I’m several days late to Marvel’s announcement of an “extinction-grade threat” in its summer 2011 crossover Fear Itself — and we’ve never, ever heard that before — but this is going to be a story I’ll be sorry to miss. Getting married is expensive and doesn’t allow for comic collecting. (I need to cancel my Comixology subscriptions as an exercise in budgetary discipline.) Marvel hasn’t struck me as thinking big recently: Siege was a mess and the “Heroic Era” has been a placid, inoffensive, unexciting new-normal. Matt Fraction is one of comics’ best writers, so seeing him spin out an elaborate social commentary within the confines of Marvel’s apparent corporate-structured inability to identify particular demagogues ought to be a worthy exercise, but I’m afraid I’ll have to pick it up in the TPB post-wedding.

Oh, and by the way, THIS. I figure I can cancel all my subscriptions except for S.H.I.E.L.D. and still meet my budget. As long as Hickman is writing S.H.I.E.L.D., it’s worth reading.