i have LOVED 1985. i’m not a marvel zombie, i don’t have any cloudy retro love, but even i was drinking the kool-aid ron served when he picked issue 5. keep that in mind when i say that this ending was a little bit disappointing. a little bit disappointing – it didn’t suck, it didn’t ruin the series, it wasn’t awful – it was just a little bit disappointing.

i liked everything that happened when i look at the plot – last issue’s hinting at the coming of marvel heroes pays off in a nice way. and the storyline with toby’s dad and the past mystery gets a nice conclusion. and i’ll not say a bad thing about the art.

no, what spoiled this book for me was the pacing. we get the biggest kick in the ENTIRE SERIES in this book…on page 6. this makes everything that follows a bit anticlimactic. i think if the pacing had been shuffled around a bit, we could have had a much more satisfying conclusion. instead, what happens is a bit muddled and lacks the real final punch that this series deserved.

truth be told, i feel like the events in this issue could easily have been told over two issues, perhaps with better pacing, giving us some bigger “wow” moments.

that doesn’t change the fact that the ending works, storywise, even if i didn’t like the way it was told. and if you passed on this series, do yourself a favor and get it when the trade hits, even if you don’t like marvel. it’s just a really interesting story, for the most part told very well, with brilliant art.