Thought for the day: Kade Kilgore may seem like a wildly implausible character, but then, we do live in a world where Silvio Berlusconi got elected three times.

It’s the third anniversary of the House to Astonish podcast, and you’ll find that episode just one post down!  Meanwhile, after a fairly subdued few weeks, the X-office seems to be back up to full speed again.  But there’s also a couple of other major releases from Marvel…

Avenging Spider-Man #1 – A monthly comic by Zeb Wells and Joe Madureira!  Anyone seriously believe this is going to come out on schedule without a horde of fill-in artists by issue #6?  (As near as I can make out, his record for a book that actually came out on time was five consecutive issues of Uncanny X-Men.  And Salvador Larrocca had to help out on one of those.)

But cynicism, and awful title, notwithstanding, this de facto relaunch of Marvel Team-Up is quite good fun.

A team-up book featuring Spider-Man and other characters from the various Avengers franchises ought to be redundant, since they should already interact in the Avengers titles.  But since Brian Bendis’ approach to the Avengers is to import characters he likes and then give them literally nothing to do other than stand around in the background, there’s actually plenty of scope for Zeb Wells to let them interact here, and build a story around that, without treading on the toes of the main Spider-Man title.

This time, it’s Spider-Man and the Red Hulk, who arrive back in Manhattan just in time to find a bunch of Moloids attacking the New York Marathon.  It’s a straightforward story, and largely an excuse for Madureira to draw insane set piece sequences, and Wells to write snappy dialogue for the stars and J Jonah Jameson.  But on that level, it’s good stuff.  Madureira’s art seems to have taken on a Humberto Ramos influence with the distortion dialled back a bit, and it looks great.  He also does a good job of selling the idea that, while he might be an A-list character in our world, to the rest of the Avengers Spider-Man is their slightly annoying younger brother, and the local hero for Manhattan.  Jonah’s in full-on crazy mode here, but since it’s funny, who cares?

It’s a good enough read to overcome my cynicism, even if my rational mind still tells me it’s going to descend into scheduling chaos by spring.  I’ll stick with it longer.

Magneto: Not a Hero #1 – I wasn’t greatly looking forward to this miniseries; it’s not as if Marvel seem to be overflowing with creative ideas to justify all five of the ongoing monthly X-Men titles, let alone minis on top of that.  And while it’s by Skottie Young, who’s a great artist, he’s not drawing it; he’s writing it, for the rather more conventional Clay Mann.

But once again, I’m pleasantly surprised.  It’s a straightforward story: Magneto shows up at a small anti-mutant rally in Brooklyn and kills everyone in the room, on video.  The X-Men know that the real Magneto was on Utopia at the time, but actually proving that to anyone else could be a little tricky.  So Magneto is going after the impostor, whose identity is… well, already revealed in the solicitations for future issues, but since it’s treated as the big reveal, I’ll be generous and not say.  (Suffice to say that it’s the obvious candidate, but since he hasn’t been seen since the 1990s, I wonder whether the reveal actually works for newer readers.)

I rather like Young’s take on Magneto, who’s not the extremist he used to be, and no longer aspires to be in charge, but doesn’t even bother feigning sympathy for his doppelganger’s victims either.  Over the years, he’s become a character whose allegiance wavers all over the place, and there’s probably a worthwhile story to be done in pinning down quite why he’s now with the X-Men and how far he’s changed in doing so.  After all, Scott’s separatist agenda means that it’s as much a case of them moving in his direction.  The doppelganger’s role, from the look of it, is to contrast him with an old-school, Silver Age take on Magneto, and figure out where the real version stands in relation to that.

Mann’s art continues to improve; his style seems to be moving in the direction of Jim Cheung, with some lovely layouts and nice use of body language.  There’s a dream sequence here which doesn’t really play to his strengths – he’s more of a literal artist – but on the whole it’s good work.  Young’s writing is unexpectedly good as well, at least if you turn a blind eye to a rather out-of-character cameo by Pixie and Surge (though come to think of it, I suspect I’d rather read Young’s version of the characters).  It’s certainly a better use of your time than the lesser ongoing titles.

New Mutants #32 – Hmm…  apparently this came out in the last week of October, but it’s only just reached my store.  The fact that I failed to spot this last week when reviewing issue #33 is not exactly a glowing testament to my level of interest in the storyline, now is it?

This is the final part of the “Fear Itself” tie-in arc, in which our heroes defend Hela against ancient monsters until she can sort everything out and go to appear in the big finale elsewhere.  There’s frankly not much to it than that, and while the creators have clearly been trying to liven it up by taking advantage of the surrealist possibilities of stories set in the afterlife, the fact remains that it’s an artificial conflict shoehorned into the margins of a crossover that has no need for it.

David Lafuente only draws about half of this issue, and boy does it look rushed.  There’s still some nice dynamic layouts, but it’s very rough around the edges, and bits of it are wildly unclear – why do the Draumar suddenly turn into a black blur when they enter the castle, for example?  A splash page of the New Mutants getting power-ups from Hela seems to have confused even the colourist, by relegating everyone but Magma to the background, even though there’s nothing particularly important about her.  The other pages, by Robbi Rodriguez, are more conservative, but also much more polished and easier to read.  All told, not one of the series’ stronger issues.

Occultist #1 – We reviewed this on the podcast, but suffice to say that it’s a three-issue mini by Dark Horse following up on a pilot that came out last year (not that the comic does much to help you find that out).  In an unusual move, the character is a creation of Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson, but he’s brought in Hack/Slash‘s Tim Seeley to actually write it.  It’s a reasonably familiar set-up; ordinary guy gets magical artifact of Enormous Power, and then has to try and dig himself out of the consequences.  At this point in the story, Rob’s only debatably in control at all; he’s more reining in his powers than using them at his own initiative.

There are some questionably one-dimensional characters in here (I honestly can’t figure out whether Rob’s girlfriend is supposed to have been zapped by his powers in the previous issue, or whether she’s just a cypher), and some wholly gratuitous T&A in the opening pages.  And the lead character looks awfully like the Hood.  But it does pick up as it goes on; I particularly like the wonky mental block that he puts on the detective who’s investigating him, which only puts her off the scent at the last moment, so that she keeps showing up at his door and looking confused.  It’s coming together quite well by the end of the issue, but the whole package is somewhat flawed.

Point One – We were going to review Marvel’s “everything starts here” one-shot on the podcast, but to be honest, it’s really just a bunch of trailer stories for upcoming series.  That’s not to say some of them don’t seem promising, just that it didn’t really lend itself to discussing on the show.  Running through them: there’s a framing sequence with the Watcher, by Ed Brubaker (not somebody you immediately associate with Marvel’s cosmic stuff) and Javier Pulido.  Aside from serving the obvious linking function, it’s a teaser for some new villains.  As these things go, it’s quite inventively done.

Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness turn in some Nova pages which actually serve as the reintroduction of Phoenix.  The art’s patchy; the actual Phoenix reveal is done rather well, but god only knows what Terrax is meant to be reacting to at the start of page 2.  The dialogue, meanwhile, is tone deaf – who in their right mind tries to sell the dramatic annihilation of a planet with the words “epic fail”?  Since Loeb and McGuinness did these six pages, presumably they’re going to be responsible for the Phoenix story in 2012.  Not an encouraging thought.

David Lapham and Roberto de la Torre’s story is a trailer for Age of Apocalypse.  The conceit here seems to be that the Age of Apocalypse timeline is so firmly under mutant control that the humans are the oppressed ones, and so there’s a group of heroic underground resistance fighters made up of the likes of Donald Pierce and Graydon Creed.  The art’s pretty, but the story just feels gimmicky.

Chris Yost and Ryan Stegman spend their pages introducing the premise of Scarlet Spider, which is basically that Kaine, the Spider-Man clone, is no longer dying, and is now going to try and start his own life in Texas – though since he hasn’t become any nicer, he’s going to be a rather more violent version of Spider-Man.  It’s what you were probably expecting, in other words, but it’s done quite acceptably.

Fred van Lente and Salvador Larroca’s story introduces two completely new characters, Coldmoon and Dragonfire; they’re basically twins who were created by AIM but escaped.  There’s no indication of where this story is actually going to see print, but for a six page origin story, it’s quite nicely done.  Larroca’s art looks a bit less clean than I’m used to seeing from him, though that feels like it’s a deliberate change of style; not sure it’s an improvement.

Matt Fraction and Terry Dodson’s Dr Strange story is a trailer for Defenders, but actually gets a more-or-less satisfying story into its eight pages as well, which just goes to show what you can do with a bit of compression.  Judged as a story rather than a trailer, it’s the best thing here – frankly, it’s the only contribution which can be meaningfully judged as a story rather than a trailer, but even so, it sets up a good story hook and actually resolves it at the same time as plugging the upcoming series.

And then there’s seven pages of Bryan Hitch drawing Ultrons attacking New York in an alternate future, because there’s going to be an Ultron crossover in 2012.  I mean, there’s really not much that can be said about it beyond that.  It’s beautifully drawn, but it’s nothing more than a story fragment.

The bottom line is: it’s just a bunch of trailers, which would be fine if Marvel were selling it cheap to try and build interest for future stories.  By trying to sell it as a big deal in its own right, though, Marvel are really overreaching.  You don’t hype a book like this.  This isn’t the product.  This is the hype.  Really, they’d have achieved a lot more by running some of these stories as back-up strips across the line.  Selling them in an anthology at six dollars is, shall we say, ambitious.

Wolverine #18 – From the look of it, aside from tying up a loose end from the Manifest Destiny miniseries, “Goodbye, Chinatown” is Jason Aaron’s way of changing gears after a year of cumulative misery, and letting the book be fun again.  That’s fine by me, because it plays to his strengths as a writer.  Much of what happens in this book is plainly ridiculous: Wolverine teams up with Gorilla-Man and Fat Cobra (now there’s a random pair of guest stars) to battle a drug lord with a literal underground empire and a collection of dragons.  This means that artist Ron Garney gets to draw dragons, and also gorillas and kung fu.  It is not a story obviously aiming for emotional depth.  But that’s fine.

Okay, some of the fight scenes could use a bit of work.  The opening pages are a string of shots of random pairings of characters seemingly teleporting from one opponent to the next, with no real flow to them.  But the stuff with the dragons really is lovely.  It’s silly, but it’s good fun.

X-Force #17 – The penultimate chapter of the Dark Angel Saga, now in its eighth month (if you count the prologue, which you should).  And naturally, this is the point where the cavalry arrive and the tide turns, with the Age of Apocalypse X-Men showing up to help, while Archangel’s last henchmen fall away so that the heroes finally get to face him in the finale.  It’s all good classic storytelling, given a bit of more depth by the very clever way that Rick Remender and Jerome Opena have presented Archangel – instead of the using ranting maniac, he’s a calm, dignified, weirdly compassionate-seeming true believer in the virtues of global annihilation.  It’s a lovely way of reinvigorating an old idea.

There’s a flashback to Warren and Betsy’s first meeting that I could pick continuity holes in if I were so inclined, but I’ll let it pass.  Not quite sure about the costume for Evil Psylocke either, which is a bit too cliched for this book – though the callback to her Lady Mandarin headgear is a nice touch, assuming it’s deliberate.  All told, it’s another beautifully drawn issue of a well-constructed arc that’s building well, and managing not to outstay its welcome, despite taking the better part of a year to complete.  Perhaps the key thing is that the creators have managed to give the whole thing a sense of scale that makes the length feel justified – and enough clever details to keep each chapter interesting.

X-Men Legacy #258 – The final part of “Five Miles South of the Universe” (though not Mike Carey’s final issue, which is next month).  So this is the story where the heroes figure out a way of saving the space station from falling into the sun, defeat Friendless, and find a way back home.  All of which dutifully happens.

Considering that he’s the main villain for the arc, Friendless’ final defeat feels a little too abrupt to be truly satisfying.  The idea of him playing off both sides in a futile civil war seemed to be the core theme for this arc, but there’s a slight sense here of Carey having exhausted that thread and casting around for a way to wrap things up.  Of course, the story provides an excuse for the bad guy suddenly becoming beatable in the final act.  But it’s not one that really resonates with the rest of the arc, giving the scene a nagging sense of “time to go home now”.  Similarly, the solution to how the cast get back home is inventive, but kind of comes out of the blue.  Basically, it feels as though Carey couldn’t quite figure out how to tie the plot mechanics of his finale into any of the actual themes of the story.

But the characters are well written, and the Shi’ar scavenger crew are as entertaining as usual.  Steve Kurth’s art is solid throughout, and colourist Brian Reber does an excellent job of selling the conditions by cranking up the yellow.  Still, while it’s okay as far as it goes, it’s one of Mike Carey’s weaker arcs.