The X-Axis – w/c 18 August 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #33. By Tim Seeley, Edoardo Audino, KJ Díaz & Clayton Cowles. Okay, so the idea here is that the Changeling has a split personality, and (at least as Morph) doesn’t realise that he’s pursuing himself around America. That’s kind of the Sentry’s gimmick, but if it’s a way of transitioning Changeling into an Earth-616 Morph – and having access to that character without complicated alternate reality stuff – then I can see the attraction. Audino does a nicely baffled Morph, though it’s a slightly odd call to keep the character mostly off panel this issue and have Sean and Angelo relay to us what he’s like instead. Still, it’s all very readable.
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #12. (Annotations here.) Much of this issue is about getting Reggie into the cast as another mutant – and boy, you can’t accuse the book of rushing that storyline after debuting him back in issue #4 – though it looks like he’s being kept on the sidelines until now. The storyline, though, is basically an excuse to send Axo, Melée and Bronze back in time so that they (and present-day Kitty) can meet pre-X-Men teenage Kitty. Presumably this is the pay off for Kitty’s regular laments about how she shouldn’t have been a teenage hero, as well as a way of advancing her relationship with the kids.
It doesn’t quite work. The plot mechanics to justify the trip back are decidedly wonky, but more to the point, it doesn’t really get the feeling of a different time period. I get that the sliding timeline makes these things complicated, but if you’re going to devote a big splash to the kids’ period costumes, and I’m still left none the wiser about what time period the story thinks it’s set in, we’ve got a problem.
WOLVERINE #12. (Annotations here.) Oh dear. This is the final part of the Elizabeth Howlett storyline, and apparently it really is all just Mastermind doing illusions for… no terribly well defined reason. The story kind of gestures at the idea that maybe Mastermind has also been driven mad by this, and really does think he’s offering himself as a parent figure. But that doesn’t get developed, and the general vibe is simply that Wolverine is being screwed with for its own sake. The high concept seems to be that all this matters because it helps Wolverine to realise that he never came to terms with his mother’s rejection, but I’m not exactly convinced that this tells us anything very interesting about the character. I can sort of understand how you could look at Wolverine’s back story and think that there’s never been any sort of follow-up on Origin, but that’s because Origin isn’t very interesting – it didn’t do any real harm to the character, but it doesn’t add anything very resonant either, because things like Weapon X or even Romulus have vastly more impact as an inciting event in his life. But I digress… The real problem with this arc is that it teases a lot of things that are a lot more interesting than the “it was all a dream” resolution that it ends up delivering, and so inevitably it’s an anticlimax.
PSYLOCKE #10. (Annotations here.) Cancelled after two arcs, which is a shame – Psylocke wasn’t perfect, but it certainly did prove that you can build stories around Kwannon as a solo character. This final issue does feel a little rushed, but not excessively so – you can see a couple of plot points being shoved to the margins, but it finds space for what it really needs to do. Had the series continued, the story would presumably have been about Psylocke’s deal with the Lady in White and the possibility of eventually redeeming Mitsuki and having the girls reunited as adults for real. But as a ten issue run, it feels plausibly complete. Given how much there is to fit in, Carratù does a sound job on the art, and it doesn’t feel as cramped as it might have. Creatively, I’d rank Psylocke as one of the successes of the current period, so it’s a shame to be losing it.
I’d rather read DC by those two than just about anyone else.
I’m enjoying the absolute books. There’s a limited amount of space for comics in my budget, so I’d probably focus on marvel too if I had more spare cash. Dc just happens to be winning out at the moment. Back to basics X-Men just isn’t calling out to me.
The issue lies in the fact that many creators REFUSED to work with Marvel after the Krakoan era came to a close. Probably because their visions did not align with Marvel’s current mandate. Whatever the case, the once ubiquitous X-Men brand is not selling because it is not connecting with people. Many of the comic sales numbers are going to manga. Manga sales have been clobbering the American comic book market, and Marvel and DC can’t keep up.
DC is putting out some great comics, from the groundbreaking Absolute Martian Manhunter to the emotionally-charged Krypto. Very few Marvel comics are coming close right now.
With the exception of Superman and Flash I’m really enjoying the Absolute titles so far, especially Wonder Woman. And Absolute Superman and Flash aren’t bad, they’re just ‘meh’.
@sagatwarrior: Interesting, where does this stuff about creators not wanting to work with Marvel right now come from? I don’t read comics news any more so I didn’t realise this was a thing.
@Chris V – Marvel’s downturn didn’t really come until after Endgame wrapped in 2019. Between Iron Man and Endgame, the arguably worst MCU movie was Thor: Dark World, which did nothing to slow down the overall brand, and resulted in a course correction (for Thor in particular) that gave us the very well regarded Ragnarok. Just about everything they did turned to gold during that period.
But admittedly after that, Disney/Marvel really did flood the market with less spectacular output. I’d argue that the only really sub-par product put out during that time was ‘Secret Wars’ and ‘Captain America: Brave New World”. A lot of the stuff they’ve put out since this hasn’t been for everyone, but very little of it was overtly bad. But when there’s so much, it’s much easier for viewers to ‘fall behind’ and then just stop caring as much.
And to their credit, this too has led to a course correction as Disney has dramatically scaled back the number of productions in both the MCU and Star Wars. I don’t think Marvel needs to take a 5 year break. They haven’t released anything calamitous (like ‘Batman & Robin’) that has actually damaged the brand, but I definitely think we’re in the middle of a transition time as Marvel slows down, refocuses, and finds its magic again.
@Loz
https://comicbookclublive.com/2023/09/21/x-men-krakoa-age-ending-rick-remender-exclusive-image-absolute-superman-comic-book-club-news-for-september-21-2023/#:~:text=The%20X%2DMen's%20Krakoan%20Age%20will%20end%20at,Image%20Comics.%20And%20more%20comic%20book%20news.
@sagatwarrior – Maybe I’m sleepy, but I don’t see anything written about creators refusing to work with Marvel post-Krakoa in that article you linked.
“[Rick]Remender had a number of successful runs on Marvel books, but arguably his biggest successes have been with Image. However, it was still surprising to see Remender call out the big two publishers in the press release. Noted the creator, ‘I’ve recently turned down very generous offers to write X-Men and Batman, and while flattered, that would ultimately be a step backwards artistically, and not where my heart is at.'” This was before From the Reboot.
Rob Liefeld discussed how Marvel approached Jim Lee to return to the X-books.
https://bleedingcool.com/comics/jim-lee-marvel-x-men/
Yeah, look, Rick Remender turning down what he describes as both “generous” and “flattering” offers to write both X-Men and Batman (which, to my knowledge is still a DC book and not a Marvel book, but I’m a lapsed reader) is quite different from the way you described the situation.
The Absolute stuff sounds like DC’s version of Marvel’s Ultimate imprint when it began?
You could take in the absolute universe as DC Ultimate Universe, sure. But there are some differences in intent.
Ultimate was basically about featuring younger, modernized versions of Marvel’s characters in more contemporary settings, free of decades of continuity (at first anyway).
Absolute subverts exceptions you already had about these characters going in. When you read Ultimate Spider-Man all those years ago, you went in on the assumption Uncle Ben would die, and you were correct. However, the Absolute universe might turn your expectations on their head and ask you not to assume every touchstone you’re used to is too sacred to change or modify.
Keeping with the grim times we live in, The Absolute Universe also is designed to look like the world is more stacked against good than in favor of it.
Absolute’s origin already has links to the mainstream DCU and there is clearly a plan to build on that eventually (starting with Darkseid’s Legion). For now though, you can take them as their own thing if you don’t want to read DC’s entire line.
I tried Absolute Wonder Woman for Kelly Thompson and Absolute Green Lantern for Al Ewing, and I like them so far. I’ve heard something about Darkseid being involved (maybe here), but it hasn’t come up in the books yet and they have been completely stand alone, which suits me fine. If/when they get tied together I might drop them as they are rather different now and that is part of the charm.
I thunk the comparison is between the current Ultimate Universe and the DC Absolute continuity, not the original UU and the Absolute-verse.
Both have the starting point that a villain has messed with the universe at some early point in the timeline, causing the heroes to show up differently than their mainline counterparts.
Jed MacKay said today in an interview on AIPT that Doug’s four Choristers will be Fabian Cortez, Chance, Topaz and Khora of the Burning Heart.
@Bengt
Darkseid is in one of the other Absolute books, I believe he was just revealed in the most recent issue, but not sure I would spoil that for anyone. But they are in the Absolute universe now.
If Topaz isn’t the Rachel House character from the Thor movies, I’m not interested*.
* yes I googled it and I know it isn’t
Following up the Krakoa era with a Marvel brand synergy mandate for the X-Men was always going to be a thankless task.
Prematurely ending a popular and subversive direction for the X-books roughly around the same time the Absolute and Ultimates 2 lines launched didn’t help.
It reminds me of the post Morrison’s X-Men landscape, where editorial retcon’d and ignored what didn’t conform to brand synergy and mined what worked (without understanding why it worked).
Different strokes and all that.
Myself, I think that the Krakoa Era had already overstayed its welcome, and can hardly be said to have ended prematurely. Then again, I am notoriously unsatisfied with many of its creative choices from day one.
And I am sincerely uncertain on what impact the current Ultimate Universe has. I was surprised to learn that it was going to happen at all. It can be seen as the current storyline of the Master, I suppose… but it is also further dillution of the emotional significance of the monthly offer of Marvel comics, at a time when Marvel has already been overextending its line for over a decade. I am not a fan of the Absolute line that arose from the aftermath of “Absolute Power” in DC, but it came and to this day remains with lots of hints that it is in some sense an unstable environment with a limited shelf life, that is more likely to find resolution in due time than not. That is a positive in my book.
I only read the Krakoa stuff by way of Paul’s annotations, but I could tell that if I were still a regular reader that I would have hated it.
I don’t like X-Men seeing removed from their usual context. I didn’t even like the idea of Xavier attempting to rebuild Genosha back when the ReLoad iteration of Excalibur was announced (so, even before we knew the book was going to suck). And then later on came the Utopia stuff, and finally, Krakoa, and I had to ask myself, “Where did this compulsion to stick the X-Men on islands come from? Are these writers not getting enough island vacations or something?”
And yes, once again, I didn’t actually read the Krakoa books, but when you throw all the mutants into their own society segregated from humanity, it just seems like you’re doing Inhumans but with more popular characters.
@Luis Dantas: different strokes, indeed. Absolute Wonder Woman and Absolute Martian Manhunter are two of the best Big 2 comics currently published, and I’m happy with the Absolute Universe running continuously.
Your comment about “diluting the brand” reminds me of the original Ultimate Universe. Kurt Busiek quit Avengers around the time the Ultimates was either in the works or published because he didn’t want to be the guy doing “Old Avengers.” I think the original Ultimate line might have taken some shine off the Marvel Universe because Ult. Spider-Man and the Ultimates were so popular. IIRC, Ult. X-Men had some heat at first, too.
The current Ultimate Spider-Man has more buzz than Amazing Spider-Man (which was good when Pepe Laraz drew it, haven’t read it since but will when he comes back), and Ultimates feels current in a way most Marvel comics don’t. Ultimate X-Men isn’t everyone’s thing, but it’s certainly unique. Ult. Wolverine is pretty good, too, even if it’s nothing groundbreaking.
I guess sales were good enough in the early ‘00s that the two Marvel lines existed in relative harmony. Now? I’m curious if the current Ultimate line can survive when Ult. Spider-Man ends (whether it leads to a new volume or not). We’ll see in a few months.
“Kurt Busiek quit Avengers around the time the Ultimates was either in the works or published because he didn’t want to be the guy doing “Old Avengers.”
Close. Ultimates was already underway. A fan asked him on a message board that I frequented if his decision to leave Avengers had anything to do with Ultimates.
And as that question sat there waiting for a response, I remember thinking that there was no way Kurt was going to answer that question unless the answer was “No.” He wasn’t the type to publicly air work complaints or grievances he might have with his bosses.
But to my surprise, he replied with, “Yes, it absolutely had something to do with Ultimates. I no longer care to work on a book that’s being treated like a loser book by its own publisher.” Those words might not be 100% his exact words, but I can tell you they’re at least 95% his exact words. I couldn’t believe he replied with that, so it stuck in my mind all these years.
I know that it was definitely the feeling around the late 90s and early 00s, that the established Marvel was old and stodgy to the point of embarrassment, and stuff like the Ultimate line was edgy and cool and new. Or Nu, as the case may be. It was never my bag, but I did expect that at some point the Ultimate universe would become the mainstream with maybe one or two comics still running as the old Marvel.
@Si – Jemas was the problem. He was the hype man for the Ultimate line and he appeared to be deliberately marginalizing books like Avengers, hence Busiek’s words “treated like a loser book”.
I don’t think it was just Jemas though. It was a general feel in comic fandom at the time. People wanted their superheroes to be “adult”, without the embarrassing costumes and moral codes. Where the early 90s had superhero style as kids who had too much sugar, the 00s style was like a rebellious teenager that doesn’t want the other kids to see them with their mother.
@Moo , the whole essence of mutation , of evolution , is the very concept of Change itself. Can you even call yourself a serious X-Fan?!
@Jdsm – Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that being an X-Men fan requires one to wholeheartedly embrace every direction the book goes in. So, I suppose anyone who didn’t particularly care for the Australia period aren’t “serious X-Fans” either?
If you enjoyed the Krakoa stuff, then good for you. But if you can’t handle it when someone doesn’t like the things that you like, and you want to criticize them for it, I’m sorry to inform you that this isn’t a YouTube comment section.
@Si – Well, yeah, I remember that being true of some of the readership, sure, but I don’t know that I’d describe it as a trend that swept over the majority of fandom. I mean, I recall plenty of railing against the X-Men’s switch from spandex to leather, for example.
Oh yes. It was far from universal,and the market showed that most readers are totally fine with yellow spandex, but I believe it was a fairly widespread trend at the time, with at least some influence on the industry itself.
Can we just blame Wizard? Miller and Moore? (Yes, this chestnut again.)
It’s hard to completely mock the X books doing it when I did a fanzine about someone who didn’t wear a costume, Jack Knight,
@Si – You’re right, of course. It wasn’t some tiny minority. I think those damned Matrix films were influencing readers and creators alike.
But Jemas was a problem for the Avengers. The Avengers didn’t have the big franchise power of Spider-Man and the X-Men, so with Jemas pushing the Ultimate line the way that he did, I could understand why Busiek got fed up.
@Mark Coale – Clearly, Brevoort is to blame. Also, I misplaced my keys earlier today. I’m sure he moved them.
Kurt Busiek’s Avengers run came on the heels of “Heroes Reborn” and “Heroes Return”. There was the perception that he came to fix what was broken. A justified perception IMO.
I can see how he would not warm up to a book such as “The Ultimates”, for several different natures of reasons.
That said, I was reading the discussion group at the time and I am certain that there were other factors at play as well, not least among them the desire to emphasize characters and books of his own property. As he put it once, “Marvel books’ reprints won’t pay for his daughter’s tooth braces”, while something like Astro City might.
Come to think of it, Marvel and DC both have a far harder time keeping talent now than they had 30 or even 20 years ago, in no small measure precisely because top talent can often find more freedom and better pay elsewhere. It is not necessarily within editorial’s power to change that.
“Kurt Busiek’s Avengers run came on the heels of “Heroes Reborn” and “Heroes Return”
It wasn’t on the heels of Heroes Return. It was Heroes Return.
“I can see how he would not warm up to a book such as “The Ultimates”
Obviously I don’t have access to Busiek’s private thoughts but I don’t recall him having much of a problem with The Ultimates book itself. It seemed to be the combination of Jemas hyping Ultimates while ignoring Avengers and simultaneously taking his usual public potshots at what he saw as “old school” comic books that got on Busiek’s nerves.
Ha-ha-Ha-ha! Hee-hee-hee! Woo-hoo-hoo-ha-ha!
Ahem.
Sorry about that. I only just now realized how funny it was that someone tried to explain to me that the X-Men- a superhero franchise where the heroes remain eternally youthful and dead characters never stay dead is all about “the very concept of change itself.”
Sorry, but no. Anyway you slice it, Busiek’s run wasn’t “Heroes Return”, for multiple reasons. This may be a bit of splitting hairs, but I think that I should point it out in the interest of accuracy.
1. He wasn’t writing Thor, Hulk or Captain America at the time. Just Iron Man and Avengers.
2. His Avengers run lasted for nearly five years (very late 1997 up to well into the second half of 2002), therefore considerably longer than any reasonable understanding of “Heroes Return” proper.
3. Marvel published a four-issues “Heroes Reborn: The Return” series. It was by Peter David, not Kurt Busiek.
#Luis
You’re absolutely right. It is splitting hairs.
Avengers and Iron Man were both launched under the Heroes Return banner. The “Heroes Return” logo was displayed prominently on the covers of the first issues. Those titles were promoted and marketed by Marvel as being part of the “Heroes Return” event, and that’s what I was referring to. The event.
@Luis – I’ll furthermore point out that the series written by Peter David wasn’t a Heroes Return book. It was a Heroes Reborn book. It even says so on the cover. It was essentially the X-Men: Omega of the Heroes Reborniverse. It was the final chapter, and it ended by setting up the event called “Heroes Return”. The official event being the series relaunches of Avengers, Iron Man, Captain, and FF. And that event formally ended once they dropped the Heroes Return banner from the covers (which, I believe, was by the third issue of each series).
I cetainly wasn’t suggesting that the Heroes Return event encompassed Busiek’s entire run on Avengers.
@Moo: The whole thing is complicated a little by the use of the “Heroes Return” banner and alternate cover design for Thor v.2 #1, which came out six months after the other books with that banner, and three months after the other titles had stopped using the banner. Thor’s second issue also dropped the banner. (And later still, Thor Annual 2000 would have cover text branding it as an untold tale from Heroes Reborn: The Return. Huh? Buh? Zuh?)
Thor v.2 #1 also had an alternate cover with the same “sunburst variant cover style — the hero lit up by a golden sunrise, with a stylized sigil element — that the #1 issues of the other “Heroes Return” books.
As a bit of trivia, a year later, Hulk v.1 #1 used the same “Sunburst variant” cover design as the other five relaunch titles, but did not use the “Heroes Return” banner.
I tend to think of “Heroes Return” less as an event than as a bit of short-term branding for the relaunch.
The only title that really had a three-part “return” arc was Avengers v.3. That’s where Thor’s return is actually covered, and it seems to be where Iron Man actually comes back, since his “Return” #1 issue has him already in place and contemplating his next move as an entrepreneur. Fantastic Four v.3 #1 is similar.
Even weirder, the chrnological first appearance for several the “returned” heroes, as well as a crucial bit about the Fantastic Four’s altered status quo, are all from Thunderbolts v.1 #10-12, not any of the “Heroes Return”-bannered books.
I suppose the closest analogue to “Heroes Return” as an event would be the issues connected to Secret Wars v.1, in which the heroes came back from Battleworld with unusual changes (and the X-Men, rather like Captain America in his “Return” #1, reemerged in Japan by accident).
The books are tie-ins to the Secret Wars miniseries, but not exactly what we’d think of as a true crossover story with connected parts. The actual story of these changes, like the actual story of how the heroes came back from Franklin’s Counter-Earth, is really told in the miniseries.
I suppose DC’s “One Year Later” cover emblem coming out of Infinite Crisis is similar as well. In that case, 52 was commissioned to cover how things got to the new status quo. And then, of curse, it didn’t bother to do that, and was better for it.
“I tend to think of “Heroes Return” less as an event than as a bit of short-term branding for the relaunch.”
Sure, fair enough, Omar. But whether we want to look at “Heroes Return” as an actual event or just some branding, the point I was trying to make to Luis was that Busiek’s Avengers run began under it or as part of it, not on the heels of it. I was merely attempting to clarify something but that’s when those damned arguments sneak up on you. When you’re least expecting them.
Omar> And later still, Thor Annual 2000 would have cover text branding it as an untold tale from Heroes Reborn: The Return. Huh? Buh? Zuh?
I mean, Thor didn’t go home with the others – he grabbed Doom and portal’d off to parts unknown. (And then showed up in Avengers #1 anyway, rather than stay away for a bit to make it seem like there was a point to it)
Pretty sure that Annual was meant to bridge HR:TR and A3 1.
@@SanityOrMadness
At a guess, I would say that Busiek felt he had to get on with it. He was about to write Avengers #1, and he had a team that he wanted to set up that included Thor.
I think I recall that Busiek at least acknowledged that Thor had been missing for a time when he appeared in that issue. But what specifically Thor had been up to while absent was irrelevant to Busiek’s opening storyline, so if that “Thor: The Missing Weeks” story was ever going to be told, it was for someone else to worry about.
@Moo , yes , the USAmerican corporate comics characters remain forever stuck ambiguously between coming-of-age and their middle-age , but there is no perpetually fixed status quo , especially for the Marvel X-mutants . In fact , the constant resurrections are the very proof of it !
@Moo
That’s the point. It wasn’t Busiek’s story, it wasn’t Jurgens’ story (was he even assigned to Thor at that point, since it started months after everything else), whose story WAS it? Why have Thor go missing if there was no plan for it and it was undone almost immediately?
[Yes, Jurgens did ultimately write something up. In an Annual, over a year later. Not exactly the sign of a core plot point.]
@@SanityOrMadness
Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what was going on behind the scenes. I don’t remember particularly caring where Thor had been and what he’d been up to either, and that’s probably because I didn’t.
I just know that there’s a time and a place for everything and Avengers #1 probably wasn’t the right time and place for a writer to concern himself with tying up loose ends or address lingering continuity questions when he needs to be concerned with more pressing matters liken reestablishing the premise, setting up his cast and getting on with his story.
So, I don’t know. I guess you’d have to ask Dan Jurgens. Or do what we always do here and just blame Brevoort.
While Brevoort did edit Avengers & Thor, he didn’t edit HR:TR – that was Bobbie Chase & Polly Watson. (Similarly, the series was written by PAD, who wasn’t involved in any of the newly-[re]launched books, only Hulk)
And the point is simple – HR:TR was a major event series, and Thor going missing was a part of the climax. Imagine One World Under Doom ends with Iron Man disappearing to take Doom to parts unknown, ending His Threat For Now… and then the next month, Tony’s back in Avengers, acknowledging he’d disappeared (with no mention of Doom), but he’s back and can we get on with the plot? That’s basically what happened there.
Basically, there were three “good” options:
1) Make Thor’s rescue/etc a major part of the first Avengers arc.
2) Leave Thor out of Avengers (at least at first) and resolve the plot in the new Thor series.
3) Don’t have him disappear in the first place
They chose NOTA.
@SanityOrMadness
Okay, firstly, I wouldn’t agree that your option 2) can be considered a good option. Beyond just getting the series underway, Busiek wanted to bring back a more classic version of the Avengers (eventually mixed with some new blood, hence Justice and Firestar).
So, of course you’d want “The Big Three” (Cap, Thor, Iron Man) present, and present from the start (and I think we should consider the possibility that Busiek might’ve been under the same impression as you– that the missing Thor business was going to be addressed by the Thor guys sooner than it actually was addressed).
As for your scenario where you swapped out Thor with Iron Man, I’m not sure what your point is with that. Like, you figure I would have cared more where Iron Man was or something?
Admittedly, I do happen to like Iron Man more, but if you’ll recall, there were some pretty big lingering questions about Iron Man that hadn’t been addressed yet. Namely, which Tony Stark was this?
Because he appeared to be the original Tony Stark that everyone knew, but the last time we’d seen him, that guy was dead. His teenage counterpart from an alternate timeline had taken over his book until he got shipped off to the Reborniverse where he was suddenly an adult again, and now we suddenly had classic Tony back again.
That definitely was Busiek’s story to tell, but he saved it for an annual. I didn’t care that it wasn’t resolved immediately. I figure he’d get to it at some point, either in Iron
Man or the Avengers at some point, and he did.
Anyway, we can speculate all we want, but I think we’d to know what was going on backstage with the Thor stuff. Maybe that information is available online somewhere.
The Iron Man thought experiment was if it happened NOW (or rather, at the climax of One World Under Doom), and he just showed up with a handwave in Mackay’s Avengers. Not in 1997-98. I doubt it would be recieved well.
[I picked Tony because his book was cancelled and the inevitable relaunch hasn’t been announced yet]
@Moo- The Iron Man stuff is a bit different. Teen Tony was EXTREMELY unpopular. So it’s no surprise that Busiek and Breevort decided to save the explanation for later, because they were afraid it might drive away new and returning readers. IIRC, Busiek was loathe to give out details about his Avengers run in advance but the one thing he told everyone was “NO TEEN TONY, NO BUG JAN!”
@SanityOrMadness
Okay, you’ll have to forgive me. I have zero familiarity with One World After Doom. I’m a very lapsed reader, but I thought we were still talking about the Heroes Return era of the late 90s and I feel quite comfortable talking about that period as I was still a reader at the time. I misunderstood you and thought you were asking me to imagine Thor’s place being swapped out with Iron Man’s at the end of HR:TR (and yes, you clearly said One World After Doom, but it didn’t register).
Although I’m curious now as to what you think is the difference between fans of today and the fans of 97/98.
@Michael – Well, fair enough.
I guess I’m having a hard time understanding why the question of “Where did Thor go between HT:HR and Avengers #1” was so pressing and important– to the point where it’s apparently better to have him not be present for the Avengers relaunch than have him back without an immediate detailed summary of his time away. He was back, wasn’t he? We can ask him about his vacation later.