So Captain America is alive again. Or will be. Or was somewhen and is coming back.

Who does he think he is? Jean Grey?

Actually I love the idea of the bullet locking his body in time and space at the point of his apparent death, causing him to come unstuck from the normal flow of time. Though how that causes his awareness to bounce around his personal timeline, well, I’m not sold on that yet, but I suppose it will enable him to leave messages for his teammates in the future. I’ll have a double helping of Deus Ex Machina please, hold the Exiles. We don’t want Cap working with the dirty mutants, just because he may be ‘unstuck in time’.

Despite the fact that I honestly think Cap could have stayed dead for a lot longer than this IMHO. Still it serves to balance what I have seen as a symbolic deficit with Marvel.

Now I’ve stated that the Secret Invasion issues were weak, concentrating on action at the expense characterisation in the main series. However, the story itself was a good one, as indeed is Dark Reign.

But come on. The ‘Embrace Change’ flyers going out during the Democratic Primaries and during the US election itself? Followed by the Dark Reign? Hell no, can’t read any symbolism there.

That’s either very clever (and nasty) marketing, or someone has a very evil sense of humour. So, Obama’s not the Anti-Christ after all, he’s a Skrull! (The fact that Stan Lee was a contributor to Hilary Clintons campaign has nothing to do with it all.)

Politics not withstanding, the Dark Reign storyline is proceeding along nicely, giving us looks into various dark corners of the Marvel universe. It’s good to see Dormannu taking a hand in earthly politics though the Hood. But what is really rocking my boat is Emma Frosts involvement in the Cabal.

We are led to believe that Emma has finally shown her true colours. However, as with anything to do with the White Queen, I truly doubt it is as simple as that. The Dark Avengers/X-Men Utopia-X crossover, coupled with the new ‘Dark’ X-Men series finally promises to do what only the Decimation did, and finally change the face of mutant politics.

I’m holding out for the hope that Emma is still on the side of the angels. After all her agenda has never been that far from Xaviers, protect mutanity at all costs.

Still, we’ll just have to wait and see.