I have no problem with the deaths of important characters when they serve a purpose. Jean Grey was my favorite character in Morrison's X-Men and I got over her death pretty quickly and easily, because it was a great way to go out. But then you've got people like Tieri, Kyle and Yost, Daniel Way to a lesser degree, who just rack up a death toll because it' shocking and "extreme" and they don't do it respectfully, OR particularly well.

Personal bee in the bonnet, here.

I don't really get the sense so much that Kyle and Yost "enjoy" killing off these characters, but rather that they see it as a function of the story they want to tell, and consequently they try to execute that story in the manner that will have the most dramatic impact. Maybe this is just me projecting my own tendencies as a writer here, but in my own writing I've killed of characters that I absolutely loved as well as characters I found repellent, and I never really "enjoyed" it in either situation. The deaths of those characters was simply where the story had to go to advance.

I guess to use a horror movie analogy, it's the difference between something like The Descent and something like the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. One uses the brutal violence to escalate the tension, and the other just wallows in sadism for the sake of being shocking. It's an important distinction to make, especially when you're writing horror screenplays like I do on occasion, but I personally find that X-Force falls more on The Descent side of the equation.

That often results in what you mention - a bunch of themed books in the same week.

Do it again next week?

If the story ends and she's STILL dead, then I will be quite irked.

Dave: To your point re: X-Force. As I mentioned, it's not really the plots I have a problem with. Whenever I happened to read an issue of New X-Men, Kyle and Yost did seem to have a long-term idea of what they were doing. The problem I have with this specific issue is that they seemed to go out of their way to kill Boom-Boom. They seemed to take perverse glee in making sure the team was teleported away at the absolute last second. It was frustrating. In some books, the plot and execution are bad. In this, the plot is fine.

The Dude: I really wish Ultimatum hadn't come out this week, but that's the way it is!

This was actually a cool experiment but I can't understand why you bought Ultimatum. You probably could've fed a homeless with that money. Or bought crack and it still would've been a more worthy pursuit.

I don't mind Wolverine showing up everywhere but the number of X-men books right now just depresses me. With that and Bendis writing all the other high profile books it's almost like they're forcing me not to buy Marvel books

I'll have to check out those panels from Wolverine: Origins. Thanks for the tip!

Steve: No problem. I hope some people seek it out because of the review!

ThiefTMA: It didn't show up at my shop, sorry.

Not quite, but I think I'm going to have to go dig out my copy of NO NEW YORK & burn Mars' "Helen Forsdale" to disc so I can play it about 1,000 times in a row just to rid myself of the residue.

Also, as regards UNCANNY X-MEN, I am compelled to note that if you're not part of the solution (refusing to buy comics featuring Greg Land's plagiarism), you're part of the problem (the existence of comics featuring Greg Land's plagiarism). You know I'm right.

Ben and I worked hard to tell stories that complimented one another but also, when removed from the one-shot, would still stand alone.

It's tough to get comic readers to take a chance on an indy book—even when you price it at $2. Thanks for spreading the word.

--Steve