Mainstream comics should NOT try to deal with issues like these. They shouldn't. They just shouldn't. It NEVER works, and it always comes across as some kind of sermon. Especially in this storyline - it was about as subtle as a frying pan to the face. EVERY damn issue was like 'SMOKING IS BAAAAAAD, MM'KAY' underline underline underline exclamation point! The real world does not work like that - these are complex cultural issues that cannot be reduced to a soundbite. There are people who smoke for years and then quit cold turkey, there are people who smoke for most of their lives and live to see their hundredth year, there are people who keep a pack around for especially stressful occasions and otherwise are completely smoke-free - it's COMPLEX, and you are not going to make it any less so by annoying us with these stupid stories! On a separate but related issue, here's something else that bugged me about this - look at how MJ smokes here. This is another example of the 'frying pan to the face' here - every single panel where she's smoking has her dangling the cigarette from her mouth at a weird and offputting angle. Yoohoo, mister artist - this is MJ we're talking about here. A model. An occasional actress. A beautiful, glamorous woman. This woman has STYLE, is the point I'm making - she would NOT be smoking like a ten-dollar truckstop hooker! Beautiful, glamorous women do not smoke like that - I have never seen ANY woman smoke like that. I know, I know, artistic mandate - must make smoking look bad - but you're already doing that with the writing, for crying out loud; give MJ some of her dignity back. It's a small detail, but - oy.