Also this week...

CRIMINAL #2 - The second issue of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' beautiful, and almost entirely advert-free, crime series.  After a strong start last month, this issue picks up the pace with a wonderfully laid out heist segment, and really kicks the series into top gear.  This is the point where the book banishes any lingering doubts I might have had that it lives up to the hype.  Points off for publishing a book in serial format, with no recap, where the first panel is a caption saying "Four days later..." - later than what?  But that nitpick aside, an excellent book.  A

UNCANNY X-MEN #480 - Another book brought to you in fabulous advert-o-vision.  To be honest I can't actually remember anything else about it, mainly because I was too busy seething to actually pay attention to the story.  Looking through it again, I'm reminded that it's a Vulcan-versus-Imperial-Guard story which pretty much washed over me, and doesn't make any more impression from further readings.  It's one of the Vulcan chapters, and I'm increasingly worried that Brubaker hasn't solved the single biggest problem with this storyline - Vulcan just isn't a terribly interesting character.  Fortunately he's not around for most of the storyline, and Brubaker's take on the X-Men is rather more interesting.  But the Vulcan stories aren't really convincing me.  I'll be generous and rate it without having regard to the idiotic packaging, since rating everything at C+ and below would get old very quickly.  B-

There's more from me at If Destroyed, and if you're desperate for more Article 10 columns, you can always hunt through the archives on Ninth Art.

Next week, New X-Men #32 starts its second post-Decimation year.  (Wow, has it been that long?)  Ultimate Cable's debut storyline continues in Ultimate X-Men #76, and Omega Red is still running around in Wolverine: Origins #8. 

Luckily for me, there's also the debut of the Wisdom miniseries, which was due out this week but didn't show up.  But wait, what's this?  Why, issue #2 - originally solicited for 6 December - has just been rescheduled to 10 January 2007.  Sound the "troubled project" alarm.

There's also a trade paperback collection of the slightly baffling X-Men: Fairy Tales miniseries.

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