Also this week...

A MAN CALLED KEV #1 - The running joke that would not die returns for yet another miniseries, this time without the crutch of the Authority - who, let's face it, are probably less popular than Kev by this stage.  If anything, this is slightly less silly than some of the earlier stories, and probably suffers for that.  The highlight is probably a flashback scene at a publisher's party, and otherwise there's a worrying sense that Garth Ennis has run out of material for this character.  Mind you, even on autopilot, Ennis is funnier than most writers, so it's still entertaining enough.  But probably time to draw a line under it.  B

THE NEXT #1 - A six-issue DC miniseries from Tad Williams and Dietrich Smith.  If you've never heard of Tad Williams, then believe me, one thing will be glaringly obvious to you just from these pages: he's a prose writer.  The Next, unfortunately, is a classic example of what happens when a prose writer doesn't understand the visual medium - insane quantities of utterly superfluous narration.  "There is a bus, though, a block and a half away and travelling a bit fast.  Myrna Sharples, the driver, is running late.  The Perkins kid has just fallen out of his seat and is screaming in the aisle with a bloody lip and the other kids are shouting and Myrna isn't paying the kind of attention she should..."  Didn't the editor explain to Williams that they're paying a perfectly good artist to convey that sort of information?  If you can get past that kind of thing, then it's a curious throwaway book in which a bunch of cosmic refugees with names like "Poetry Slam" arrive on Earth by accident and bond themselves to a local girl, which means they can't leave her again.  There's a half-decent concept in there somewhere, but on the strength of this issue, it's a series likely to be forgotten the week after the final issue hits the shelves, if not sooner.  C

SNAKE WOMAN #1 - Another stab for Virgin comics, following last week's alarmingly misjudged Devi.  The good news is that Snake Woman is nothing remotely like Devi.  Zeb Wells and Michael Gaydos aren't going to make a comic like that.  The bad news is that it's still not especially good.  Wells' biggest strength is comedy, and there's virtually no humour here - either he's trying something where he's not so good, or he's plodding methodically through Shekhar Kapur's pitch.  Loosely, that story seems to involve a quiet woman from Los Angeles who reacts violently to some sort of snake-symbol.  It's alright, I suppose, but it's not particularly memorable, and all involved have done much better than this in the past.  C

WOLVERINE: ORIGINS #4 - This week's other X-book sees Wolverine fighting Captain America.  And that's about it, until some more people show up at the end for added fighting.  Of course, this is an action issue by Daniel Way and Steve Dillon so it's - how can I put this? - a bit sedate.  Everyone stops for a conversation in the middle, and Dillon in particular seems horribly miscast on this title.  Better than some of the earlier issues in this storyline, since at least a fairly clear plot is now emerging, but still not desperately good.  B

There's more from me at If Destroyed, and if you're desperate for more Article 10 columns, you can always hunt through the archives on Ninth Art.

Next week, the Civil War crossover continues in X-Factor #9 and Civil War: X-Men #1.  The relaunch of the core titles continues with Uncanny X-Men #476, the second Brubaker/Tan issue.  Robert Kirkman continues his Magician and Phoenix storylines in Ultimate X-Men #72.  There's more Nimrod in New X-Men #28.  And X-Men: Fairy Tales #3 has another unlikely reworking of a fable.

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