Also this week:

GOTHAM CENTRAL #40 - End of the series, as the heroic cops of Gotham get their man.  Or maybe not.  I'm really not sure about this ending at all.  Of course, it's trying to make a virtue out of the fact that the characters, just like the readers, are screwed out of a satisfactory ending, but I don't think it comes off.  Frankly, for all the emotion that the finish ought to have, it suffers from the knowledge that it's not truly unresolved at all - the main character is being shunted over to the Batman titles to continue the plot.  So, in effect, the final scene is "Can I interest you in buying a Batman comic?"  And the answer is no, you can't.  Technically a very good comic, but a disappointing end to a series which was frequently very strong.  B-

MARVEL ROMANCE REDUX: BUT I THOUGHT HE LOVED ME #1 - Or, "old Marvel romance comics with new dialogue."  Which might sound stupid, but a lot of this stuff is genuinely funny and I can see a collection doing well in the bookstores.  Jeff Parker does the best effort, shamelessly ignoring the setting of "I Do My Thing... No Matter Whom It Hurts!" from My Love #2 and turning it into a ludicrous story about America's first bimbo president.  The original art on these stories is clear enough that it lends itself surprisingly well to this kind of mutilation - this just wouldn't work with most modern stories.  Jimmy Palmiotti's contribution slightly misfires by doing anti-fanboy gags (which, ironically, will soar over the heads of many of this book's readers), but overall, surprisingly good.  A-

NEW EXCALIBUR #4 - I'll skip over the complaints about the shaky grasp of English courts (suffice to say that if the artist is drawing British policemen wearing a "To Protect and Serve" logo, he clearly hasn't knocked himself out looking for reference).  Other than that, this actually isn't bad at all.  The art is average at best, but at least we're now getting to a coherent point where Pete Wisdom is trying to round up a bunch of reluctant superheroes to replace all the guys who got depowered on M-Day.  I'm still not sure what the premise of this series is besides "Another superhero team" - and if the selling point really is that just it's set in the UK, then the artists are going to have to do much better than this in terms of looking up the references, or else they might as well not bother.  But basically, a solid superhero book.  B

SENTINEL #4 - Building to the conclusion, where Juston will apparently pilot the Sentinel in a big fight in front of his friends while the whole town watch.  In many ways this reads as though the aim is to wrap things up once and for all (thus allowing Marvel to keep selling the digests without the embarrassment of not having a final chapter).  But then, the storyline about Juston's mother seems to have fallen by the wayside, so they'll be struggling to truly tie everything up next issue.  Hmm.  We haven't really recaptured the level of the first series this time around, but still good.  B+

UNCANNY X-MEN #469 - With guest art from Billy Tan, soon to be taking over the book permanently.  And god, it's a step up.  Sure, Tan isn't as distinctive as Bachalo.  He isn't as imaginative.  And all his characters have the same face.  But his body language is decent, and he's got a solid grasp of how to tell a story.  And crucially, he actually seems to have that as his top priority.  This is infinitely more readable than the last few issues, and the book is massively improved as a result.  As for the story, it's a transition issue between arcs, but a perfectly decent one so far as it goes.  (Although Claremont seems to be working on the assumption that the X-Men are being held prisoner in the mansion, which isn't what we were told in earlier issues.  Is it really so hard to get all the writers on the same page when it comes to fundamentally important plot points?)  It's such a pleasure to have an issue of this book that I can read rather than decode.  B+

UNDERWORLD #1 - First issue of a miniseries by Frank Tieri and Staz Johnson about a henchman emerging from prison and trying to get back into the game.  Overall, not bad at all.  Some of the jokes fall flat, but the basic concept is strong, and Tieri makes good use of the established New York underworld villains.  Bit of a shame that he's still using the Owl as the Kingpin-substitute, which is months out of date, but that's an editing issue and can't really be helped.  Besides, the Owl works better in this story, because the plot calls for a new boss to be in place.  B+

X-FACTOR #3 - More Decimation, and oddly enough, it turns out that the Decimation really is a plot point in this book after all.  Apparently Layla Miller is there to make sure that X-Factor don't reverse the Decimation, as they were otherwise destined to do.  I like this idea - we all know that readers are too cynical to buy the idea of M-Day sticking, and besides, the characters would certainly try to understand and reverse it.  Guest art on part of the issue makes for a slightly inconsistent look (Wolfsbane comes across rather badly), but generally a nice little book.  A-

X-MEN: THE END #2 - Review-proof, by this stage.  We're on to volume three by now, so if you're still buying it, you clearly like it.  If you've dropped it already, well, there you so.  And if you aren't buying it already, you're about a year late to start, so don't worry about it.  I still think this whole series is taking an utterly misconceived approach to the concept, and Claremont's plan to use it as a possible future that would set up coming storylines has been tanked by Marvel contradicting the story already in the core title (and making it perfectly clear that they couldn't care less what this book says about the third Summers brother).  So we're left with the X-Men fighting the Shi'ar yet again, and while it's done perfectly well now that the plot threads have been pared down, it's hard to avoid wondering what the point of the whole exercise is.  Still, the book's established audience will like it a lot.  B

Last week's Article 10 is still up at Ninth Art, and there's more from me at If Destroyed.

Next week, Decimation continues in, of all places, X-Men Unlimited #13.  Cable & Deadpool reaches issue #25, which is pretty impressive in this day and age.  Ultimate X-Men #67 is the second Robert Kirkman issue, and Apocalypse returns in X-Men #182.  And the miniseries continue with X-Men: The 198 #2 and Son of M #3.

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