[We don't normally say it, but since this is a big event: Beware. Spoilers are ahead.]

Okay. There’s this series, right. It’s intricately plotted, tightly dialogued and it isn’t afraid of playing the long game when it comes to handling its myriad secrets and mysteries, leaving its fans hanging for months, even years before revealing the whole picture. It’s truly unique in its field, with a multi-faceted cast and a brilliantly consistent level of quality. Just when you get a handle on where it’s going, it yanks the rug from under you. Somehow, against the odds, it’s managed to stretch beyond the genre-ghetto that spawned it and truly enter the public consciousness without ever compromising the singular vision of its creators. And we all know what that series is.

Yes, I like Lost as much as the next person. And the next person is apparently Ed Brubaker, because for reasons I can’t begin to comprehend, he’s managed to replicate one of Lost’s most memorable plot points wholesale. And we’re not just talking homage, here, we’re talking “oh, that’s a good idea, I can use it.” And we know this because the issue delights in using the same wording – that’s THE SAME, not SIMILAR – that Lost itself uses to distill its often complicated concepts into simple, comprehensible slices of dialogue. “Steve Rogers has come unstuck in time,” says Armin Zola. “[They] kept referring to me as The Constant,” says Sharon Carter. “We have to move the island,” says The Falcon. Well, maybe not that last one, things are already starting to blur a little.

Now, let’s be fair – Lost didn’t invent the “unstuck in time” concept. Slaughterhouse Five did it way earlier, for one. But it didn’t have a “Constant” like Lost did and Cap does, nor was Slaughterhouse Five the basis of a massively prominent TV series watched by millions over the last 5 years. Let me be clear: I am in no way questioning Brubaker’s credibility as a writer – everyone gets their ideas from somewhere, after all. I am, however, questioning his timing and judgement. Was now the right time to do an  “unstuck in time” plot? And was there really no better way to refer to these concepts than the same way Lost does? The story itself isn’t bad, but it undoubtedly suffers when considered against the wider cultural context of its release.

And what of the story? Well, it’s… okay. Hitch’s pencils are as good as ever, though the scenes of WW2-era Cap make Reborn look far too similar to the Millar/Hitch Ultimates for comfort. In a book where the originality of the writing already feels compromised, it doesn’t help to have large swathes of the artwork looking like re-purposed Ultimates offcuts. The prominent use of both Mighty and Dark Avengers cast members takes the book outside Captain America’s usual insular world, justifying the story’s spinning-out into a miniseries, but the additional grounding in the Marvel Universe means that it lacks the timeless quality of Brubaker’s run to date. It’s all a bit, well, underwhelming.

One thing you can’t fault it for, however, is delivering what it was supposed to. If you want to know what happened to Steve Rogers, well good news: there’s no dodging it here. And the question of how they’ll get him from where he is to where he should be does sound like a story I want to read. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether the rest of the series can give me something to worry about that takes precedence over how similar its plot points are to Lost. It’s not impossible, but really, that shouldn’t have been this big of a distraction in the first place.

Every month we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

In recent discussion with Comics Daily Cohort James Hunt, an assertion that I’ve often made about comics reared its head – that Spider-Man: Maximum Clonage Omega was the worst single issue comic I’d ever read. James scoffed at this – worse than Jeph Loeb’s recent efforts? I confessed that it had been years since I’d read it, but that I was fairly sure that yes, in the intervening time, I’d never encountered anything worse. He remained sceptical. Well, with a Dusting Off rolling around on the schedule again, I figured it would be the ideal opportunity to refamiliarise myself with it.

I was wrong.

There is never an ideal opportunity to refamiliarise oneself with Spider-Man: Maximum Clonage Omega.

Originally intended as the capstone to the infamous Clone Saga – at least, the bit of the Clone Saga that was going to wind up with the newly “I’m-a-clone”-ified Peter Parker going off into the sunset and Ben Reilly taking over as Spider-Man, although you’re a fool if you think that was ever really intended to be the end of the story – the six-part “Maximum Clonage” (topped and tailed by these ludicrously-named “Alpha” and “Omega” issues) is, quite simply, one of the most wretched and pointless exercises in the history of comics. Featuring the final stages of the irrevocable destruction of the character of Dr Miles Warren – turning the Jackal into a green, pointy-eared goblinny figure (yeah, like there aren’t enough of those hanging around Spidey) whose agenda has inexplicably shifted from “hate Spider-Man because he let the woman I loved die” to “I want to kill everybody on the planet and replace them with clones”, not to mention one of the most appallingly-conceived and named characters (”Spidercide”) ever unleashed by Marvel, it’s a confused mess on every conceivable level – and the scene in which Peter is confronted by thousands upon thousands of costumed clones of himself a genuine nadir in Spider-history.

But that scene had already taken place by the time Omega rolled around. And Omega is even worse. “Scripted” by Tom Lyle, an artist promoted to writing duties far beyond his horrendous level of inexperience simply because, it seems, no-one else would touch it (so he was the ’90s equivalent of Tony Daniel, in other words), the ludicrous plot is delivered by way of unbearably trite dialogue (”No! I think that you must still die.”), inane exposition (”No wonder I thought that I was the clone so easily.” “Oh, that? When I took the cell samples from you that I used to create your clones, I implanted that thought in your head while I was there.”) and page after page of tedious, circular events. The bomb’s going to go off! Look, it’s the Jackal! They’ve webbed up the Jackal! Quick, stop the bomb! Wait, the Jackal’s free, stop him! Get back to the bomb! Oh no, the Jackal’s free again! Gwen’s got his gun! She’s going to fall! No, he’s going to fall! It’s honestly enough to make you pound your own head against the wall. And it doesn’t even manage to achieve its stated aim – in the closing pages, the question of who’ll be Spider-Man afterwards is still, staggeringly, left wide open.

What really pushes this into “downright appalling” territory, though, is the art – honestly some of the worst work I’ve ever seen in a mainstream comic. I mean, you know, at least Ultimates 3 had Joe Mad going for it. An incredible four pencillers (including Mark Bagley, although I can’t see anything that actually looks like his work) and five inkers are credited on a 48-page comic (one telling, lest we forget, a single story – this ain’t an anthology), and so even if they were turning in good work, it’d still look as horrendously inconsistent as it does. They’re not turning in good work, though – not at all. Unclear storytelling, absolutely dreadful (and mostly distorted) character work from all concerned… I know that at this point the editors were in a tremendous rush just to get the thing out, but it honestly feels like an insult that anyone thought the work contained within these pages was worth charging people nearly five dollars for. Maybe they reckoned the chromium cover (oh yes) would make it worthwhile.

Is it the worst comic I’ve ever read, though? I’m not sure. Since I first read this I’ve read not only recent history’s Ultimates 3/Ultimatum, Titans and All Star Batman, but also things like Caitlin R. Kiernan’s Dreaming, and Tom Veitch’s Animal Man. Although to be fair, all the aforementioned had better art than this. Story-wise, though… well, it’s rotten, and trite, and pointless, but it’s a very comics-y kind of trite, and people have been churning out guff like it all over the place for years. It’s at least lousy in a more amusing way than the obnoxiously-bad-and-kind-of-proud-of-it work Miller and Loeb have been doing recently, and even Lyle probably can’t be blamed too much for pages that were apparently subject to a bajillion rewrites. In the end, an accolade such as “worst comic ever” is not one to give out lightly, and I’m not sure I’d ever be able to definitively state what I think that is. But I’m pretty sure you’d have to work hard to find something worse-looking – or with a worse title – than this.

Uncanny may have pulled out the big guns for this week’s crossover one-shot, but Warren Ellis’s more trade-paperback orientated sci-fi X-Men resolutely refuse to back down, in what’s easily the strongest issue of the present team’s run. After a series of extremely focussed issues, the writer finally combines action, character development and an unexpectedly conclusive resolution to the plotline in one satisfying package.

Cyclops and his first-choice team may have tracked down the source of the extra-dimensional mutant incursions plaguing the earth, but the culprit isn’t giving up any ground. Finding themselves being forced to play their chosen roles in the scheme, the team end up deploying a distinctly authoritarian trump card to save the day. Beast’s reflections on the outcome are familiar from the end of the ‘Shiftships’ arc of Ellis’s genre-defining superhero title, but there’s a memorable bit of commentary on the evolution of this franchise to allow such a dénouement- it’s a far more subtle than normal example of Scott Summers’ new philosophy affecting his entire team. The book’s guest star is well-handled, with a fitting resolution for a character that had become an unwelcome loose end in the broader tapestry of the X-verse. Interestingly, it took the X-Men’s most hard sci-fi approach in a long time to show the flaws of its resident engineer.

With the exception of a cover that appears to be demonstrating Cyclops’s new ‘laser sneeze’ secondary mutation, this is Simone Bianchi’s strongest work on the book. His departure from the title after this arc is understandable, given that Astonishing has effectively been operating on a bimonthly schedule, but he’s given us a more than memorable parting shot. I’ve been one of the artists defenders, but sadly some of the criticism has been proved right, as the simpler layouts imposed by time restrictions have resulted in more appealing art overall. There’s no loss of the lavishness that has characterised the creator’s work, but adopting a more squared-off panels shape during the second half of the issue really improves the storytelling, with events far more clear. Phil Jimenez is being drafted in for Ellis’s second arc, just as he once replaced Frank Quietly on the franchise, but Bianchi will certainly leave a lasting impression.

With the story smartly polished off, and no clumsy foreshadowing for the next arc, Astonishing is clearly targeted at the collected editions market. The sheer quality, however, is more than enough to make the serialized incarnation an essential purchase.

The last time there was a formal X-Men/Avengers crossover, we ended up with Bloodties, which was a complete mess best left forgotten. Sadly, if we’ve learnt anything from X-Men/Dark Avengers: Utopia, it’s that the 14 year abstention lasted that long reason.

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to like this. I really did. And to be fair, it’s not without it’s good moments. Fraction effectively portrays the confusion and bubbling tension of the anti-mutant march and the response to it, and the scenes between Cyclops and the San Franciscan Mayor are nice and sharp. It’s just that what surrounds them is such a disappointment that it’s hard to appreciate even the good bits.

Silvestri’s art is a major problem with the issue. It appears to be a real rush-job, with an art team that comprises 13 individuals besides Silvestri himself doing either pencil “assists” or inking. The book looks poorly-finished as a result, and even bits that are recognisably Silvestri display all the worst excesses of the man’s style, particularly in Emma’s ludicrous outfit and the downright hilarious posing that passes for “storytelling” in Silvestri’s world. Worse is that so much of the script relies on crowd scenes, where Silvestri’s inability to render more than two facial expressions really starts to show. Far better artists would struggle with the demands of the script. Silvestri positively buckles beneath them.

Sadly, the script itself isn’t without fault either. The twist ending borders on incomprehensibility, as Xavier’s involvement is revealed and Emma inexplicably changes costumes. Although billed as a co-starring book, the Dark Avengers are inserted largely as an afterthought. It is, for all intents and purposes, a regular X-Men issue guest-starring Osborn’s Avengers team. It’s unclear what, exactly, these guys are in the story for.

Whether or not the storyline will continue in this vein remains to be seen – it’s entirely possible that with the setup established, things will shift gears and become more satisfying, but it’s a highly debatable – and it already looks unlikely that things will reach the same level of excitement as the Messiah Complex crossover that actually kicked off this site in the first place.

Ever since the Spider-Man line imploded into one book 18 months ago, there’s been very little in the way of spin-offs and miniseries. There was the Secret Invasion mini, an annual, the Short Hallowe’en one-shot and two sporadically-published anthology titles. That’s not much room for an entire stable of characters to work with. Either way, Marvel have finally decided to lift the apparent embargo on Spider-Man spin-offs with, er, a miniseries staring Martin Li – aka, crime boss Mister Negative.

In fairness, Negative’s status as a crime boss in New York does naturally bring him into conflict with The Hood, and it’s for this reason that he’s being given his own series under the Dark Reign banner. Whether or not he’s interesting enough to support such a series so soon after his creation isn’t yet a proven quantity, though.

To the series’ credit, unlike most of the Dark Reign minis, this one does seem to have wider relevance in the ongoing tapestry of the Marvel Universe. It’s just unfortunate that it’s more related to the events in Amazing Spider-Man instead of the events of Dark Reign. Amongst other things, this issue tells readers Li’s previously unseen origin, which will presumably matter later on in Amazing Spider-Man. Beyond that, the action focuses on the Hood and Negative’s gangland war, though there is just enough time for Spider-Man appearance towards the end.

Pencils for the issue come from Gianluca Gugliotta. They’re decent enough throughout, though for obvious reasons there’s a definite sense that Gugliotta is favouring the pages that feature Spider-Man than elsewhere. There are some nice moments elsewhere, such as the White Dragon’s re-entry to his hideout, or the White Rabbit (no relation) action scene, but it’s not going to blow you away.

Although Van Lente does a lot to expand Negative’s character and backstory throughout the issue, there’s no denying that the appeal of the book lies mainly in seeing a lot of supervillain’s on the loose as much as in Negative himself. It’s not a harsh judgement to say that Mr. Negative is still not that interesting as a stand-alone character – a few more issues like this, though, and he might be.

It’s been a few weeks since we checked in on the middle act of the X-Men’s Messiah trilogy, but events in the year 3000 haven’t moved on as far as hoped. Where initially X-Force’s quick thinking and rapid twists succeeded in energising the crossover, recent issues have seen Cable “winning” with a leaden pace and some clunky storytelling. All in all, it seems that a scenario which would have made for a compelling four-issue arc has suffered because of its extended duration. In this sixth chapter, the scuffles in the citadel continue, but the more pressing dilemmas for X-Force come from outside of the main fight, with two members’ old acquaintances threatening to derail their mission.

As you’ll have guessed from the précis here, there’s a significant amount of padding in this issue, with only the subplots really moved forward. The instalment both starts and closes with Style having the upper hand over the heroes he surveys, while the discovery of the nature of the temporal interference and the re-powering of En Saab Nur constitute around five pages of story. It just goes to show that a book doesn’t have to be priced at four dollars to leave its readers feeling short-changed. The revelation of Deadpool having been controlled by Stryfe has absolutely no impact, with the undead mercenary continuing to act at will throughout. Little niggles persist throughout. After Elixir’s strangely low-key restoration of Cable’s psi-powers in the previous issue of this book, Duane Swierczynski makes reference to use of this power to stop the spread of Cable’s techno-virus, a development that will irritate both causal readers and fanboys.  Both parts of the audience will be puzzled as to how Cable was keeping the virus in check before Elixir restored his abilities, and for Askani’son fans that saw the character definitively purge the infection from his body in Cable & Deadpool, the lack of attention to detail is irksome.

Instead of any real plot development, we’re treated to another few pages of Cable versus Stryfe versus Wolverine versus Predator. There’s nothing wrong with a good fight, but we had this exact same tussle in X-Force a fortnight ago, and Ariel Olivetti’s static and overly posed imagery compares poorly with the dynamic and gripping work that Clayton Crain turned in during the previous chapter. Despite an impressive re-bulking of Apocalypse, Olivetti’s character likenesses have deteriorated from the star of the arc. There’s now little to distinguish between his Warpath and his X-23, while the moment of horror that should result from an eyeless Logan is instead rather comical, due to his deployment of black dots for eyes, Georges Jentry-style.

The main outcome of Messiah War seems to be to put the jewel in the X-line on hold for three months. Can I have X-Force back, please?