Knight's Spider-Man" # 1 not even ten years ago. That was the central crux of the first twelve issues of the book. But noooo, because Brian Michael Bendis wanted to make yet another "Bush Sucks" storyline (hey, guess what? The guy's old hat now. You put a supervillain in charge of the world's security under Obama's administration. Even Bush never put a supervillain in charge - way to go, Bendis - your "Bush Sucks" story was "He appointed IRON MAN to SHIELD!" so what does Dark Reign say about Saint Obama?), we get a company-wide storyline that makes no sense whatsoever.

- And speaking of Bendis, isn't everybody tired of him yet? I know I am. His "realistic dialogue" is highly overrated, he continually makes his heroes hapless buffoons, and his decompression is so spread out, that it takes six issues to tell a story that a more capable writer could handle in two. It boggles my mind that he's still such a huge seller.