It's a dumb rule. Comics have illicit sex, adultery, sodomy, wife beating, murder, hate crimes, racism, torture, genocide, vigilantism, terrorists, recreational drug use and pretty much anything else that can be imagined as bad to polite society... but smoking is too graphic. Right.
I just read an interview on comics, manga and graphic novels for kids and teens with JANA MORISHIMA of Diamond Dist. and she said the target audience for comics from all major companies is the 18-35 year old male. Joey Q is just anti-smoking and not concerned with protecting the young.
With that said I think he is doing a pretty good job overall. The universe seems more cohesive with unified story lines and not a bunch of disjointed little arcs in their own world. Disassembled, CW, Initiative, Planet Hulk, WWH, the new Skrull thing all marry together well, as do the last couple years of X-arcs. Even though he has killed off several characters that 5 years ago would have had in my top twenty-five favorites: Cap, JoHearts, Black Goliath, Namorita, Human Torch, Jean Grey and Nomad... but at least most meant something to the story. They didn't have to make Nomad a drunken, insane loser... Bucky could have killed him without degrading the character.
The only death that really bothers me is Jim Hammond, because it was in a lousy book, with horrible art and worse writing and then they cancel it the issue he dies, kind of a pointless death in a book no one read. I think a 60+ year old character deserved a little better even if he was just a B-list guy.
