Also this week:

CAPTAIN MARVEL #5 - The concluding part of this very odd miniseries, which turns out to have been a Secret Invasion tie-in all along, even though Marvel didn't actually advertise that fact until very late in the day.  I don't know whether to gawp at their silliness, or applaud their restraint - after all, labelling the series "Hey, this is connected to that story about aliens impersonating superheroes" would have pretty much given the game away.  Nor is it a total cop-out - the idea is that the new Captain Marvel is actually a Skrull whose deep-cover personality has taken a little too throughly, and who genuinely believes he's the real thing despite, er, not being.  As a premise for a regular series, I'm not quite sure where you go with that, but on the whole it's worked quite well in the context of this miniseries.  B+

DC/WILDSTORM: DREAMWAR #1 - Keith Giffen writes a DC/WildStorm crossover miniseries, and the first issue is basically build-up.  Weird stuff is happening on Earth-WildStorm, and a bunch of DC heroes have shown up.  The angle is to write the story from the WildStorm characters' perspective, with the DC guys inexplicably cast as strange, threatening invaders.  Meanwhile, the Legion of Superheroes - the only DC guys who get a scene from their perspective - can't help thinking that these WildStorm guys don't look much like their idea of heroes.  It's all pretty standard stuff, but nobody buys a story like this for the deep insights into human nature, and Giffen does build his idea quite effectively by simply presenting familiar DC characters in a slightly off-kilter light.  B

IRON MAN: LEGACY OF DOOM #1 - One of Marvel's occasional bones thrown to older fans, this is a flashback story written by David Michelinie and Bob Layton, in which the 1980s Iron Man fights Dr Doom.  Perhaps inevitably, it feels a little bit dated, but fans of the creator's original run should enjoy it.  Why, Iron Man is hardly even a bastard at all.  Besides, it's hardly a criticism to say that a series like this is a throwback; after all, that's the point.  It's pretty much what you'd expect - no surprises, and chances are you already know whether you want to read it.  B-

X-FACTOR #30 - X-Factor versus Arcade, in an unusually good match-up.  Arcade is a gimmick villain, specialising in elaborate deathtraps that make no logical sense whatsoever.  Sometimes he works as comic relief; here, he's the X-books' crown prince of pointlessness, tormenting a team who were already busy fretting about their lack of purpose and direction.  I'm not sure about the decision to tone down Arcade's funfair imagery in favour of more generic deathtraps; it seems to me that Arcade works by going spectacularly over the top, and muting him doesn't get the best from him.  But overall, it works.  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, X-Men: Divided We Stand #1 is the first of two anthologies about former X-Men.  Wolverine: Origins #24 guest stars Deadpool again.  And X-Factor fight Arcade.

back | continue