Also this week:

B.P.R.D.: THE BLACK FLAME #1 - A Hellboy spin-off, and while I knew I'd seen the title somewhere before, it's marginally aggravating to buy the thing and then discover it's actually one of those books which renumbers to issue #1 with the start of every arc, and it's not really issue #1 at all, it's issue #18.  It's not bad, though, with the team book dynamic applied to an oddball semi-mystical military unit who seem to devote themselves to finding strange and mysterious things... and shooting them.  I suspect it's the sort of thing that might grow on me after a couple of issue with a better understanding of the characters.  Interesting to see a radically different artist like Guy Davis drawing a spin-off from Mike Mignola's signature project, especially as he's always struck me as a bit too genteel for something with this much action.  But he fits rather well.  B

SEVEN SOLDIERS: SHINING KNIGHT #4 - Hold on, I thought each of these miniseries was supposed to be self-contained?  Because this kind of read like it didn't have an ending.  I'm not complaining too much, since I'd have bought the Seven Soldiers epilogue issue anyway, but I was expecting a bit more resolution here.  Beautiful art, though, combined with an unexpected but perfectly logical twist on the title character, and a fabulously weird sequence with a gangster on a flying horse.  Still... wasn't there meant to be an ending in here somewhere?  B+

X-MEN: KITTY PRYDE - SHADOW & FLAME #3 - Remarkably enough, my favourite X-book of the week, by virtue of being a rather good fight scene, and not annoying me in any way.  Which is particularly surprising considering it's an Akira Yoshida book and his last few outings were irritating in various degrees.  And I wouldn't normally endorse a project as bloodyminded as a sequel to Kitty Pryde & Wolverine, a miniseries which has been out of print since its original publication twenty years ago.  It's also the sort of book I'd dread reviewing at full length, because technically speaking not a great deal happens, and what happens is much the same as the stuff which happened in the previous issue.  But Yoshida writes a very good Kitty Pryde, and it's beautifully illustrated by Paul Smith, one of the relatively few artists these days who can draw characters fighting for an issue and make it worth reading.  Rather unexpectedly, I'm really starting to enjoy this series.  B+

YOUNG AVENGERS #6 - End of the first arc, which has lost a bit of momentum by shipping horribly late.  It turns out that the whole thing is really just a set-up to get the proper team together and give them improved codenames.  Well, that's the idea, anyway - actually, they're probably a step down from the ones they had before.  ("Stature"?)  Nitpicking aside, though, this thoroughly unlikely premise, which seemed guaranteed to produce a cynical spin-off, has turned out to be a pleasant surprise, with a bunch of new characters I'm genuinely interested in following.  In a stultifyingly stale superhero genre, it's nice to see somebody's finally managed to launch a successful book with new characters.  It hasn't happened in quite a while.  A-

Last week's Article 10 is still up at Ninth Art, and there's also some non-comics stuff to read at If Destroyed.  

Next week, House of M continues in House of M #6, Uncanny X-Men #464 and Exiles #69 (as well as Incredible Hulk #86, Fantastic Four: House of M #3 and Iron Man: House of M #3); Cable & Deadpool #19 sends the teenage Cable on a road trip; Ororo: Before the Storm wraps up; and X-Men: Colossus - Bloodline #1 kicks off another multiply-titled miniseries.

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