Destroyers, a five-issue miniseries written by Fred Van Lente with art from Kyle Hotz (The Hood), has been canceled, the latest victim in Marvel's apparent war on minis.

Marvel recently Nick Spencer and Becky Cloonan's Victor Von Doom a week before it was set to debut, and Alpha Flight got the axe just days after Marvel announced that it was upgraded from a miniseries to an ongoing title. All Winner's Squad was a loser; the metatextual World War II tale had the unique distinction of being cancelled halfway through it's run.

What's the deal with Marvel and minis?

It's not hard to guess. Marvel, the sales leader in the direct market since forever, has fallen way behind DC for two months in a row, and it has been flooding the market with superfluous titles since - well, since forever. I would have looked to a few of the really awful ongoing series that have no reason to exist like Wolverine: The Best There Is to trim the fat, but sadly Marvel has instead canceled what looked like a promising premise: a five-issue series pairing modern monstrous heroes like The Thing, She-Hulk and The Beast with the Golden Age hero The Destroyer.

That makes three Van Lente projects in recent weeks that are ceasing publication, with this month's Van Lente/Pak written Herc ending this month with issue #10.