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.

It’s been a hectic week, so after skipping last week’s column, I’ve got something of a backlog to get through.  Fortunately I have a couple of nice long train journeys to make this week, so I should catch up soon enough.  But in the meantime, I’ll round up the recent X-books and a few other new releases.  (And by the way, I’m far enough behind that I’m going to be reading some of these pretty much as I review them, but hey, that’s life…)

Choker #1 – New miniseries from writer Ben McCool and artist Ben Templesmith (though you’ll notice Templesmith’s name comes first on the cover).  In a dystopian near future, embittered ex-cop Johnny Jackson is working as a private investigator, but gets his chance to return to the force if he can solve a case yadda yadda.  It’s very much from the School of Warren Ellis.  There are a couple of nice touches in here – officially regulated Police Brutality is a fun idea – but the story and characters are pretty familiar.  Naturally, Templesmith does great dystopias, with a mixture of caricature and suffocating misery.  Still, the whole thing wears its influences a little too visibly.

Dark Wolverine #83 – Hmm.  This is a Siege tie-in, which is a challenge for the writers because Daken has nothing to do with Asgard.  Now, since they’ve spent the last few issues setting up subplots with other members of the Dark Avengers, I’d have expected the book to spend its time resolving those stories before the team implodes at the end of the crossover.  But instead the book is approaching this the hard way, and trying to do a story where the Fates attempt to enlist Daken to put Asgard’s history back on track.  Why Daken?  Well, to be fair, he asks that question too, but the answer really boils down to “just because”.  I do like the idea of Daken being so obsessed with self-determination that he refuses to play along with the embodiments of destiny, but the story can’t get away from the feeling that Daken is being lashed to a plot that has nothing to do with him.  And I’m increasingly convinced that the book took a wrong turn in backing off from the early issues where Daken was a more ambiguous character – right now, there’s a dearth of even remotely sympathetic people in the book, which makes it hard to care.  (Oh, and the story also depends on you knowing all that stuff about breaking the cycle of Ragnarok from a Thor storyline five years ago, which may be confusing to readers who don’t know what the Norns are talking about.)

First Wave #1 – The start of a six-issue mini from Brian Azzarello and Rags Morales, launching DC’s new pulp universe – basically, a world with Golden Age characters like the Spirit and Doc Savage, plus Batman.  So, okay, it’s kind of about reconnecting superhero comics with their roots.  I’m always a bit sceptical about trying to shoehorn unrelated characters into a single series, and this doesn’t really win me over.  It’s one of those stories where a previously unmentioned character from another book shows up at the end and you’re meant to recognise them and go “Oooooh.”  It also feels rather like a Doc Savage story with some other characters squeezed in.  Inoffensive, but it doesn’t grab me.

Girl Comics #1 – This, by the way, is one of the books I’m reading as I write this.  So, let’s ignore the squirm-inducingly awful name and see if Marvel’s anthology by all-female creative teams is any good.  Colleen Coover does a nice enough two-page intro, but the first actual story is “Moritat” (well, I think that’s what it says) by G Willow Wilson and Ming Doyle, which soars completely over my head and crashes against the back wall in ugly fashion.   Bad start.  Trina Robbins and Stephanie Buscema’s Venus story is a cute and stylish riff on updating the Golden Age series.  Valerie d’Orazio’s 4-page Punisher story kind of makes its point in the first page, but it’s a great first page.  Lucy Knisley’s Dr Octopus 2-pager is okay.  Robin Furth and Agnes Garbowska do Hansel and Gretel with Franklin and Valeria Richards in full storybook style, and it’s beautiful stuff.  Best thing so far.  And… hey, Devin Grayson!  There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.  Well, she does a vignette with the Scott/Jean/Logan triangle, which is pretty decent, and Emma Rios’ art is lovely.  So, bit of a mixed bag, but that’s standard for these Marvel anthologies.  Really don’t get what that opening story was going for, though.

Nation X #3 – Another anthology, and to give Marvel their due, at least they use these books as an opportunity to run a different style of work.  Chuck Kim and Gabriel Hernandez Walta open with an Armor/Danger story that picks up the obvious loose end of “Hey, isn’t anyone angry about having Danger on the island?”  The story’s nothing to write home about, though at least it ties off the problem, but the art’s great, with good use of the visual hook of Armor’s powers.  Grace Randoph and James Harren do a Magik/Anole story (because we were all waiting for a Magik/Anole story, weren’t we?), which kind of misses Anole’s character, but gets the current take on Magik rather nicely, with a clever play on the “character X learns an important lesson” story.  And it looks fantastic.  Chris Yost and Karl Moline do, of all things, a story about Madison Jeffries and Diamond Lil.  This seems to be an attempt to give a proper send-off to a character who was casually killed off in the “Necrosha-X” crossover; it’s fine, but feels like it’s being done largely for the benefit of people who were reading Alpha Flight twenty years ago.  And finally, Corey Lewis does a typically hyperactive New Mutants story, which is, well, hyperactive but good fun.  Not a bad strike rate.

Wolverine: Weapon X #11 – Start of a new storyline, “Tomorrow Dies Today”, as Deathlok comes back from the future to kill some superheroes who don’t exist yet.  Meanwhile, Wolverine has a drink.  Once again, Jason Aaron’s got the right idea here – there’s a tricky balance to strike in having tongue firmly in cheek, but still keeping a bit of drama in there, and it shifts tone effortlessly when it needs to.  The opening sequence, with a rookie superhero on his first night, is fabulous; so is Logan’s conversation with Steve Rogers, but for entirely different reasons.  Ron Garney returns on art, and he’s perfectly suited for these stories.  Great book.

X-Factor #202 – This does seem an odd storyline to run immediately after a relaunch, as it appears to be more of an epilogue to the extended time-travel arc that came before it.  I don’t quite buy the evil Reed Richards, either – there’s a nice idea that being Reed Richards is so much fun that you don’t really need a wider plan than that, but it just doesn’t seem right for this particular character.  Art’s a bit stiff at times, too.  Mmm.  It has its moments, of course – obviously it does, it’s a Peter David story, and he’s always above average – but it’s not my favourite issue.

X-Force #24 – Right, then, let’s see if I’m following this right.  The Vanisher has just teleported X-Force to Genosha, where Selene has revived a zombie army.  Wolverine declares that they’re going to fight their way through said army in order to get into Selene’s castle.  Everybody agrees that this is virtually suicidal, but that they must do it anyway.  Now, can you see the glaring plot hole in this story?  That’s right, nobody thinks of asking the Vanisher whether he could simply teleport them into the castle, thus avoiding the need to suicidally fight a zombie army. And just in case any readers hadn’t spotted this point, which seemingly eludes the entire cast, the Vanisher actually does teleport himself into the castle four pages later, which as far as I can see proves pretty conclusively that all the characters are morons.  Yes, I realise they’re trying to get to the point where the Vanisher enters the castle alone, so that he can have his moment of heroism, but hey, set it up properly.  And yes, I realise the idea is that he runs away and then has second thoughts – but they’re already planning their suicidal assault before he leaves, so that doesn’t work.  Unless I’m missing something, this one has plot holes beyond salvation.  As for Clayton Crain’s art, well, it’s the usual tedious murk, I’m afraid.

X-Men Forever #18 – Scott Summers has quality family time with his son.  And since Nathan never turned into Cable in this reality, it’s time for another rendition of that old favourite, “The baddies kidnap Nathan, who is Very Important.”  Solid enough, decent art, but nothing exceptional.

X-Men Legacy #233 – The end of Legacy‘s very loose “Necrosha-X” tie-in.  When I say “loose”, I mean that it’s basically an unrelated Proteus story, and that Necrosha-X has been used to justify using Destiny, a character who died years ago and would otherwise have had to show up in a dream scene or something.  But hey, that’s fine – if you’ve got two “back from the dead” stories going at once, by all means lash them together.  This issue… well, the X-Men fight Proteus.  I’m not quite sure what this has to do with the new direction of Rogue acting as a mentor for the junior X-Men, but it’s a good fight issue, it makes great use of Magneto, and Clay Mann’s artwork is strong, so I’m not complaining.