Word from the House of Ideas is that the new series from Kieron Gillen has been canceled as of March’s fifth issue. Most people would not mourn the loss of another X-Men spin off book, but this one was actually worth it.

- The landscape kept the book separate from all of the Nation X stuff going on in San Francisco. (Nation X isn’t an inherently bad idea, but we have enough books dealing with all that stuff.)
-While Beast is an interesting character he could never support a solo title and his pairing with Abigail Brand makes him even more adorable. It’s a better version of the Hank/Trish Tilby relationship from what seems like last year but is much more when I really think of it.
-Three words: Henry. Peter. Gyrich. I mean, come on, it’s Gyrich! It’s great and made better with his history with Hank.
-The role of S.W.O.R.D. keeps the doors open for a litany of great stellar guest stars, the first which was Death’s Head (admittedly, a high hurdle to jump had the book continued).

I could list a few more points about what made S.W.O.R.D. a fun read, but they would mirror the lists about other great but canceled books like Agents of Atlas or Nextwave. The scary part of this whole debacle is actually what it says about the industry as a whole and what Marvel and DC are as businesses. Since I have degrees in writing and philosophy and numbers both confuse and scare me, I’m going to pass the buck over to Greg Burgas at CBR to go in depth on the issues at hand.

Keep his words in your head the next time worthwhile books come out and you pass it up for another issue of a series you collect for no reason other than you have been for years.