Evidently the House of M reality warp is stronger than you might think.  An issue of NYX?  Really?  Has hell frozen over?

For those of you keeping track at home, NYX proudly claims in its indicia that it's published monthly.  But it hasn't quite lived up to expectations.  Issue #1 came out in October 2003.  Issues #2 and #3 followed with indecent haste in November and December.  Issue #4 didn't come out until May 2004, and issue #5 hit the shelves last October.  An attempt was made to blame the delay on the need to replace original artist Joshua Middleton, which goes some way to explaining the delay between issues #4 and #5, but does nothing to explain the nine month gap since the last issue. 

Look, everyone accepts that from time to time things go off the rails and schedules are not achieved.  But, barring severe illness or family tragedy, there can be no justification for taking nine months to produce a normal issue of a supposedly monthly comic.  It's incompetent.  It's unprofessional.  It's inexcusable.  This is not a frigging cottage industry.  You people do this for a living.  If I missed a deadline by a factor of nine, I would expect to do a hell of a lot of apologising about it.

There's a recap on page 1.  There ought to be a grovelling apology beneath it.  There isn't.

Reviewing the actual story is a waste of time at this point.  Six issues into what's now retroactively a seven-issue miniseries, Quesada is still introducing the cast.  It's achingly obvious that we're going to get a seven issue opening act, stretched over two years, and that we'll never see the rest of the story.  Unless you're a completist, it's hard to think of any good reason to buy the comic.  Even if you are a completist, it's hard to think of a good reason to spend the time reading it.

Rating: C-

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