Also among this week's comics...

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #503 - Ah, another of those filler stories co-plotted by Straczynski but written by his protege Fiona Avery.  And what do we have?  Extradimensional magic women, and a guest starring appearance from Loki.  I have no clue why Straczynski keeps trying to work magic into this book.  It's completely at odds with Spider-Man's world, and it increasingly seems as though the title is just being used to shoehorn in some trailer material from the Dr Strange miniseries Straczynski has been promising for ages.  This really isn't the sort of story that works for the character.  C

CAPER #4 - The end of the first arc in Winick's curiously structured miniseries.  Basically, it's the same dynasty of Jewish criminals in three different time periods, each getting their own four-issue miniseries.  Next issue we should find out whether there's any significant overlap between the eras.  For the moment, this wraps up the 1906 phase of the book.  It holds together as a strong story in its own right, independently of whatever's coming later.  The earthquake is a bit heavy-handed, to put it mildly, but the plot is strong enough to get away with it.  B+

HELLBLAZER #192 - John Constantine is indisposed and the end of the world is nigh, so it's time for... guest stars?  In a Vertigo title?  Characters from Swamp Thing, Lucifer and Books of Magic turn up to lend a superhero epic feel to the proceedings, although it's debatable whether that's really the tone that this book should be going for.  Mike Carey is still doing stronger work on Lucifer, to be honest, but this is perfectly readable.  I can't let the book go without mentioning the cover, in which Tim Bradstreet suddenly develops a completely different style and goes all blurry.  I knew he'd get bored with "man in front of brick wall" eventually.  B-

POWERS #36 - At long last, the end of the cycle of stories following Christian's history.  We're brought up to 1985, and the great big fight between a load of heroes and a load of villains that leads to Christian losing his powers and retiring.  Most of this issue is actually just a big fight scene, and while it works just fine as a pay-off to the preceding arc, this is certainly not the best issue to be joining the series.  Nonetheless, for those who've been following the book through the storyline, it's a great finish.  A-

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #2 - The timeline speeds up as we leapfrog forward to "five years ago" and soon catch up with "today", ending with the Big Scientific Accident which is obviously going to be their origin in this version.  So if you saw the first issue consisted entirely of Reed Richards at school and wondered just how decompressed this title was going to be, now you know.  Purists are of course up in arms at the decision to rename Dr Doom as Victor Van Damme, but it's fairly obvious they're going to go for the "Dr Doom as nickname" angle.  And let's be blunt: Victor Von Doom is an incredibly stupid name, even by the standards of superhero comics.  I'm with Bendis and Millar on this one.  A-

There's a new Article 10 on Monday at Ninth Art.

Next week, X-Men Unlimited is back with a new issue #1.  Don't all cheer at once, now.  Plus, there's the first issue of Wolverine/Captain America.  It's a weekly Wolverine miniseries, and recent history suggests that's a grim prospect.  Over at the regular titles, Uncanny X-Men #439 continues "She Lies With Angels", X-Treme X-Men #41 continues "Prisoner of Fire", and Exiles #42 concludes the Nocturne story.

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