Also this week:

NEW AVENGERS #1 - Yes, I know it's meant to be a major first issue.  But really it's Bendis' fifth issue on Avengers, so I'm not doing a full scale review for it.  This is a considerable step up from "Chaos" - which is to say, it makes sense.  On the other hand, it's all awfully dark, and murky, and just doesn't feel like much fun.  I'm still not at all convinced that Bendis is the right writer for this book.  There's a huge disconnect between Bendis' pseudo-realism and the concept of a book like Avengers, which isn't so much of a problem with a more street-level character like Daredevil or Spider-Man.  It feels muted at best, bathetic at worst.  I want to like it, but something isn't working here.  B-

ULTIMATES 2 #1 - Meanwhile, thanks to the power of delays, the other Avengers launch their new title this week as well.  It's sometimes suggested that Ultimates is a book which is all about hitting things, not about characters.  That's not entirely true, as this issue shows - aside from a token Captain America fight at the start, it's mainly a character issue.  It's just that Millar does his characters in very broad strokes, as the action movie style requires.  Actually, this is good stuff - the cliffhanger is a nice, logical idea, and there's a lovely scene furthering the mystery of whether Thor is a real Norse god, or just a complete nutter.  A

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

Next week, the X-Men/Fantastic Four miniseries gets underway, a week late.  X-Men: The End finishes its first miniseries.  Emma Frost is cancelled with issue #18.  District X #8 and Nightcrawler #3 continue their storylines, and X-Men Unlimited #6 will doubtless be more of the usual.  There's also the seventh Ultimate X-Men trade paperback, collecting "Blockbuster."

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