Since Diamond have chosen to take a week off over Christmas for the first time I can recall, there’s nothing new out this week – well, except for Blackest Night #6, under some weird distribution arrangement, but I’m not buying that book anyway.  Actually, I kind of hope Diamond keep doing this.  A break from the weekly grind every so often helps it… well, helps it stop feeling like a weekly grind.

I could do a “year-in-review” post, but I’m not going to.  Firstly, I’ve still got last week’s books to review.  Second, I really don’t have time.  (And advance warning: you may be hearing that a lot over the next couple of months.)  And third, you probably know more or less what it would say: the X-books have written themselves into a corner with a post-M-Day set-up which still doesn’t really work, despite some talented writers giving it their best shot, but at least it seems like we’re finally getting to the Hope storyline, which presumably ought to move us on from that.  Not that I necessarily want them to hit the reset button – I tend to agree, actually, that the Marvel Universe as a whole wasn’t well served by having a mutant on every corner – but the current direction is an overcorrection and it’s time to swing back to the middle ground.  With X-Factor caught up in a storyline that was too long for its own good and which didn’t really work as a serial, and New Mutants lacking a clear reason to exist, the best X-book of the year was probably Jason Aaron’s Wolverine: Weapon X, which may not have told any important stories, but certainly entertained me on its own terms.  Oh, and an honourable mention to X-Men Forever, which was an unexpectedly pleasant surprise, even if the last issue was a bit disappointing.

I could have said all that at ten times the length but… well, you know.

Equally, time and common sense suggest that rather than cover everything that came out the week before last, I’ll stick to the X-books and some significant others…

Battlefields: Happy Valley #1 – Another of Garth Ennis’ war minis, which are always reliable.  They can also be a bit formulaic at times, when they’re doing the male bonding routines.  And to be honest, this story about an Australian bomber crew in World War II is one of those – new guy joins the crew to replace the injured captain, has to win over sceptical crew.  It’s done very well, but it’s definitely a bit familiar at times.  That said, there’s a bit more to this than meets the eye, since they don’t bond quite as easily as all that, and Ennis is the sort of writer good enough to get away with telling a well-worn story, because he tells it so skilfully.  There are few people in comics with such reliable storytelling instincts, and that always comes through.

Beasts of Burden #4 – This is the final issue of the current run for Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson’s series about pets fighting mystical evil in smalltown America.  But the plan is apparently to do a series of miniseries, and at times this issue feels like it’s setting up mysteries for an arc story.  Weird thingies raise some guy – presumably a devil-worshipper – from the grave, and the dogs have to get rid of him again.  None of it’s really explained, and to that extent it’s a story that depends on the creators eventually getting to do their pay-off.  But it still works as another encounter between the plucky pets and assorted bizarre stuff.  The threat this issue almost gets into the territory of superhero comics, but it’s the way they handle it that makes this book special; nobody does better animals than these creators, walking the tightrope between anthropomorphic and cutesty, and pulling it off.

Dark Avengers: Ares #3 – The final part of Kieron Gillen and Manuel Garcia’s miniseries, which remains mercifully light on Dark Reign content.  True, the story is that Norman Osborn gives Ares a squad of men to train, in the hope of turning them into elite soldiers – and you can only really do that story with somebody rather dodgy in charge, since Ares is stark raving mad.  But that’s about the limit of the Dark Reign stuff, in a series which is otherwise a tongue-in-cheek story of Ares teaching the soldiers his idea of what war’s all about.  It’s really very good, and I’d recommend getting the collection.  (Granted, as Al complained on the last podcast, they’ve packaged it with the previous Ares series, but it’s good too, so don’t let that put you off.)

New Mutants #8 – Ah.  This is the conclusion of New Mutants‘ three-part tie-in to the “Necrosha” crossover, as the team fight the Hellions with Cypher at stake.  I liked the earlier parts of this story, particularly the idea that a powered-up Cypher is terribly dangerous because almost everything is ultimately a form of communication, and he can understand it all.  The scenes with Cypher providing a running commentary on the subtext of other people’s conversations were great.  This issue… well, we have an extended fight against the Hellions, and then the story just kind of stops.  It’s like Zeb Wells used up all his ideas in the first two parts.  And once again, the book seems willing to take it for granted that readers will be familiar with rivalries from a quarter century ago.  The pay-off is that the story seems to have permanently revived Cypher, although I really don’t follow it: if he’s been freed from Selene’s control and the techno-virus, because the Soulsword has got rid of all the magic, why isn’t he dead again?

Uncanny X-Men #519 – Basically an issue of Cyclops fighting the Void inside his own head, and it’s pretty good.  I still have my doubts about whether Uncanny has done enough to set up the rather obscure concept of the Void before doing this story.  But for those of us who are already familiar with it from other titles, this is a fun issue.  It’s got art by Terry Dodson, which is always a plus; it’s got Magneto starting some politicking, which we all knew was coming; but most of all, it’s got Cyclops beating the Void because his powers of repression are too much for it.  I love that idea.  It teeters on the brink of being too silly, but it’s audacious enough to work – not least because iron-willed self-control and a complete disregard for his long-term mental health really are Scott’s defining features.  One of my favourite issues in a while.

Wolverine: Origins #43 – Cloak and Dagger guest star, as Dagger is vexed by Romulus’ henchman – this being the guy who’s supposed to be terribly threatening despite being blind and not very bright.  I’ve never quite understood what he’s supposed to be bringing to the table to make up for all that.  Anyway, this story gets him out of the way, which is something.  Plus, it makes better use of Cloak and Dagger than we’ve seen in the regular X-Men titles since they joined the cast, and Doug Braithwaite’s art is rather good (though I do think Cloak works better when you draw him as a silhouette rather than a guy in a black body stocking – this guy shouldn’t have highlights).  As with so many issues of this series, fine when it’s not dealing too closely with Romulus, and a bit dull when it is.

Wolverine: Weapon X #8 – In which we find out how Wolverine ended up in that mental asylum in the first place, and why it’s gone so weird.  This feels less like a Wolverine story and more like something Steve Gerber would have created for a horror series, but that’s no bad thing.  The central image, a confused Wolverine in a mental asylum even madder than he is and resisting its attempts to “treat” him, works both because it’s creepy in its own right, and because it plays off all sorts of standard themes for the character.  Oh, and because it’s not afraid to flirt with being over the top.  It’s Wolverine, after all – it’s not an understated comic.

X-Men Forever #14 – The final part of “Black Magik”, and it’s a rather underwhelming issue.  It’s the old mind-control and corruption schtick which we’ve seen oh so many times from Claremont before, and this issue doesn’t really bring a fresh angle to it.  Nor does it resolve much; Kitty is freed, but Magik remains a baddie, and we still don’t really find out much about the original villain.  Still, the subplots are ticking over nicely, and Tom Grummett’s art has some great images along the way.  The nice thing about this series is that, thanks to its fortnightly schedule and old-school structure, when it does produce a story that doesn’t quite work, at least you know it won’t last too long, and there are plenty of sub-plots to keep you interested in what’s coming next.

“Timely Events”

Writer: Peter David
Pencillers: Valentine DeLandro and Marco Santucci
Inkers: Pat Davidson, Valentine DeLandro, Marco Santucci, Patrick Piazzalunga, and Craig Yeung
Letterer: Cory Petit
Colourists: Jeromy Cox, Nathan Fairbairn and Andy Troy
Editors: John Barber and Jody Leheup

It’s been a long while since I reviewed an X-Factor storyline… but then, it’s been a long while since one finished.  I think.  For some odd reason, three of these issues have titles (#40, #41 and #43).  The rest don’t.  Nor do the latter two issues make sense as break points.  It seems to be more or less random.  So, I’m going to take #40-50 as one big storyline – which is certainly how they read – and pick the last of the three titles, simply because it seems the most appropriate.

Peter David has said before that he wants to boost X-Factor‘s sales, which is always a tough job for any title.  Part of his strategy, around the time this storyline started, was a series of shock cliffhangers, such as the pay-off to Siryn’s pregnancy, and the return of Layla as an adult.  As an attention-grabbing scheme, this kind of made sense.  But for most of the last year, the book has been tied up in a highly involved (and highly convolved) time-travel storyline which was making some of us increasingly impatient.

Please note, it’s not the length of the storyline as such.  Long-term planning is a great thing, at least in a book that can be confident enough of its long-term existence to generate the pay-off.  Stretching out a story over a number of years is great, if it’s strong enough to justify it.  The difficulty with this story is that it takes an awfully long time to get anywhere – not so much because of a slow pace or “decompressed” storytelling, but because the plot has so many threads and goes in such circuitous directions that it fills a whole load of pages without really getting to the point.

You’ll notice from the credits list above that this book got through a ton of artists.  But it does manage to keep a fairly consistent look, perhaps because there are no outright fill-in artists – Valentine De Landro and Pat Davidson are there for at least part of every issue.  And the art is pretty successful.  The future Dr Doom is suitably delapidated, and most of the big dramatic moments come off well.  While the art never seems quite comfortable with the giant robots, it’s good with the people.

Cutting through assorted mysteries, the plot goes something like this.  Madrox is taken into the future by Layla Miller, who we left in one of those dystopian Sentinel-controlled futures at the end of “Messiah Complex.”  Now she’s an adult, and hooked up with the Summers Rebellion.  She seems to have brought Madrox there simply to ensure that things turn out as planned.  Meanwhile, the authorities are trying to stop the Rebellion by sending a brainwashed Madrox duplicate, Cortex, back in time to the present with a “Doomlock” device that lets him alter history, so that he can try and kill off the Rebellion’s ancestors.  This he does by possessing a bunch of people and sending them to assassinate, among other people, one of X-Factor’s clients.  Oh, and one of the people he possesses is Shatterstar, who thereby joins the cast.  Meanwhile, in the future, the Rebellion have noticed that people are blinking out of existence, and Madrox is investigating.  He meets up with Dr Doom, who’s already expecting them thanks to yet another time-travelling visit from an even-further-future Layla, and finds out about the Doomlock stuff.  There’s also a subplot in here about the guy in charge of the Sentinels nearly getting kicked out by the government, but again, that’s not really important.  So in the future, the Sentinels make their last big attack on the Rebellion, while in the present, X-Factor fight Cortex.  Finally Cortex is yanked back to the future where Dr Doom tries to use him as a weapon to kill the Rebellion, but he’s beaten there too.  The big Sentinel is defeated, and Madrox is sent back to the present.  Layla goes even further into the past where she relates all of her memories to her own younger self, thus explaining how she “knows stuff”; her real power, it turns out, is actually to bring people back from the dead.

Complicated, isn’t it?  And the way it’s told, the book ends up juggling a multitude of plot threads: Siryn sulking in the office, M and Darwin protecting Cortex’s target, Rictor and Guido being reunited with Shatterstar, Layla and Madrox in the future, and the guy in charge of the Sentinels politicking with other baddies.  It seems to be the challenge of juggling so many threads in a 23-page comic that leads the story to grind to a halt.  Issues #43-46 end up alternating the present-day subplots, so that cliffhangers aren’t picked up until two issues later.  In the future, Madrox and Layla arrive for their first conversation with Doom in issue #43, and don’t conclude it until issue #47.  This is slow by any standards. 

It also means that to follow Peter David’s elaborate design, you have to be keeping track of plot elements that haven’t been mentioned for a couple of months.  This is where readers start getting confused – and when the recap page tells them that Cortex was trying to kill the ancestor of a minor character, they wonder what they were missing.  (Nothing, really.  His target is actually explained in passing in the story itself, but it doesn’t actually matter; the point is simply that Cortex is trying to alter history by killing the rebels’ ancestors.)

Naturally, it’s vastly improved by reading it in a single sitting, where the length isn’t a problem, and the overall scheme becomes clearer.  But that still leaves the big question: what was all this about?  At first glance, it seems to be an extremely clever story full of time loops and such like, but one which isn’t actually saying anything in particular.

Reading more closely, the point seems to be that what at first appears to be a web of unrelated stories resolves over the course of a year into something intricately constructed.  And all this seems to be calculated to support Layla’s worldview: that everything is pre-ordained, and that free will is just an illusion.  The plot includes some seemingly random coincidences to strengthen that point.  Doom’s suite is in the same hotel where Lenore is holed up in the present day; and on both occasions when Trevor Fitzroy opens a random time portal, it dumps a Sentinel to precisely the place where it needs to be to complete the plot.  Layla has given up trying to change history and simply goes with the flow, intervening here and there to ensure that things turn out as she remembered it.  Her reward, if you can call it that, is to complete her memory loop and finally move on to events that she doesn’t know about in advance.  Cortex is trying to change history, but he’s the bad guy, and events seem to conspire against him to prevent it.

By pairing Layla with Madrox, Peter David seems to be writing about free will versus determinism.  Layla’s world is entirely deterministic – it’s on rails, and so it’s meant to be.  (Whether this fits with the traditional Marvel Universe take on divergent timelines is beside the point.)  Madrox, on the other hand, is a one-man embodiment of alternate realities, since his duplicates allow him to explore both options whenever he’s faced with a choice.  As we’ve seen throughout this series, though, that’s no better: a world where every choice is taken ends up being a world where no choices are really taken at all.  There’s no free will on that model either.

Since David clearly isn’t finished yet, I assume this is ultimately heading towards some sort of synthesis of Madrox and Layla’s worldviews.  One way of doing that is to pursue Madrox’s problem to its logical conclusion and argue that a single timeline doesn’t contradict free will, but rather reflects the fact that choices were actually made.  The other is to legitimate the grand design as something reassuring in itself – in other words, to wheel on God.  And it may be no coincidence that the only well-adjusted Madrox duplicate we’ve seen is a priest. 

All very interesting, then, but that still leaves us with the niggling problem that we’ve just had a year-long time travel story to reach the intermediate stage of a multi-year exploration of free will.  And while there are plenty of interesting ideas in here, it’s not altogether satisfying as a piece of drama, because it drags on a bit, and because it’s so keen to stress the idea that everything is on rails.  As a result, it feels at times like an overelaborate exercise in clever plotting, and one whose strengths were always likely to be lost on a monthly schedule.  That said, it works much better when you read it as a whole – and the more I think about it, the more it’s growing on me.

This is going to be a short one, because for various reasons I haven’t had time to read all this week’s books.  (Most of them are mid-storyline anyway, although there’s always Silver Streak Comics #24 from Erik Larsen’s Next Issue Project, which is probably going to be interesting if nothing else.)  So, I’m just going to run through this week’s X-books… all seven of them. 

Astonishing X-Men #33 – We’ve reached part three of this storyline, and for once Astonishing X-Men is actually sticking to a monthly schedule.  Mind you, this issue has Phil Jimenez’ contribution downgrade to breakdowns, so I wouldn’t put money on them keeping it up for the rest of the storyline.  Andy Lanning is doing the finished art, and although the results aren’t quite as polished, it looks fine.  Last issue, you may recall, we discovered that the villain was a mysterious baddy who was reanimating dead mutants to use as weapons.  Now, this isn’t quite the same concept as the current “Necrosha-X” crossover over in X-Force, Legacy and New Mutants, but it’s close enough to be a bit awkward.  Anyhow, in this issue, we discover that said baddy is called Kaga, and has a hidden base somewhere.  So the X-Men fight another of his monsters, and then sneak aboard his ship… and, uh, that’s about it.  It’s light on plot, then, and to be honest it’s fairly light on ideas too, so it stands and falls on whether it’s got cool fight scenes – which it does, for the most part.  At least, it’s got enough to avoid feeling sluggish, even though the plot only inches forward.  Even so, if Astonishing X-Men is meant to be the book where creators can tell their own X-Men stories without having the hassle of worrying about wider continuity, you’d hope it would be doing something a bit more distinctive.

Cable #21 – I swear, this book teeters on self-parody sometimes.  We all know the formula by now: Cable and Hope arrive somewhere new, Bishop follows, Bishop tries to kill Hope, Cable and Hope escape yet again… repeat until dead.  Now, last issue ended with Cable and Hope escaping a starship in life support pods, with Bishop pursuing in a space whale.  As you do.  That allows our heroes to spend another couple of years in suspended animation, and so at long last, it’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for: Hope reaches adolescence, and gets her powers.  (They’re the ones you’d expect.)  So, they crashland on Earth, and Bishop shows up again… and this time they beat him!  Which, frankly, after all this build-up, is incredibly anticlimactic – especially so when it then turns out that they can just take his time machine and use it to go home.  If it’s that simple, might it not have been a good idea to set this up as a goal about eighteen months ago?  But never mind… they’re finally going home.  And guess what?  They overshoot, they land in the past, and Bishop gets swept along so that they can do the whole sodding routine one last time.  Now, okay, granted, this goes some way to neutralising the anticlimax of beating him so quickly earlier in the issue.  But god, how many times do we have to see this comic recycle the same plot?  Answer: until the other books are ready for the “Second Coming” crossover.

Oh, and by the way, if Cable and Hope really do arrive in “New Amsterdam, 1614”, as the story claims, then that’s a bit odd, since the town wasn’t founded for another decade.  They’re probably thinking of the founding of the New Netherland colony, which did take place in 1614, but that’s Albany.  To be fair, the art does show a forest, but if that was the idea, shouldn’t the caption just say “Manhattan”?

Dark Wolverine #81 – Moonstone (sorry, “Ms Marvel”) has a nice long chat with Daken and tries to psychoanalyse him.  On the plus side, it’s certainly better than the last arc, which came across as filler.  Giuseppe Camuncoli returns on art, and it’s good, striking stuff – he knows how to make an extended conversation into something visual.  It’s also a story which tries to get some mileage out of Moonstone’s psychiatric background, with the idea that she sees him as an interesting case study.  And for a pleasant change, the story plays down Karla’s manipulative side in favour of the idea that she was basically a legitimate psychiatrist (or at least, that’s how she sees herself).  On the other hand… the pay-off comes down to saying that Daken isn’t as complex as he seems, and that underneath all the charm, he’s basically just a psychopath.  Why would you want to tell that story?  It’s basically an issue devoted to telling the readers that the lead character is much less interesting and much more shallow than he appears.  And… this is good, why?

Uncanny X-Men: First Class #6 – More retro superheroics, with the seventies X-Men still fighting the all-powerful cosmic weirdos, the Knights of Hykon.  The character designs are great – they look unique, but there’s a common theme that makes them look connected.  And the story does a decent job of setting them up as A-list villains, which isn’t always easy in a book like this.  When all is said and done, though, it’s still a straightforward and old-fashioned story, almost a throwback to Marvel’s house style of thirty years ago.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing, if you see the First Class books as something intended for younger readers; a series like this has a good reason for being told in that style.  What sticks out a mile, though, is an attempt to retcon the origin of Phoenix, as if it wasn’t complicated enough already.  It’s a trivial retcon, adding an explanation for the solar flares from X-Men #100, but still, I don’t see what it adds, and in an area of X-Men history that already looks like a particularly cumbersome Heath Robinson device, I’d personally steer well clear unless there was some good reason for meddling with it.  And it seems especially incongruous if they’re going for younger readers.

X-Factor #200 – Jumping back to its original numbering.  It’s priced at five dollars, but for that you get 52 pages of story, plus a reprint of Madrox #1 and a bunch of Handbook profiles.  And it’s certainly the best of this week’s crop.  I question the decision to just relocate to New York between issues without offering any explanation, but at least it keeps the team separate from the rest of the X-books and lets them function as the X-team who still have a foothold in the mainstream Marvel Universe (given that the rest of the groups relocated to the west coast).  The main plot sees X-Factor being roped in to investigate weird goings-on with the Fantastic Four, but alongside that, there’s some great character-driven subplots, continuing the triangle with Madrox, Theresa and Layla.  And Peter David has finally hit on the right formula for writing Shatterstar, going back to the original premise that he was bred for show as much as anything.  A smug Shatterstar beating up higher-profile superheroes, posing, and yelling “Are you not entertained?!” just works.  Good issue.

X-Force #22 – Part of the “Necrosha-X” crossover.  And I’m starting to get a bit confused here.  Selene raises the population of Genosha from the dead, only to discover that most of them are still depowered – something which apparently comes as a surprise.  But… hold on, hasn’t Selene already raised a bunch of mutants from the dead?  If most of the dead were also de-powered on M-Day, then she’s been remarkably lucky in her choice of zombies, hasn’t she?  Actually, I suppose there might be a point to this.  So far, Selene’s only revived mutants we’ve heard of.  Most of the population of Genosha were anonymous no-names… so perhaps the idea is that M-Day really did have a disproportionately limited effect on characters associated with the X-Men.  Then again, I’m probably being too generous: that’s always been obviously true, yet very few characters have ever remarked on it, and they don’t start here.  That aside… yeah, fighting, and more fighting, and murky art, and more fighting.  And scheming among the villains, and then more fighting.  The last issue sparked my interest somewhat, with the idea of raising the Genoshans from the grave, but this doesn’t follow through.

X-Men: Legacy #230 – Rogue fights Emplate, part four.  Basically.  I mean, you’d struggle to say that this was a story about anything in particular – it’s simply Rogue getting to be a good old-fashioned hero by beating up a villain we haven’t seen in a while.  Not sure I’d have spent four issues on a story like this, but it is quite good fun.  Mike Carey writes an entertaining Emplate, as a character who’s either a terrifying weirdo or just a ridiculous poser, depending on your perspective.  And since the future direction of this title apparently involves Rogue as the mentor of the X-Men’s trainees, the story might also serve an important purpose by getting Bling! back into circulation, giving her some screen time, and setting up a relationship between her and Rogue.  But time will tell about that.

After everything I said last weekend about December being a quiet month, this is the heaviest week for new releases in quite a while.  Throw in a batch of X-minis (though curiously, none of the regular ongoing titles), and I’ve got an awful lot to cover here.  So…

The Anchor #3 – This is Phil Hester and Brian Churilla’s ongoing series for Boom! Studios.  We reviewed the first issue on the podcast a couple of months ago, and then I more or less forgot to order issue #2.  Oh well.  The premise, you might recall, is that there’s this immortal guy who holds off demon armies in hell, and simultaneously exists in the real world where he fights giant monsters.  That makes him an explicitly Christian superhero (the eponymous anchor is the St Clement’s Cross he wears on his belt), but it isn’t one of those toe-curling evangelical books.  It’s really only a Christian comic in the same sense that Thor is about worshipping Odin.  The story focusses on the “real world” version of the Anchor, and it’s the old standard plot where the army wants to figure out what makes this guy tick.  Naturally, they can’t get very far with him.  Churilla’s art seems to have drifted into slightly more cartoonish territory since issue #1, when he was doing something closer to Hester’s style, but it works very well.  Inventive and interesting, and so far it’s managing to make use of Christian mythology in a way which works whether you believe in it or not.

Anywhere #1 – A six-issue mini written by Tom Akel, who’s a producer at Comedy Central.  Arcana Press have priced the first issue at a dollar, so they evidently have faith in it.  It’s a comedy book about two undermotivated superheroes, Dust and Wormhole.  Back in the nineties they’d have been called slackers.  In practice, they do as little actually superheroing as they can get away with, and just wander aroud getting drunk instead.  All of which is fine as a starting point, but the problem with this first issue is that it’s pretty much totally plotless.  An actual mission emerges out of the blue two pages from the end, but the rest of the story is just a bit of a directionless meander.  To be fair, the characters acknowledge it (“We take it that you, the reader, are wondering where this is going, and so are we”), so it’s obviously a deliberate choice, but it’s really too formless and shapeless, at least for a first issue.  Some of it’s passably amusing, but as a whole, it doesn’t work.

Black Widow: Deadly Origin #2 – Looks like this is going to be one of those awkward stories where Paul Cornell tries to square all the different things that have been said about the Black Widow’s back story at different times by heavy use of the “brainwashing” explanation.  I’m not convinced about this.  Natasha has several perfectly viable and straightforward origin stories, but blending them all together like this results in somebody you can’t identify with at all, and who is literally less than the sum of her parts.  John Paul Leon’s art on the flashback sequences is wonderful, however.

Dark X-Men #2 – If you prefer, it’s issue #2 of a Nate Grey series, told from the perspective of Norman Osborn’s beleaguered X-Men – a mixture of pressganged villains and the genially disturbed.  I realise that a Dark X-Men series also starring the late and largely unlamented Nate Grey doesn’t sound like an especially attractive prospect, but it’s actually turning out to be quite a smart move.  If you don’t really want to read about Norman Osborn’s mock X-Men, well, here’s an actual legitimate X-character.  And since Nate was never very well-developed, he works better viewed from the perspective of other characters who are more rounded.  This is the second Paul Cornell comic of the week, and it’s the better one – it’s got the big ideas and sense of humour that worked in Captain Britain & MI-13. 

Daytripper #1 – A new Vertigo miniseries by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon.  Apparently it’s going to be a series of individual stories about Bras de Oliva Domingos, a wannabe writer, each one showing an important day in his life.  The idea is presumably that the whole thing should add up into a really thorough portrait of the character.  It’s an unusual structure, and if they pull it off, this could be something very special.  By the way, since it’s a Vertigo book, it’s probably worth mentioning that there’s no surrealism or supernatural elements here; it’s a straight drama.  The first issue picks up with Bras working as an obituary writer, talking up people who have evidently had rather more satisfying lives than him.  Understated, and definitely a story to watch.

God Complex #1 – Michael Avon Oeming’s new project from Image.  It’s a world where the gods of Olympus secretly returned to Earth at around the time of the industrial revolution (not quite sure about the thematic link there, but okay), and there are superheroes wandering around LA who might or might not be connected with them.  Apollo gets bored with being a god and decides to go rogue.  It’s not wholly dissimilar to the current set-up in Incredible Hercules, which in many ways does it better.  Apollo himself is a fairly standard character, and the romantic interest is sketchy at best.  That said, something about the idea of hidden religions still existing alongside the real world (complete with underground worshippers) does kind of work.  It’s patchy, but it has its moments.

Murderer #1 – A “Pilot Season” one-shot from Robert Kirkman and… well, they’re crediting Marc Silvestri as co-creator of the character, but the actual story is drawn by one Nelson Blake II.  And it’s very much a pilot episode, as planned.  Jason is a telepath who hears other people’s voices in his head, which means that he can identify baddies.  (There’s actually a bit more to it than that, but explaining the rest would spoil the ending.)  Basically, it’s Dexter with telepathy, but I suppose that means it could be expanded into a series if need be.  To be honest, though, I think it’s the sort of concept that probably works better as a one-off story; this issue makes the point and makes it well enough, but it doesn’t feel like something with enough depth to support an ongoing title.

Nation X #1 – Yet another relocation for the X-Men means yet another anthology miniseries.  And as usual, it’s a mixed bag.  Simon Spurrier and Leonard Kirk’s “Ghost of Asteroid M” has a nice idea about Magneto finding a message that he once left for people who defeated him, but doesn’t work it up into a decent story.  James Asmus and Michael Allred’s “Road Trip” is a string of disconnected stuff, some quite good on their own, that doesn’t add up to anything in particular.  Chris Yost and Michele Bertiolernzi’s Iceman story actually does have a proper plot, not to mention a reasonable idea about Iceman having trouble adjusting to minor characters seeing him as some sort of elder statesman.  And Scott Snyder and David Lopez do a decent character piece with Colossus and Magik, who’ve had surprisingly little panel time together since she was brought back – I question why something like this hasn’t been done in one of the regular titles, but this story does it well enough.  So there’s some good work here, but probably not enough to make this of interest outside the audience of X-completists.

Necrosha: The Gathering – An anthology one-shot explaining how Selene recruited her henchmen for the current “Necrosha-X” crossover.  Which isn’t a great subject for an anthology, because it results in a lot of stories where characters mope for five pages, before Selene shows up.  Aside perhaps from the Wither story, which tries to bridge the gap from where the character was left at the tail end of New X-Men, there’s not much to any of these stories.  The book does have some unusual artwork in its favour.  Gabriel Hernandez Walta gets some interesting lo-fi visuals out of Blink’s piece (though the story itself seems to assume that everyone reading will remember plot details of the Phalanx Covenant storyline from the 1990s), and Leonardo Manco’s Senyaka sequence is beautiful stuff.  But that aside, it’s forgettable stuff.

Phonogram: The Singles Club #6 – With this issue, we get to Lloyd, the embodiment of over-earnest fanzine culture.  Which means that much of the issue is actually done in the style of a fanzine.  And appropriately enough, even the rest of the issue doesn’t actually take place at the club with everyone else; for Lloyd, the point of experiencing the evening is to analyse it afterwards.  In fact, much the same could be said about his attitude to music itself.  Not, of course, that there’s necessarily anything wrong with experiencing something for the sake of analysing it afterwards (heaven forfend); Lloyd’s problem is more that he’s seeing everything in a rather humourless way and at one remove, and he’s the classic teenage diarist who’s painfully unaware of how adolescent he actually is.  I’m not quite sure that fanzines are the right reference point here, though; surely these days the average Lloyd is online.  In particular, the fanzine aesthetic is retro, which Lloyd is very keen to stress he isn’t.  Then again, perhaps he’s ironically appropriating it – he’s the sort of person who’d think that was very clever.

S.W.O.R.D. #2 – Ah, Death’s Head.  And not just the later Death’s Head from the Marvel UK line, but the original Death’s Head who was the size of a Transformer.  Some of this is playing to the UK crowd, but hell, the original DH was always a great character and well worth dusting off.  Meanwhile, S.W.O.R.D. gets to work rounding up all the aliens on earth, which turns out to be a lot simpler than you’d apparently imagine.  Obviously some of this isn’t going to stick – plotlines from Dark Avengers aren’t going to be resolved in this title – but the book certainly isn’t afraid to go for the big scale.  I’m still not sold on the art, which looks a little rough around the edges for my tastes, but the book’s got some real energy, and doesn’t take itself too seriously.  And it’s funny.  All of which makes it fun reading.

The Unwritten #8 – We’re in the middle of the “Inside Man” storyline, with Tom Taylor stuck on remand in a French prison, and so Mike Carey pauses for an issue to step back and show us the same story we’ve already seen from the perspective of the governor.  Claude Chadron loves the Tommy Taylor books, and so do his kids… perhaps a little too much.  That leaves him with some very conflicted thoughts about the books, and plenty of opportunity to take them out on Tom himself; after all, if there’s one thing that’s clearly bad about the books, it’s Tom’s antics screwing with the minds of innocent kids.  I love this series; Carey and Gross are dealing with a really interesting and complex subject, the impact that a cultural phenomenon can have on people and the point where it becomes unhealthy, but they’re doing it with a very light touch.  It really shows both creators at their best.

Wolverine: Under the Boardwalk – Yet another random Wolverine one-shot.  Don’t ask me why they keep putting them out, perhaps there’s a huge market for this stuff somewhere in eastern Europe.  Anyway, this is a noir story, where Logan is called back to Atlantic City to revisit a minor altercation from 40 years before.  In the end, some things are explained but nothing much is resolved, and it all comes across as thoroughly inconsequential.  In its favour, it does have art by Tomm Coker, but that’s something of a mixed blessing – a character who’s supposed to be in her sixties looks about half that, and when Wolverine shows up in costume (for no particular reason), he looks hopelessly at odds with the rest of the story.  Not very good.

X-Men Forever #13 – Part 3 of “Black Magik”, and oh dear, it looks like Chris Claremont is returning to one of his pet themes again.  Yes, it’s good old mind control and corruption, and while this book has largely steered clear of them so far, that doesn’t make them any more welcome now that they’re here.  To be fair, this time round we do actually have a scene at the end which tries to suggest that people are choosing it willingly, so he might be going for a more interesting take on the subject than usual, but I’ve still seen him do this story so many times before that I don’t relish the prospect of sitting through it again.  Fortunately, this is a fortnightly title, and there are plenty of more promising subplots being juggled, so if this one doesn’t work… well, there’ll be another one along shortly.  Isn’t scheduling great?