10 Best Comics Cancelled Before Their Time
6. S.W.O.R.D.
S.W.O.R.D., otherwise known as Sentient World Observation and Response Department, made its first appearance in Astonishing X-Men #5 in 2004. The concept worked well enough such that Marvel greenlit an ongoing series in 2009, but it didn't run for as long as the creators might have liked.
Writer Kieron Gillen and artist Steven Sanders worked together on the series, which kicked off with the assignment of Henry Peter Gyrich alongside Abigail Brand, Lockheed and Beast, who were tasked with protecting the planet from alien invasions from their space station called The Peak.
In the opening story arc, Norman Osborn was in charge of the organization (as well as S.H.I.E.L.D.), and he was none too happy with their performance in not stopping the Secret Invasion event. The series would have continued with the struggle to keep Gyrich from deporting all aliens from Earth while Brand worked to stop him, but the series didn't make it past five issues.
Ultimately, it was canceled after the fifth issue hit the stands. The first issue managed to sell just under 22,000 copies, but the second issue saw a drop of nearly 7,000. That spelled death for S.W.O.R.D. It was later collected into a trade paperback titled S.W.O.R.D.: No Time to Breathe in 2012.