Eyeing ICON: In this week's "Permanent Damage," Steven Grant takes another look at the move of Powers and Kabuki from Image to Marvel's new ICON imprint:

"If nothing else, this shakes up the business a little at a time when shake-ups are desperately needed, and is a wake-up call to Image and other companies. It's time to get creatively competitive again. With all the chatter, it's still not clear what the Icon deal really is – are there advances, page rates, or does it duplicate the Image deal where the company pays nothing but publishing costs to be recouped off the back end, with any profits going to the talent? – but, at least at the moment, it seems likely it's back to the original Epic concept of an invitation-only 'prize' for select talent deemed valuable to the company. If that's the case, there won't be many wider repercussions. At least not unless creator-owned books make enough money and get enough media interest that Marvel's bosses come to believe them worth publishing for their own sake, and that's a big if."