5 out of 5

A ridiculously perfect standalone issue.  Normally I’m not a fan of the “pause” issue, where a guest artist steps in and we flash back or something while the main plotline goes on hold for a month, but King’s execution of it – well, first off, it matches the generally contemplative tone of the series thus far, and secondly, perhaps more importantly, it actually is a logical beat for the story to take.

One of King’s unique methods of “breaking” a story seems to be to set its action in the background, moving all of our focus to characters responses before and after what would otherwise be splash page moments.  With the truth of the Reaper exposed, it pays to contemplate The Vision’s motivations for creating his family, and what may have triggered his wife to behave the way she did.  But how to accomplish that without spoonfed exposition?  Issue #7 accomplishes that with a pause, which, as per the story-telling method described, isn’t all that different from what this book has been doing the whole way through: thinking about events as they churn between panels.  Guest artist Michael Walsh has a humorous cold open of V and Scarlet Witch in bed together, sitting up, staring seemingly awkwardly away from each other.  SW’s appearance immediately sets us in the past (or in a dream) without having to say “X years back” or whatever.  The two share a pretty funny joke, sliced up into beats of responses (Walsh’s wide-eyed Vision is spooky perfection), and then the narrative slips its way forward, bit by bit, piecing its way up to a reveal that most readers had already guessed at but is effectively, emotionally earned by this issue’s telling.  And then we end up back in the present, un-pausing for next issue, with a scene in bed with V and his wife that echoes that first panel.

King’s first arc pushed us to ask what “normal” was, and many of us were blown away but I was cautious in my praise, worried about how / if this would end up getting rolled into the big Marvel machine.  But regardless of how it turns out, issue #7 is King having his smart narrative cake and eating it too: nothing can change this bottle episode.  It can stand alone forever as a testament to the amazing possibilities of the genre.