Ridiculously late, I know, but then I didn’t actually get a chance to read any of these books until yesterday.  Such is the fate of those who rely on a combination of Diamond and the postal service.

Batman & Robin #11 – “The Return of Bruce Wayne begins here!”, says the cover, which is an odd thing to put on the second part of a storyline, but that’s DC for you.  In this issue, the new Batman continues to explore the underground bits of Wayne Manor, while Robin teams up with a bloke in a mask to fight some baddies.  Is the bloke in the mask Bruce Wayne?  Probably not, because that’d be a bit obvious.  As I feared, now that we’re getting to the obligatory mechanics of returning to the traditional Batman set-up, this really isn’t anything particularly special.  Part of the problem, I suspect, is that we’re now getting into the territory of established villains like Damian’s mother wandering about, and she’s a character I neither know nor care about.  And neither knowing nor caring about major characters is… an issue.  It’s fine, it’s well paced, it’s efficiently handled, it just doesn’t grab me.

Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love #6 – The concluding part of the miniseries.  I’m not sure this has really worked.  Partly, that’s because three Fables titles a month is stretching it, particularly when the third one is lagging so far behind in continuity that it’s evidently been tied up in development for an age.  But mainly it’s because the basic conceit of Cinderella as a Bond-style spy isn’t sustained effectively for the whole series.  The problem here is that they’ve ended up doing a story about a spy for the Fables universe, but that character doesn’t have a great deal to do with Cinderella, and so when they wheel out bits of Cinderella’s background, it feels rather forced.  And that means that the “characters from fables in the modern world” routine has been done better by the parent title.  Shawn McManus’ art is excellent, and the story itself is acceptable, but it doesn’t quite pull off the admittedly tricky task of blending these two ideas.

Deadpool & Cable #25 – Or just Cable #25, if you go by the indicia.  It goes without saying that Deadpool is overexposed to the point of self-parody these days, and Marvel seem to be trying to make a virtue of necessity by turning that into a joke in its own right.  So here’s Deadpool to bid farewell to a series he never really appeared in.  That said, while this is notionally the final issue of Cable, it’s actually more of a coda to the Cable & Deadpool ongoing series that preceded it.  It’s a flashback story, with Deadpool helping Cable out during the “Messiah Complex” crossover and fending off the baddies while Cable gets to safety.  It’s quite a nice way of bringing the book full circle, but it’s not really enough of a story to justify an entire issue.  Deadpool is in full-blown fourth-wall mode here, by the way, not only lamenting the demise of their partnership but berating the fact that there’s still been no adequate explanation of why anyone regards Hope as important.  It’s almost as though they’ve belatedly figured out that they botched that one.  Best viewed as a one-shot wrapping up Cable and Deadpool’s erratic relationship, and it’s not really a storng enough story to recommend even on that level, but it’s not without its charm.

S.H.I.E.L.D. #1 – Jonathan Hickman and Dustin Weaver’s new series is thoroughly odd, recasting S.H.I.E.L.D. as a sort of Marvel Universe version of the Illuminati who’ve been secretly protecting the world from alien invasions and such like all the way down the centuries.  The framing story is set in the fifties; it’s about a guy called Leonid being recruited into the organisation.  But much of the issue is given over to flashbacks as diverse as Imhotep fighting the Brood and Leonardo da Vinci taking on Galactus.  While it’s certainly a Marvel Universe title in the sense that Marvel’s own mythology is deeply embedded into it, it’s not a superhero book in any normal sense.  Hickman’s indie work has generally been more eccentric than his relatively conventional Marvel books, but here he seems to be going off the deep end into something genuinely odd.  At the same time, it also has the best feature of his Fantastic Four stories, which is his willingness to take a thoroughly insane concept and run with it.  It’s too early to judge it as a story, but as a set-up issue establishing a truly demented premise, it works.  Admittedly, my sense of intrigue is somewhat undermined by the fact that I can’t imagine something like this lasting a year in the current market.  But presumably all involved are sufficiently alive to the commercial realities that they’ve got a good self-contained story lined up for the first few issues.  On the principle that “it’s bound to get cancelled” risks being a self-fulfilling prophecy, I’m going to stick with this one for a bit.

Spider-Man: Fever #1 – Artist Brendan McCarthy writes and draws a three-issue miniseries for the Marvel Knights imprint.  Despite the title, in spirit it’s more of a Dr Strange story with Spider-Man as a guest star.  Weird magical stuff escapes from a weird insect dimension and steals Spider-Man’s soul; it’s Dr Strange to the rescue.  The story is functional, but that’s not really the point.  This is McCarthy paying homage to Silver Age Steve Ditko by teaming up his two best known creations and going to town on the psychedelic landscapes in the same way that Ditko did.  It’s incredibly stagey at points – some of Strange’s dialogue is downright stilted – but that’s probably deliberate.  Some comics really are just an excuse for the artist to go nuts, and some artists are interesting enough to make that a good enough reason to put out a comic.  And this is an example.

Turf #1 – We’re going to talk about this on the podcast this weekend, but this is the miniseries by Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards.  Now, while Jonathan Ross may be unknown in America, he’s a major star in Britain (think a younger David Letterman and you’re on the right lines), and even though he’s a well known comics fan, he’s a very big name celebrity to actually write one.  And he seems to be serious about it, too – he’s been doing the publicity rounds to promote the book, and he never does the publicity rounds himself.  For American audiences, of course, it’s an Image miniseries by an unknown writer and a well-respected artist.

So.  Any good?  Actually, on the whole, yes, it is.  The high concept is a turf war in prohibition-era New York between gangsters, vampires and, um, aliens.  But it’s played mostly straight – or deadpan, if you prefer – as a historical drama, with a dash of knowing absurdity.  Needless to say, Edwards is good at that.  It’s got an unusually rounded moral attitude to prohibition (yes, it’s a stupid law, but you are supporting organised crime…), and the gangster vampires are a fun idea.  On the downside… it’s probably a bit too dense, it’s very wordy (even Mark Millar’s characteristically enthusiastic afterword suggests a Don McGregor influence), and the tone is uneven, with occasional lurches into B-movie that don’t quite sit with the rest of the story.  But yes, it’s really quite decent, and a lot better than I was expecting.

Uncanny X-Men #523 – Part two of “Messiah Complex”, and fortunately we’ve got Terry and Rachel Dodson on art for this arc.  So not only is there brightly-coloured fighting, but it’s pretty and the characters are alive.  It’s a pretty good issue, too.  Part one set up the basic formula of the bad guys chasing Cable and Hope.  Fraction has fun with that here, as Hope gets used to a pre-apocalyptic society for a change, albeit one where everyone’s still shooting at her.  But he also introduces the second strand of the story, which is that all the dubious decisions Scott’s taken as leader of the X-Men over the last few years are evidently going to come home to roost.  X-Force have just been exposed, and the cuddly members of the group are thoroughly disconcerted.  Of course, they can’t exactly walk out now, what with the baddies trying to kill Hope… so they’re stuck with Scott for now.  And all this leads me to think that maybe recent commenters were right in suggesting that Scott’s the one in line for the chop here.  The build to this point has been decidedly erratic, but I’m still interested to see where it’s all heading, so job done, I suppose.

Wolverine: Weapon X #12 – The second part of “Tomorrow Dies Today”, in which timetravelling Deathlok cyborgs from the future come back to kill off leaders of a future rebellion – specifically, guest star Captain America.  Meanwhile, in the future, a band of rebels try to take down the Roxxon Corporation.  So… Terminator crossed with “Days of Futures Past”, then?  It’s fine, but it doesn’t have the inventiveness of the previous issue, and ends up getting a little more caught up in the cliches.

If you care to check one post down, you’ll find this week’s House to Astonish podcast, in which Al and I discuss Nemesis, The Guild and the X-Men: Second Coming one-shot.  Or if you want to stick around here, I’m going to run through this week’s books, along with the X-books I skipped over last week.

Incidentally, it’s been a while since I’ve had time to do any reviews of entire storylines, but I’m planning to get back to that sooner or later with the stories that just wrapped up in Uncanny and X-Force.  And yes, that means I’m skipping a few minis and minor story arcs in B-titles, but hey, that’s just the wonder that is life.

Cloak & Dagger – A one-shot from Stuart Moore and Mark Brooks which seems to serve the primary function of extricating Cloak and Dagger from the X-Men.  They only joined the team less than a year ago, during the “Utopia” crossover, and they’ve done pretty much nothing since beyond aggravating Uncanny X-Men‘s cast bloat (though to be fair, at least Daniel Way used them in Wolverine: Origins).  They always seemed suspiciously like much-loved characters who’d been hauled out of limbo for a book where they didn’t belong – they’re not even mutants, for heaven’s sake – so I can’t say I’ll miss them.

In this issue, Dagger angsts about whether she belongs with the X-Men (hint: no), while Cloak tries to reconnect with his roots by, um, looking normal and hanging out in South Boston with another girl.  It’s a very odd version of Cloak, who’s not often shown hanging around on street corners in a hoody, and I can’t help thinking it misses the point badly.  He’s supposed to be much odder than that.  The art certainly misses the point – Dagger is supposed to be light and Cloak is supposed to be absolute darkness, so why the hell is he glittery?  As for the plot, there’s a somewhat interesting idea about a group trying to persuade people not to use their superpowers, in a fairly obvious analogy for giving homosexuals “therapy” to make them straight.  Unfortunately, it’s the sort of story that only really works in a Marvel Universe where there are low-level superhumans all over the place, and we haven’t had that since M-Day.

There is a nice closing scene between the two stars, but overall it’s a wonky story that doesn’t really get them right.

Dark Wolverine #84 – This is the final part of Dark Wolverine‘s tie-in to Siege – next month, it’s a crossover with Wolverine: Origins, as that book builds to its conclusion.  Dark Wolverine is decidedly hit and miss, and this issue isn’t exactly heavy on plot, but it does have some good ideas about the character.  Stuck in Asgard with a bunch of random HAMMER soldiers, Daken tries to be a proper leader for them – not because he’s a born hero but because he wants their respect.  Unfortunately for his ego, it turns out that none of these people have much time for him as a leader; they don’t trust him, they don’t like him, and his inspirational speeches fall flat.  Now, that’s a somewhat interesting direction for the character – instead of making him a conventional hero, his motivation is to prove that he can do it.  I can see something in that.

Alongside that, there’s some rather more garbled stuff about fate.  What does Daken have to do with Asgard?  Well, nothing, but in an attempt to link this to his character somehow, Daniel Way and Marjorie Liu have chosen to confront him with the Fates.  Since Daken’s very big on self-determination, he doesn’t much like this idea, and refuses to play along with his destiny.  The pay-off is for Daken to realise that his fate is determined by who he is, and so there’s not necessarily a contradiction.  He’s not on rails; he is the rails.  Nice idea, but not very clearly explained, and certainly not very effectively dramatised.  Still, I like the way they’re heading with this book.

New Mutants #11 – Another Siege tie-in, this time picking up on the stray plot thread from the “Utopia” crossover where Hela briefly turned Dani into a Valkyrie again.  If you don’t remember that bit, well, that’s because it was thoroughly unnecessary background clutter that added nothing to the story.  But it happened.  And as this issue points out, it doesn’t strictly make sense, because the Valkyries took people to Valhalla, not to Hel.  The guest creative team, Kieron Gillen and Niko Henrichon, try to turn that probable blunder to their advantage by having Hela call in the favour and despatch Dani to Asgard to sort out the dead.  It’s a decent issue – there’s a good use of an obscure piece of Norse mythology, and a clever set-up based on the idea that everyone assumes Hela must have an ulterior motive.  And Henrichon’s art is great – slightly sketchy, but clear and effective.  It’s obviously a diversion for the series, and it’s peripheral to Siege as well, but it does at least find a proper story of its own to tell within that framework.

Uncanny X-Men #522 – A single-issue story nestling between “Nation X” and “Second Coming”, this is Kitty Pryde’s big return to Earth.  Matt Fraction works hard to make this a dramatic and emotional moment, but you really do have to swallow an awful lot in order for this story to work.  Kitty’s in a magic space bullet big enough to destroy planets… it’s travelling at the speed of light… and Magneto, who was struggling with his powers just a couple of issues back, can apparently yank the whole thing back to earth?  Really?  Because, er, no.  I don’t know where to start with the ways in which this set-up makes no sense – why didn’t Kitty starve to death months ago?  This isn’t really Fraction’s fault; he’s inherited a Joss Whedon plot element that doesn’t really fit with what he’s doing, but has to be dealt with in order to get Kitty back into circulation.  And it’s perhaps telling that he’s chosen to do it in a single issue rather than devote a storyline to it – he’s biting the bullet, if you like, and getting it over with.  If you can muster the staggering quantities of suspension of disbelief needed accept the basic premise of this story, then the rest isn’t bad at all.  Guest artist Whilce Portacio’s work is rough around the edges, but it’s not bad, and he does a good Magneto.  There’s also a back-up strip with art by Phil Jimenez that takes Whedon’s idea from another angle, as another planet sees Kitty’s bullet speeding towards them and braces for the worst.  It’s a good story, perhaps because it gets to take the “space bullet” story on its own terms, but doesn’t have to deal with it so closely as to expose it to scrutiny.

Wolverine: Origins #46 – You know, you could have just reprinted Mariko Yashida’s Official Handbook entry and run a story in the other 20 pages.

Oh, alright, that’s a little unfair.  But this issue basically consists of Daniel Way and Scot Eaton recapping the relationship between Wolverine and Mariko Yashida.  There’s a bit of reinterpretation, so that Wolverine can feel a little more guilty about it, but when you get down to it, it’s a clip show.  In fairness, there’s some logic to this – we’re talking about stories from 15-30 years ago, so presumably it’s new to a lot of people.  And if it’s going to be important to the closing storyline – because this is billed as a prologue to “Reckoning” – then it ought to be properly explained.  But for those of us who read it the first time round, it’s rather repetitive.

X-Factor #203 – Uh-oh.  I don’t remember reading this.  And I just flicked through it, and it turns out I did.  That ain’t good.

Monet is being held prisoner in South America and is having nightmares about Penance – and to give credit, Peter David gets the idea across without allowing the story to be bogged down in that storyline’s arcane, convoluted continuity.  Meanwhile, Guido is looking for her, and he’s secretly in love with her.  Good art, interesting choice of a villain from a completely unrelated corner of the Marvel Universe, but it just doesn’t grab me.

X-Force #25 – The final part of “Necrosha-X”.  Since X-Force is going straight into “Second Coming” after this, it’s worth pointing out that “Necrosha-X” isn’t really a crossover at all – it’s an X-Force storyline which a couple of other books happened to use as a backdrop.  In fact, it continues a number of X-Force storylines about Selene, Wither, the Transmode Virus and so forth.

But is it any good?  No.  No, it isn’t.

Selene is absorbing the power of all the undead mutants so that she can turn herself into a god.  Fair enough, at least it hits the reset button on most of those revivals and clears the decks.  So, X-Force have to fight her.  And, uh, they do.  But they do it wearing facepaint, because that makes it deep or something.  There are some showdowns with Selene’s henchmen which at least try to seem as though character arcs are building to a climax, but basically it’s just a fight scene.  And it’s a fight scene drawn by Clayton Crain, which means it’s murky, there are no backgrounds, and sometimes you can’t even tell who is who.  It’s really quite bad.  At least the writers are making a real effort to give it some dramatic weight, but it doesn’t work.

X-Men Forever #20 – Sabretooth’s really not having a great time of it in this series, is he?  This is the second half of a two-parter with Gambit, Sabretooth and co taking on the mysterious Consortium, and it’s basically an action issue.  A pretty well executed one, too – Graham Nolan isn’t a very flashy artist, but he’s solid, and Chris Claremont knows how to put these things together.  The big event this issue, though, sees Claremont unveiling the mysterious villain behind the Consortium, and once again, it’s the sort of thing he could never have done in the real Marvel Universe.  So, yes, we’ve drifted hopelessly far from the advertised concept of “what would have happened if Chris Claremont hadn’t stopped writing the X-Men in 1991” – but probably for the best, because we’re actually getting a version of what Claremont could have done without having to worry about screwing up the Marvel Universe for everyone else.

X-Men Origins: Nightcrawler – Mystifyingly branded in the solicitations as a “Second Coming” tie-in, this shows no signs of being any such thing.  But if it is somehow connected to “Second Coming” then that’s a problem, because this thing drives a coach and horses through continuity.  It has Kurt as a drugged-up sideshow freak instead of an acrobat (the established version of history is that he quit the circus when a new owner suggested it), it has him meeting Professor X in a completely different way from what we saw in Giant-Size X-Men #1, it has him taking the surname Wagner at the same time… it’s an absolute mess.  In fairness, at least it tries to come up with some explanation for Kurt’s Catholicism – which doesn’t exactly seem like a tradition that would have appealed to Margali Szardos.  But this isn’t the movie version of Kurt’s history, and it’s not exactly earth-shattering stuff taken on its own merits, so you have to wonder what on earth the point is.

X-Men: Second Coming – The spring crossover kicks off with this opening one-shot by X-Force writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost, with art from David Finch.  Cable and Hope have finally made it back to the present day, and, well, it looks like everyone’s going to be chasing them for the next twelve issues.  But on a weekly schedule, that’s fine – “Second Coming” will raise through the story, and if they can keep up the pace, they’ll probably get away with it.  As I said on the podcast, what really matters about “Second Coming” is whether it can open a way out of the X-books’ creative culdesac; if it can be entertaining at the same time, that’s a bonus.  This story at least goes out of its way to set up Hope as the possible solution to M-Day, but let’s not forget that they promised much the same thing with “Messiah Complex” and “Messiah War”, both of which were ultimately unsatisfying because they ended up in a holding pattern and didn’t really change anything.  “Second Coming” has been billed as the final part of a trilogy, so you’d figure they have to get it right this time and something will actually happen… but to be honest, I have no faith that it will.  Still, this has people running around and fighting, and David Finch’s art has plenty of drama to it – he’s come a long way since the days when they started pushing him as a major artist, though he’s still clearly in the shadow of Marc Silvestri’s influence.

I quite like it.  It’s just that, if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t truly believe it’s going anywhere.  Go on, prove me wrong.  Please.