Meanwhile, over at the big event of the year, things are finally starting to happen.  Honest!

This is the unavoidably "gathering of the forces" issue, where Little Miss Plot Device is paraded around the world and restores everyone's memory.  And that's basically your issue right there.  Once again, the big complaint about this series has to be pacing.  In all fairness, of course, it's not on a monthly schedule and it can afford to take a little more time about things.  But even so, surely by issue #5 of 8 the heroes should have made a bit more progress than this.

But while the pace may be languid, the individual scenes are still pretty good.  There's a nicely underplayed moment as Scott and Emma wonder why on earth they're married to one another, which raises the obvious "Where the hell's Jean Grey?" question without hammering it.  Presumably this story subscribes to the view taken in Phoenix - Endsong, that Scott has genuinely moved on.  The scene with the heroes deciding not to bother disturbing an octogenarian Captain America is nicely done as well, leaving it suitably ambiguous whether Layla ignored orders and did it anyway.  (Although if she did, it'll beg the question of how Emma failed to notice.)

Not surprisingly, Bendis devotes tons of space to Peter Parker's moment of realisation.  And as you might expect, Peter's not exactly happy about it.  I don't really buy his reaction, though - Peter, of all people, should be the one to make the argument that this world is actually an improvement in a lot of ways, so what the heck.  It's a pleasant enough world as long as you're not too concerned about freedom of speech (and most of the public aren't because they don't use it), so somebody really ought to be putting that view forward.  Dramatically, Layla might have been a good bet, come to think of it.  Anyhow, at the very least, it seems excessive for Peter to start ranting about how he wants to kill the bad guys.  It's just off key for the character.

Still - once again, there's a lot to like here, and the details are generally pretty good.  It's the bigger picture that remains a little lacking, as the book still doesn't seem to be generating momentum even with three issues still to go.

Rating: B+

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