The “Point NOW” issues take matters even further. A Point NOW issue, it seems, is what a title gets when even Marvel has too much shame to relaunch it. The issue is officially numbered something like #20.NOW, and it gets a bloody great #1 on the cover, to signify… what exactly? The solicitations for these comics offer unexplained gibberish such as “Avengers #24.NOW = Avengers #1 in all-new Marvel Now”. The reasonable reader, groping for meaning in this syntactic wilderness, might be forgiven for assuming that a Point NOW issue is at least a jumping on point of some description.

Such a reader might be surprised by this week’s two offerings. Guardians of the Galaxy #11.NOW boasts a huge #1 in the top right hand corner, but the story within is “The Trial of Jean Grey”, part 2. Yes, it’s a crossover with All-New X-Men, so it’s the first chapter to appear in Guardians. And yes, the first two chapters could technically be read in either order, since they show how the two different teams got to the same point. That’s a structure Bendis did to death in his Avengers events, though it makes more sense here, spread across two different titles. Even so, the bottom line is that it is the second part of the story to appear, and Marvel have stuck a #1 on the cover.

This is nothing compared to X-Men #10.NOW, which is billed as “Ghosts, part 1″, despite being quite plainly the continuation of the Arkela/Sisterhood storyline that began in issue #7. The issue opens with the resolution of mid-story cliffhangers from the previous issue, principally Monet having charged into battle alone and been beaten down by the villains. In the upcoming trade paperback edition, this issue will be “Muertas, part 4 of 6″. And even that storyline is a sequel to the original Arkela story from issues #1-3.

Nobody could describe this comic as the first issue of anything, however generously and broadly that concept is defined. It is, in reality, a middle chapter of a lengthy storyline. So why does it have a big #1 on the cover?