Also this week...

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #44 - Spider-Man tries to patch things up with Mary Jane, and gets caught up in a fight with Dr Octopus.  Perfectly decent superhero material, and it raises some decent points about why any character in their right mind would want to stick around as Peter's wife.  B+

AVENGERS #57 - Straight back into another world-gone-mad plot already?  This is Avengers, not JLA.  I could really have used a change of pace before going for something like this again, especially considering the ultra-protracted nature of the Kang War plot.  Anyhow, it's a perfectly okay superhero story, and Kieron Dwyer's art seems to be improving.  B

BLADE #6 - Tacked onto the end of the series is this single issue story about a zombie trying to say goodbye to his son.  It's a simple idea, but nicely handled.  Vastly better than anything else which appeared in this series, if they'd started with something like this then they might not be getting cancelled.  B-

CALL OF DUTY: THE BROTHERHOOD #3 - Well, we finally get an explanation of what the little girl is so upset about.  Apparently she's trying to warn everyone that there's going to be a terrorist strike on the Statue of Liberty on September 11th, 2003.  I'm not entirely convinced that this series has the necessary weight to get away with stories about averting anniversary attacks, quite honestly.  B-

CATWOMAN #10 - Selina helps a friend to escape Gotham rather than be executed for a murder that she may or may not have committed.  A good character piece, and a nice change of pace between stories.  B+

CEREBUS #281 - Cerebus continues to reinterpret Genesis, and this time it's a vehicle for yet more "Aren't women dumb" material.  Ho hum.  C

FANTASTIC FOUR #60 - This is the nine cent issue, and reasonably enough it's a character based story designed to introduce the cast to new readers - although I still question whether this is really the best book to be marketing to new readers, bearing in mind that Fantastic Four largely is the sort of comic they already expected it to be.  An okay story, hurt somewhat by a painfully awkward rapping sequence near the end.  B

HELLBLAZER #175 - Mike Carey takes over as writer, as John Constantine arrives back in London and the story swings back towards traditional Hellblazer territory.  No doubt all those new readers who were entranced by the dog-sodomizing will be distraught.  I don't care.  A-

INFINITY ABYSS #6 - Evil is averted and the last page includes the line "So on that day, let the universe tremble."  Not really much of interest, although it's inoffensive if retro cosmic stories are your sort of thing.  C+

JLA #70 - The JLA arrive in the past and try to work out why Atlantis is on the surface.  Meanwhile, Atlantis already has its own Justice League.  I'm much more interested in the present-day half of this plot, but this issue still isn't bad.  B

LUCIFER: NIRVANA - A bookshelf edition one-shot with painted art by Jon J Muth, and that's your A rating right there.  Lucifer is a monthly series where everything tends to feed into the main plot, so this is a good opportunity to get a sense of the book without having to make sense of the wider story.  Expensive, admittedly, but worth it.  A

MARVEL KNIGHTS #6 - End of the hopelessly misconceived series.  Let's hope Marvel have finally abandoned this awful idea.  C-

PUNISHER #14 - Second half of the mob rescue story, with pretty much the ending you might have expected if you'd stopped to think about it for a minute.  Meanwhile, poor old Soap gets to appear in another humiliating subplot.  Entertaining, but not on a par with the earlier issues.  B+

QUEEN & COUNTRY #11 - Still the best spy comic out there, which admittedly is not a crowded playing field.  Now that Tara's clothing has reverted to normal, I'm definitely falling into the pro-Leandro Fernandez camp.  This month, Paul is very annoyed that he can't invade Sudan.  A-

SPIDER-MAN'S TANGLED WEB #17 - Tombstone escapes prison and expresses his gratitude to his sidekick Jonathan.  Meanwhile, the Kangaroo has the misfortune to stumble upon a meeting of the Garth Ennis Re-enactment Society.  A touch on the obvious side at times, but a reasonably enjoyable two-parter, all told.  B

The new Article 10 column will be up on Monday at Ninth Art.  Go read it, make me pleased.

Next week, new story arcs in Exiles #17 and New X-Men #131; the concluding part of "Hope" in Uncanny X-Men #412; the promising Chamber miniseries continues; and the Wolverine: Netsuke miniseries should be a nice change of pace.  For what it's worth, that means Marvel are on schedule.

I'm going to be out of town over next weekend, so the column's going to be either early or late, depending on how energetic I'm feeling on Thursday.  More likely, you'll get it on Monday evening.

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