Also this week:

THE AUTHORITY: THE MAGNIFICENT KEVIN #1 - It's that time of year again, for the Authority to get their regular kicking from Garth Ennis.  You'd have thought Ennis would have tired of this gag by now, but apparently not.  Once again, the jumped-up superheroes get their heads kicked in in humiliating fashion in the first issue, leaving our Kev to sort out the mess.  If you didn't like the earlier ones, you certainly won't like this, and there's no denying that it's Ennis at his most puerile.  But unlike most people, Ennis is funny when he's being puerile.  B+

THE BAKERS #1 - Domestic cartooning from Kyle Baker.  It's a series of vignettes about family life, and with a format of three mostly-silent panels per page, it's really closer to strip cartooning.  Baker doesn't have any remarkable new insights into family life - he's forgotten his wife's birthday!  It's a nightmare going shopping with the kids! - but that's not really the point.  The selling point of Baker's work is the skill with which he gets so much personality and nuance into his figures.  Seven silent pages of his infant daughter learning to walk ought, by rights, to be intolerably self-indulgent, but it's actually fantastic.  A couple of slightly obvious gags let it down, but for the most part, great stuff.  A

EXILES #69 - Yet another House of M crossover, and the first part of the "World Tour" storyline which is going to dominate the next year.  (And call me a nitpicker, but shouldn't that be "Worlds Tour"?)  Anyway, the Exiles arrive back on Earth trying to send Beak home, and naturally they're a bit confused by what they find.  About what you'd expect, really.  The idea of this storyline seems to be to set up Proteus as a reality-jumping villain for them to fight, which seems fair enough, since they've gone five years on this book without really having a recurring villain of their own.  Paul Pelletier debuts as the new regular artist, and of course he's a good match for a shiny, slightly tongue-in-cheek superhero book like this one.  Mind you, the purple/pink lighting they're now using for all the scenes in the Exiles' base is absolutely hideous, and the sooner they get rid of that, the better.  B

GHOST RIDER #1 - In which Garth Ennis is handed one of the sillier concepts in the Marvel Universe and then asked to take it seriously.  And he does his best, but can't quite keep a straight face when recapping an origin story featuring a man called "Crash Simpson."  This is essentially a set-up issue trying to sell us on the coolness of the Ghost Rider concept before we even get to work on the story itself.  It doesn't really convince, because Ennis doesn't seem too sure himself.  Clayton Crain's art is hit-and-miss - the hell stuff looks great, and his Ghost Rider is undoubtedly cool, but he struggles badly with some inexpressive conversation scenes.  Might improve when the story hits its stride.  B-

HOUSE OF M #6 - A book which embodies the reasons why I changed the X-Axis format.  Technically, it wouldn't be true to say that nothing happens in this issue.  The heroes travel to Genosha and start a fight.  There are various little character moments along the way.  But basically, it's a whole issue of them travelling to Genosha and starting a fight.  I can understand the desire to have a simple central plot to avoid overcomplicating the job of the writers working on tie-in issues, but dragging this plot out for eight issues is surely a bad call.  At the very least, it desperately needs a B-plot, because the main story just isn't strong enough to sustain interest.  There are no twists, no real surprises - the heroes discover the problem and act in an obvious way to rectify it.  This may be all very heroic, but it's not much of a story.  Eight issues of a straight line just isn't enough, however pretty the art.  B-

UNCANNY X-MEN #464 - The House of M crossover continues, but with a drastic shift of style on art, as Chris Bachalo takes over from Alan Davis mid-story.  This is presumably yet another last-minute job for Bachalo, as once again he comes with five inkers in tow. But, as with the X-Men: Age of Apocalypse miniseries, the result is refreshingly clear compared with Bachalo's art over the last few years.  It's still far from ideal for this sort of change to happen in the middle of a storyline, but Bachalo does deliver some great character designs and have great fun with the reality warps.  The storyline seems to be marking time a bit, with the heroes obligingly stumbling upon the reality warp so that they can fix it next issue.  But overall, quite fun.  B+

There's a new Article 10 on Monday at Ninth Art, and other stuff from me at If Destroyed.  

Next week, the House of M crossover continues in Mutopia X #3; X-Men #175 begins a crossover with Black Panther; "Magnetic North" continues in Ultimate X-Men #63; and Weapon X: Days of Future Now reaches issue #3.  Plus, there's a second Gambit trade paperback, and a second volume of Wolverine Classic.

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