Issue(s): Marvels: Eye of the Camera #5
Cover Date: Jun 09
Title: "A whole lot of paper"
Credits:
Kurt Busiek & Roger Stern - Writer
Jay Anacleto - Artist
Jeanine Schaefer - Associate Editor
Tom Brevoort - Editor
Joe Quesada - Editor-in-Chief

Review/plot:
The UHBMCC has a note about this series saying that this series was announced in Wizard Magazine #0 in 2003 and was originally going to be published in 2003 or 2004. In fact it wasn't published until 2009. The original plan was for the final issue of the series to have Secret Wars II as the topic. The reason i bring this up is because last issue, which focused on Secret Wars II, almost felt like a happy ending, with Silver Surfer's healing of the wound in the Earth working as an overt metaphor that turned Phil Sheldon's life around, giving him a reason to go on living. It did then give us a final page showing us that Sheldon's cancer had metasized, but if not for that, last issue could have been a happy ending for Phil. Instead, we begin here with Phil's cancer having returned and his optimism about the Marvel heroes now looking more like a brief blip than a turning point for Phil's attitude, and we now return to the concerns about the Dark Age of comics.

Actually, this story is more personal. Definitely tragic, focusing on Phil succumbing to cancer...

...and losing the ability to work on his second book and especially continue to take new photos.

It's a human story, and while it hits all the beats you'd expect of a disease of the week tragi-drama, Kurt Busiek's scripting is perfect, and the way he blends it into the various Marvel events going on during this period shows that he's both a great big continuity geek but also an excellent writer.

One of the ways this differs from, say, Jim Starlin's Death of Captain Marvel is that Sheldon doesn't see himself as the star of his story and he was never a hero, so he begins to question if his life's work has any value.

Hey, i feel you, buddy. At least you actually took those pictures and aren't just uploading scans made by other people.

A surprise at the end of this issue as Maggie, the little mutant girl from Marvels #2 shows up in Phil's hospital room.

Sheldon generally has a positive opinion about the Marvels again and is back to complaining that most people tend to turn on them on a dime...

...but we do get a few negative reactions from him that could be construed as Dark Age criticism. The first is about X-Factor, and on an in-story level that still fits fine with Sheldon's philosophy; it's humans preying on mutant hysteria. But we readers know the truth about that.

The second is Sheldon's reaction to the current team of X-Men, after he spends much of the book defending mutants.

As i've said before, Jay Anacleto is not Alex Ross and the focus here is on Phil Sheldon's life, not the spectacle of the Marvels (most of the super-hero appearances are on television). It's impossible to not make the comparison but Anacleto's art is fine for this story.

Quality Rating: A

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: As always, i place this after the last reference in the book (see below), which is the Mutant Registration Act announcement. I'll note that the reports on Crystal and the hot-dog vendor don't necessarily mean that the issues they reference to have to take place on the same day as the X-Men issue, but it does mean that Fantastic Four #308 takes place before or during Uncanny X-Men #224. The next issue of this series seems to begin soon afterwards, but it covers the events of Fall of the Mutants so i'm pushing it a little further down.

References:

• A news report showing the conclusion of the Hulk's battle with the Avengers from Hulk #322 ends with quotes from people asking why they had to lose their town and why the Avengers didn't show up sooner. This gets back to Phil Sheldon's longstanding "one minute the world cheered its heroes. And the next, they were savaging them again" complaint.
  
• The last photo Sheldon ever takes is of "the original X-Men" fighting Tower at the airport, from X-Factor #4. He notes that around the same time, a new bounty hunter group called X-Factor had come into existence. He's later outraged that the news media can't figure out that the X-Terminators are the original X-Men. That's after watching a TV broadcast probably of the events of X-Factor #7. A little later, Sheldon says that "most people" don't know that the Beast from the Avengers is the same one from the X-teams.
  
• Later, Phil watches people protesting the Sub-Mariner's inclusion into the Avengers, not necessarily the same exact protest as the one in Avengers #270.
  
• J. Jonah Jameson's dispute with X-Factor after Amazing Spider-Man #282 is brought up in the context that Warren Worthington has been bankrolling them. The revelation about Worthington's money happened after X-Factor #9 (when Mystique says she's going to leak the info) and X-Factor #10 (where we see Trish Tilby reporting on it).
  
• Out to eat with his family, Phil Sheldon thinks that the last time he was at that restaurant, Count Nefaria tried to take over Washington DC, from Uncanny X-Men #22-23. He thinks about how if the Avengers had stopped him, they'd get a parade, but since it was the X-Men, they got no credit for it. He also thinks back to his personal encounter with the X-Men from Marvels #2. That's also when the Sheldon family briefly "adopted" the mutant Maggie.
  
• While eating at the restaurant, a "big cube" swallows Avengers Mansion, from Avengers #274, and Sheldon runs out to see it, supported by his daughter Jenny (but takes no pictures).
  
• Sheldon later complains that the pictures of the official debut of Four Freedoms Plaze from Fantastic Four #299 in Celebrity magazine aren't very good, and laments the cancer that prevented him from attending.
  
• Phil responds to Angel's death from X-Factor #15 by thinking that "some of my old photos were already beating me into the obituaries".
  
• Tracy Burke attempts to get Phil Sheldon to cover Magneto's second trial from X-Men vs. the Avengers #4, but he's too sick to attend. New coverage of the event notes Dazzler's film career ending when she was outed as a mutant in Dazzler: The Movie.
  
• One of the magazine covers on the wall behind Burke is the cover of Champions #1 (the other is a generic Thing cover with a "Misunderstood hero?" tagline).
  
• A really obscure one: while Sheldon is in the hospital, it's announced that Jim Albertson, a coach that appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #253, is retiring.
  
• Also on TV in the same scene is Crystal announcing that she's joining the FF. Per Jay's note below, this is a scene from Fantastic Four #308.
  
• And then an announcement of an upcoming interview with "a hot-dog vendor who was there when the Avengers suddenly appeared....", most likely at the end of Avengers #285.
  
• Even more obscure, an announcement that Megan McLaren, a reporter first seen in Thunderbolts #1, is subbing for Jevon Garret.
  
• The final announcement on the television is following up on the news from "yesterday" where Valerie Cooper and Freedom Force announced the Mutant Registration Act, from Uncanny X-Men #224.
  
• Some additional references based on Jay's comment below. Most represent incidental photos or newpaper articles:
  • Spider-Man exonerated - Amazing Spider-Man #186.
    
  • Sub-Mariner file footage incident - Sub-Mariner #39.
    
  • "Mayor accuses Spider-Man" over battle with Titania/Absorbing Man in - Amazing Spider-Man #283.
    
  • Sentinels attack in Manhattan - Uncanny X-Men #14.
    
  • FF Wedding - Fantastic Four Annual #3.
    
  • Galactus - Fantastic Four #49.
    
  • Sub-Mariner - Fantastic Four Annual #1.
    
  • Death of Gwen Stacy - Amazing Spider-Man #121.
    
  • Fantastic Four debut - Marvels: Eye of the Camera #1.
    
  • Yellowjacket at giant size - Avengers #140.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? Y

My Reprint: N/A