Also this week...

THE INFINITE HORIZON #1 - Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto translate Homer's Odyssey to a near-future, post-Iraq story about an American soldier finding his way home.  I suspect Duggan may be trying to cling to the original plot a little more closely than is advisable in a modern day setting - he has to jump through some post-disaster hoops in order to put Penelope in the "queen" role, for example.  But it's beautifully illustrated by Noto, as you would expect.  And so far, the elements of modern war stories actually fit quite well.  That provides at least a partial answer to my concerns.  Though we'll have to see what happens when they get to the mystical characters, before I'm completely convinced.  Set those concerns aside, and it's a good start.  A-

SUBURBAN GLAMOUR #2 - Rather than stretching out the mystery, Jamie McKelvie spells out the plot more or less directly in his second issue.  To be honest, it's a hoary old fairy tale device.  Obviously that's part of the point, which is to take an ancient old folk story idea, and do it with modern teenagers in suburban England.  I'm not sure it's entirely successful, though.  There's a tone clash between the relatively realistic main characters, and a central plot drawn from fairy tales.  Of course, Neil Gaiman built a career on writing stories in Sandman that played off that tension, but what we get here is an extended two-page exposition speech, which comes off as rather awkward.  Still, the characters are strong and the use of colour is great.  And I suspect it's over the hump now that it's put its cards on the table.  B 

UNCANNY X-MEN #493 - In which the "Messiah Complex" crossover continues, by having the X-Men fight Sentinel Squad O*N*E for most of an issue.  This is probably the weakest issue of the crossover to date, if only because it doesn't feel like it has much to do with the rest of the plot, and so it feels at first like padding.  But that said, "Messiah Complex" is also clearly intended as a deck-clearing exercise, and the Sentinels are ripe for clearing away.  They've contributed virtually nothing since they were introduced a couple of years back, except to loom around in the background while the writers studiously ignored them.  So if an issue of brawling with robots is the price of getting rid of them for good, that's fine by me.  I'd rather get back to the proper story next week, though.  B 

X-MEN: DIE BY THE SWORD #4 - Lots of fighting with Jim Jaspers, while Albion is enlisted to help out.  The concept for Albion, you might remember, was that he was a hawk version of Captain Britain.  So he thought that all the other Captains were well-intentioned but limp-wristed liberals who needed to be replaced by somebody a bit more aggressive.  In New Excalibur, that degenerated into an extended fight scene.  Die by the Sword is also degenerating into an extended fight scene, come to think of it, but Albion's character is being used better here, and there are some nice moments with Longshot and Dazzler.  Jaspers doesn't do a great deal for me, to be honest, but it's all perfectly acceptable.  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, the Sentinel storyline wraps up in Ultimate X-Men #88.  "Messiah Complex" continues in Uncanny X-Men #493.  And the X-Men's contribution to this year's What If? one-shots is an alternative version of "Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire", told in one twelfth of the space.

back | continue