Civil War ends...

...and Mark Millar claims he's delighted with the online reaction to it. Either he's reading some very different websites from me, or Mark Millar takes full-scale backlash awfully well.

I'll review Civil War on Sunday - not because it's any good, but because you can spend so long picking it apart and working out where it went wrong that it deserves a full length piece. For those who haven't read it, head on over to Chris Sims' blog, where he's pretty much nailed the series. And remember, this is the book that Marvel seem to genuinely believe is a political metaphor.

For all the attempts that will undoubtedly be made to claim that, hey, the Internet is negative about everything, the mainstream message boards were hugely positive about the first few issues and only started turning on it when the Clone Of Thor turned up. And there's a pretty big contingent saying things like "You know, I really liked the series as a whole, but that final issue sucks." So, er, claiming that it's just the Internet being negative again really won't do. Marvel just hyped the book up to the hilt, and failed to deliver. People don't like the damn thing.

With this, and Civil War: The Return, and the lacklustre sales on the Spider-Man unmasking stunt (as in, they've gone down)... I'm really starting to think that we've entered the final phase of this editorial regime. Obviously it went into decline several years ago, but over the last few months it feels like they've gone into a tailspin of directionless flailing, combined with an inside-the-bubble delusion that everything's just fine.

It just feels like they're on their last legs. We shall see.