Also this week:

PATSY WALKER: HELLCAT #1 - If you enjoyed the kooky Hellcat story in Marvel Comics Presents, well, here's an entire miniseries.  Hellcat is called back into service by the Initiative, who have just the state for her to protect: Alaska.  On her own.  (Yes, I know recent years have seen more stories set in Alaska than, say, Missouri - and that the "first line of defence" justification given for the Hawaii team in this week's Avengers: The Initiative should apply equally to Alaska.  Shhhh.  It's not that sort of comic.)  Every bit as cheerfully demented as Kathryn Immonen's earlier storyline, this probably won't appeal to everyone's sense of humour - and it's a bit light on the actual story.  Great art, though, and for sheer bounciness in the face of mild threat, you've got to admire it.  A- 

SECRET INVASION: FRONT LINE #1 - Brian Reed takes over as writer for the third Front Line series, and as before, Ben Urich is covering the megacrossover from the street level perspective.  Actually, it's a B-movie horror story - group of strangers trapped in a building when the shapechangers invade.  It's fine, but I can't help getting distracted by some bizarre attempts to tell us that Marvel New Yorkers hardly ever see the superheroes, and live totally normal lives which are disturbed only "once, maybe twice, in a lifetime."  Now, obviously this is one of those artistic licence things which it's better not to think about directly, but if by spending so long talking about it, you're only drawing attention to the problem.  If you want to do a story in a city where they never see superheroes, set it in Boston.  For god's sake don't use New York, which gets conquered by alien races on alternate Thursdays.  B 

SQUADRON SUPREME #1 - This would be the J Michael Straczynski version of the team, now with added Ultimate Nick Fury, and written by Howard Chaykin (but drawn by artist Marco Turini, who I suppose might be attempting a clumsy emulation of Chaykin's visual style).  The Squadron are barely in it; instead, Chaykin introduces a bunch of characters who are obviously loose analogues of Captain America, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four.  Utterly mystifying - I have no clue where this is heading, or, more importantly, why I'm supposed to care.  It certainly looks like another incestuous case of comics eating themselves.  C 

There's more from me at If Destroyed, and apparently the Ninth Art archive is going to back online at some point...

Next week, GeNext #3 focusses on No-Name, while New Exiles #8 visits a Napoleonic world.  And Young X-Men #4 sees the team fight the new Hellfire Club.

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