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.

Let’s start with the bad news.  We’re due for another podcast next weekend, and I do believe we plugged it at the end of the last show.  But, um, I’m actually not in town that weekend, so it’s going to be a bit later than that.  Probably the weekend after.  Hopefully.  We’ll let you know.

With that out of the way, let’s talk reviews!  A scattering of X-books this week, plus a few other interesting releases…

Amazing Spider-Man #625 – We’re back to Joe Kelly and Max Fiumara, picking up their Rhino storyline.  With most books, this would have been a straightforward two-parter.  And effectively, it still is a two-parter.  But the nature of the story means that it actually benefits from having something unrelated in the middle, to space it out.  The new Rhino remains a cipher (though that’s kind of the point), and the heart of this is the previous Rhino stubbornly trying not to get drawn into a pointless fight over the name.  Yes, the pay-off is kind of hokey, but it’s well executed.  And Fiumara’s art is great stuff; the Spider-Man books have some of the best art in superhero comics right now.

American Vampire #1 – We might well be talking about this on the next podcast, but for now, some initial thoughts.  This is the new Vertigo series by Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque which has managed to get Stephen King to co-write the first few issues.  Basically there’s a lead story by the regular team (setting up the origin of one of the lead characters) and a back-up strip by King (a few decades earlier, and setting up the other).  The high concept here is that a couple of Americans are turned into vampires near the start of the 20th century and become the first distinctively American vampires.  As opposed, presumably, to vampires following in the traditions of the old country.  It could be a B-movie story, or it could be a somewhat warped take on America’s developing sense of uniqueness and relationship with its cultural heritage(s).  For the moment, wisely, it seems mainly concerned about setting up the two leads, and it does that very well.  The lead story doesn’t quite convince me as the mid-1920s, but I like the characters.  And the art is strong, with Albuquerque shifting easily between two entirely different settings.  It’s not really horror, at this stage, but there’s something interesting about it.

Battlefields #4 – Unusually, instead of going for three miniseries (and thus three issue #1s), Dynamite have chosen to publish this run of Garth Ennis war stories as a nine-issue miniseries, even though the three stories are unrelated.  So, this is the first part of “The Firefly and his Majesty”, a sequel to the “Tankies” story from the first run.  For my money, “Tankies” was the weakest of the previous three (though it was up against extremely stiff competition), a bit heavy on the comedy and a bit light on the drama.  But this time the balance seems to have been struck better.  The issue does a great job with the apparent pointlessness of people continuing to fight in early 1945, when everyone knows the Germans can’t win; naturally, the machine just keeps grinding on, and in the short term at least, the Germans still have better tanks…  I wasn’t especially looking forward to a second “Tankies” arc, but this is more interesting than I’d expected.

Joe the Barbarian #3 – By this point we’ve got the idea: Joe is dying, he needs to get to his insulin, and he’s hallucinating the whole experience of getting downstairs as an epic fantasy quest.  It’s so simple, but it’s brilliantly done.  Morrison gives the whole thing a woozy feel that never loses sight of the fact that it’s a hallucination, but also makes it abundantly clear that if the story doesn’t play out properly then Bad Things Will Happen.  And Sean Murphy’s art gives Joe’s world a sense of reality even though we all know it’s in his mind.  As with some other Morrison stories, there’s almost a sense here that just because the characters are plainly fictitious that doesn’t mean they aren’t real – after all, if Joe is hallucinating them, then in some sense they exist…

Nation X #4 – The last X-Men anthology of the current batch.  Peter Milligan and Mike Allred reunite for a Doop story, loosely based on the idea that everyone is potentially the snake who’ll destroy Utopia.  It’s a bit lightweight but it’s quite good fun.  Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Harvey Tolibao’s story with Emma Frost and the Stepford Cuckoos is a bit wonky; the girls are tormenting the other kids out of boredom, and Emma tries to put them back on track.  Everyone’s a little bit out of character, and the Cuckoos seem to be such dreadful teachers (are they really teaching a class of teenagers the alphabet?) that the ending falls flat.  Ivan Brandon and Rael Lyra’s “Ice Cream Alamo” is a throwaway piece with some of the background kids trying to raid the fridge at night – there’s not much more to it than that, but it’s pretty good fun.  Finally, Joe Caramagna and Niko Henrichon give us Namor bitching to Ororo about how the whole project is doomed; it’s really a conversation rather than a story, but at least it’s got beautiful artwork, and probably the best establishing shot of the island that I’ve seen.

Siege #3 – In this issue: fighting!  Now that we’ve got past the initial awkwardness of “sorry, why is Norman doing this again?”, the story is actually starting to get a bit of momentum.  It does feel like it’s building to a climax, even if only because everyone’s calling in their favours, and everyone’s converging on the same place.  That doesn’t quite get round the problem that the siege of Asgard itself appears to have been selected more or less at random to provide that climax – the bits of this story that work could have been bolted on to basically any story where Osborn overreaches himself.  But it does have the long-awaited scenes where the good guys get their act together and finally get the upper hand, and Olivier Coipel’s art is good, bright, energetic stuff.

Wolverine: Origins #45 – That’s the explanation for why we’ve spent a storyline messing around with obscure Defenders villain Ruby Thursday?  Really? I mean… yes, to be fair, Daniel Way did spend some time setting up the idea that Wolverine’s trying to think outside the box in order to confuse Romulus and throw him off the scent.  So the basic idea that it’s a red herring… fine.  But the story overreaches itself by suddenly hauling in a dangling subplot about the Answer, a character who I don’t think has even been mentioned before in this series, and who doesn’t get a proper introduction.  If you’re wondering where on earth the Answer’s relationship with Ruby Thursday was established, well, it comes from the 2006 one-shot I ♥ Marvel: Outlaw Love.  Besides which, spending several issues just to declare that it’s all a tactical swerve – one with no particular dramatic ramifications other than to wrongfoot the baddie – seems excessive.  There’s a good idea in here somewhere, but it needs refining.

X-23 #1 – One of many “Women of Marvel” one-shots which are coming out over the course of 2010, as part of Marvel’s rather vague celebration of its female intellectual property.  Come to think of it, if you really want to do stories with gender as a linking theme, X-23’s not a bad choice of character, since she’s supposed to be literally a female version of Wolverine.  But in fact, Marjorie Liu takes the story as an opportunity to reunite X-23 with the cast of NYX.  That’s fair enough – it’s the book where X-23 first appeared in comics, and Liu wrote it.  In its favour, the issue also has some excellent artwork, with some incredibly striking “astral plane” scenes.  And Liu does understand the character of X-23, particularly the central idea that she’s been manipulated to such an extent that she’s never sure how much of what she thinks is programming and how much is truly her, something which she plays as an exaggerated nature/nurture metaphor.  The downside is that the plot is all over the place.  A set-up about ex-mutants being targetted never really goes anywhere; the Gamesmaster is used in an interesting way but isn’t very clearly explained; and for some reason, nobody thinks of asking the NYX cast whether they might care to come to Utopia and get a good night’s sleep.  So it’s flawed, but there are definitely plenty of positives here.

X-Factor Forever #1 – Louise Simonson picks up X-Factor where she left off in 1991, which more or less means progressing with the subplots in progress, and going back to Apocalypse as the arch-enemy.  The first issue seems largely concerned with setting up the status quo, but that’s logical enough, even if some of the infodump exposition stands out like a sore thumb.  To give Marvel credit, they’ve learned from their mistakes with X-Men Forever, and so this issue also includes an introduction by Louise Simonson explaining the idea, and a back-up feature recapping the series.  Like Chris Claremont, Simonson doesn’t seem too concerned about doing stories that she would have written in 1991; instead, her editorial suggests that she’s taking the opportunity to do a story that follows her take on Apocalypse through to its logical conclusion, freed from the need to worry about any wider continuity issues.  In practice, the first issue is still largely introduction, but it bounces along at a fair speed, and I’m quite looking forward to seeing where this is going.  Dan Panosian is an intriguing choice of artist – most of his Marvel work has been as an inker, but he’s actually got a very distinctive style, spiky and angular, and willing to let characters like Archangel look ugly.  At the same time, there are some wonderful backgrounds, and his Apocalypse clearly harks back to Walt Simonson’s definitive take.  It’s not always pretty, but it’s certainly interesting to look at, helped by nicely subdued colouring from Jim Charlampidis.  It won’t be to all tastes, but I like the way this book looks.

X-Men Legacy #234 – Sandwiched between two crossovers, a story where Rogue gets telepathy for an issue and has trouble with it.  This is one of the best issues in quite a while, freed as it is from any wider agenda beyond doing an interesting story with the lead character.  Mike Carey’s created an unusual format here – effectively this is a Rogue solo title, but instead of using it to tell stories of Rogue’s solo adventures, it’s an X-Men book done from Rogue’s perspective.  As for the art, Yanick Paquette may have unfortunate tendencies towards out-of-place cheesecake, but he does know his body language, and he actually does a very good Rogue.  The current direction on this series is probably the best use of the character in years.

If you haven’t listened to this week’s podcast yet, then you’ll find it just one post down.  This week’s reviews include the Mystic Hands of Dr Strange one-shot, and the first issues of Ghost Projekt and Green Hornet.

And now, some other stuff that came out this week…

Amazing Spider-Man #624 – This is the final part of a Vulture arc by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta.  The general idea is pretty solid – Jonah has been framed as the creator of yet another supervillain, and Peter tries to clear his name.  Of course, this is a Spider-Man story, and since no good deed goes unpunished, it all goes horribly wrong.  All perfectly sound so far as it goes.  The downside here is that the new Vulture isn’t a particularly interesting character – he’s one of those “transformed against his will/out for revenge” types, and while the story tries to give him a background as a mob fixer, it doesn’t really seem to connect through to the character in the present.  And I’m in two minds about Azaceta’s art; although clearly a strong storyteller and good with the character moments, there’s a slight awkwardness about his work that doesn’t feel quite right for a Spider-Man story.  Not one of the stronger Amazing arcs, then, but still perfectly acceptable.

Batman & Robin #10 – “The Return of Bruce Wayne begins here”, proclaims the cover.  What, already?  Obviously we all know that he’s going to come back in the end.  That goes without saying.  But it feels way too early to be starting the build for that.  Mind you, I don’t read the other Batman titles; perhaps if I had read three times the number of Dick Grayson Batman stories I’d feel differently about it.  But… yeah, this is surely a multi-year storyline.  Still, Morrison has a clever idea here – Bruce Wayne is lost somewhere in the past, and has been leaving messages in bits of Wayne Manor that previously seemed innocuous.  So you get scenes of Batman and Robin trying to find clues in fireplace design.  Andy Clarke’s art is entirely serviceable but, as usual, the Frank Quitely cover serves to remind us of what we’re missing.

Cable #24 – Effectively the final issue of the series – next month’s issue #25 is a flashback story guest starring Deadpool.  So, Cable and Hope finally defeat Bishop, and make their way back to the present… except, actually, they don’t do that last bit, because the grand return has apparently been reserved for the first chapter of X-Men: Second Coming.  Bad call, if you ask me.  I’d have ended the series with the moment of their arrival, to at least give it that extra element of closure – it’d serve just as well as a teaser for the crossover.  Anyway, that leaves the final issue to deal with Bishop, and that’s basically what we get – two years of build-up comes down to Cable and Bishop bouncing through time and the good guys finally getting the upper hand.  It’s all fairly predictable, but in itself that’s not such a bad thing; the book’s spent two years building to this fight and now it’s delivering what it promised, which is fine.  And there are some clever mechanics in here, such as Cable using time-jumps to try and get Bishop hit by subway trains.  But for all that, the series ends up feeling decidedly inconsequential.  Cable’s aged 17 years but doesn’t seem to have changed at all.  Hope’s gone from a prop to a character, but that development doesn’t actually play much of a role in this story.  The story would carry so much more weight if Bishop had been beaten in a way that wasn’t possible when the series started – by Hope using her newfound powers, or simply by Bishop underestimating her and getting himself killed as a result.  In practice, Cable beats Bishop in a way that would presumably have worked back in issue #2.   Visually, the issue is all over the place, with a parade of fill-in artists (presumably, in fairness, because there’s a crossover waiting for this issue, and they have to get it out the door no matter what).  Giancarlo Garacuzzo’s opening section is a bit like a sketchier Rick Leonardi, and isn’t bad at all, but Alejandro Garza’s 90s-throwback chapter is another matter entirely.  And then we get some very rough pages by Denys Cowan to round the whole thing off.  The issue does what it needed to do, but never elevates it to be truly satisfying.

Dark X-Men #5 – Another final issue, as Nate Grey gives the Dark X-Men their chance to turn on Norman Osborn and save the day.  You can imagine how well that works out for him.  It’s a strange ending, this, and I might try and come back to the series at more length if I get a chance.  Basically, in the place where you’d expect the faux X-Men to make their big moral decision – or at least, everyone except the Dark Beast, who’s a sociopath – none of them ever quite get around to it.  And their very failure to fulfil their role as protagonists then becomes their big moral decision.  It’s an odd way to finish the series, though it comes across better than you might expect – partly because Cornell has used Nate Grey as a sort of parallel hero, who does put up the required fight, so that the story doesn’t just peter out.  But for the title characters, the story ends with a deliberate anticlimax.  It’s hard to figure out whether this is an audacious way of pursuing their “not real heroes” status to the logical conclusion, or just a case of nobody being quite sure where they want the characters to go next; I suspect re-reading the whole series might shed some light on that.  Interesting, though, and I think it more or less works.

S.W.O.R.D. #5 – The final issue of the prematurely cancelled series.  An Abigail Brand ongoing title always seemed a bit optimistic to me, but to be honest, I was betting it would at least last the year.  Between this, Dr Voodoo and Fantastic Force, quite a few Marvel titles have fallen at the first hurdle lately (Spider-Woman isn’t contining beyond its first arc either, though they’re claiming it’s on hiatus).  There’s a risk in this; you can get into a vicious circle where readers become convinced that most new titles will be strangled in the crib, and thus become even less likely to invest in them.  Anyhow, in this final issue, Hank and Abigail naturally thwart the invasion, get rid of Gyrich, and ensure that all is right in the world.  It’s a real shame that we won’t get to see more of the book’s take on Lockheed, or the Unit android, which gets to give a lovely speech at the end explaining why it didn’t take the opportunity to side with the invaders.  I’m still a bit lukewarm about Steven Sanders’ art, which is wildly off-model for one of the lead characters, and doesn’t quite have the punch to pull off the “prisoners fight back” double page spread with all the guest stars (shouldn’t there be more of them?).   Then again, his Death’s Head and Unit are great, and his Beast does have expression.  A shame this book won’t get to explore the potential in all of its ideas, but it does at least work as a strong five-issue miniseries.

Wolverine: Mr X – This month’s random Wolverine one-shot gives Frank Tieri a chance to revisit Mr X, a villain from his Wolverine run who’s since been picked up as a member of the Thunderbolts.  And actually, this is the sort of story that does make sense as a one-shot.  It ties up a loose plot thread about why Mr X isn’t worrying about his arch enemy any more, and it wouldn’t really feel at home in the current regular Wolverine title (let alone in Thunderbolts).  Now, that said, I always found Mr X a rather one-dimensional villain – putting him in the Thunderbolts set-up where he isn’t in control has helped bring out other sides to him – and his “proving he’s the best” schtick wears thin rather quickly.  There’s a nice enough idea that the best way to torment Mr X is not to fight him, since all he’s really interested in is proving that he can win.  But I can’t help feeling that you’d have to kill an awful lot more people than this before X would believe that Wolverine really wasn’t prepared to fight him no matter what.  He throws in the towel far too quickly.  Wouldn’t he just kill all the hostages anyway to see if Wolverine’s bluffing?  What would he have to lose?  It’s a fine concept, I just don’t think it’s set up convincingly enough.

X-Men Forever #19 – Nick Fury and co attack the Consortium’s HQ, which in good old-school style is conveniently and pointlessly located beneath a major landmark.  I applaud their dedication to tradition.  Meanwhile, Kurt and Rogue have swapped powers, and Jean is having some angst-ridden melodrama.  It’s X-Men Forever – you know the drill by now.  Not exactly the deepest or the most original comic, but that’s not really the point; X-Men Forever exists to be an 80s throwback, and on that level, it’s good satisfying entertainment, playing to Claremont’s strengths and relatively light on his weak points.