How to ruin a good comic

Rant time.
**spoiler alert: Annihilation**

I just got Annihilation #5. This mini has been excellent, and of the six comics I got today, this was first to be read. Pretty soon though, I was getting pissed off. Why? The volume of ads in it. I know ads are a commercial necessity, and for the most part I don't mind (much), but this issue it was overkill. There was 25 pages of comic (not counting the text based recap first page), and 22 pages of ads. I'm assuming this is more than usual, I really can't be bothered doing a comparison, but it just really got annoying, especially the placement of ads in crucial places, where the page turn should be a big reveal.

For instance, when Galactus gets freed from his restraints, something that had been building at the end of last issue, and on into the beginning of this. This is pretty much the event that will turn the tide of the whole story (I'm going on interviews with Keith Giffen). So we get this as the last panel on a page:


"Know me Annihilus. Know me and..."

*turns page*


"...order a pizza from your car"

Major anti-climax. Turn the page again, and there's a cool splash page of Galactus looking pissed and about to break things, and right next to it is an ad for Magic, with one of those annoying comic-format ads (that looks like it has panels), so it serves only to distract. If I hadn't been on a train when I read that, I probably would've sworn out loud. There's another spot with a double page ad just as Ronan busts his way into the Kree HQ, which totally killed the momentum of something that had been building since the Ronan prequel mini, 6 months ago.

Maybe Marvel expects everyone to rush out and buy the trade, just so we can see the story unmolested. In the interests of fairness (*puke*), maybe it really was just how the ad placements worked out, but I haven't been this irritated by, say, a DC comic, in recent memory. I might have a quick flick through IC just to compare.

It was a good story though.

[update] ok, so I just checked a couple of the DC comics I got yesterday (Blue Beetle and 52). One had 23 pages of comic, and 8 pages of ads, the other 22 and 9.
Make mine DC.