Also this week:

INCREDIBLE HULK #92 - Normally I'd have thrown in another full-length review, but quite honestly, I'm looking through this week's pile and I can't see anything worth writing about at that length.  So I think I'll write a piece about The IT Crowd for If Destroyed instead.  Hulk #92 is as close as we come to a major book this week, with the first part of "Planet Hulk."  Marvel are claiming massive success with this book, although I place little weight on "sold out at Diamond" press releases - it's hardly a massive achievement when you have a print to order policy.  Anyhow, the Hulk crashlands on the wrong planet after an attempt to dump him on a peaceful world with no intelligent life goes off course.  Instead he's on a fantasy world with cute little aliens, evil emperors, and gladiatorial combat.  Writer Greg Pak can be a bit a hit or miss, more through a willingness to accept awful assignments like Imperfects than an actual talent deficit.  He and artist Carlo Pagulayan do better with this concept than I'd anticipated, but it's ultimately just a good version of exactly what I'd expected.  Pure fantasy worlds really aren't my thing and I can't say I'm particularly inspired by the prospect of spending a year here.  But as a straightforward piece of entertainment, it's a pleasant break from the overwhelmingly grim tone that this title has developed over recent years.  B

SON OF M #3 - Well, there you go.  They're not doing a whole miniseries about Quicksilver without powers, because he's already raided the Terrigen Mists and gained new ones.  They really need to be careful about restoring too many characters in the early days, but I think they get away with this, by giving Quicksilver such drastically different powers (short-range time travel) that he's still been strikingly altered by the whole affair.  Basically, this is an issue of Quicksilver plotting to steal the Terrigen Mists outright so that he can restore all the mutants.  It's certainly an interesting plot idea, and it makes sense that somebody would pop up shilling superhuman powers to desperate ex-mutants.  (What's the Power Broker up to these days, come to think of it?)  Hine livens up what would otherwise be a fairly rudimentary issue of plot mechanics by having Quicksilver jump back and forward in time and turning the whole thing into a cause-and-effect pretzel.  Possibly he pushes it a little too far into the realms of contrivance, but it's amusing nonetheless.  B+

ULTIMATE X-MEN #67 - My fears for the likely quality of the Robert Kirkman run have proved unfounded.  This is really quite good.  Sticking firmly with the established formula of an old-school team book with soap opera - the same one that worked so well in the 1980s but can't be done properly with the present three X-Men titles - Kirkman is finally showing the confidence and ability that's marked out his indie titles but hasn't previously come across in his Marvel work.  It's largely a talky issue, which doesn't show off Tom Raney's artwork to best effect, but good stuff nonetheless.  Oh, and Marvel's policy on gays remains baffling, as pages are spent discussing the fact that Colossus is gay, while Marvel's official policy is that the Rawhide Kid can now only appear in mature readers comics.  Quite why homosexuals should become less controversial when they appear in team books is a mystery, but the whole thing is just plainly absurd and seems to reflect more of an ill-thought-out fear of backlash rather than any genuinely intelligent analysis on Marvel's part. A-

X-MEN #182 - Apocalypse is back, and he's written by Peter Milligan.  So, of course, his grand plans now get filtered through Milligan's warped sense of humour, and he comes across more as a dangerous nut than as somebody with a real agenda.  Admittedly, that's always been a bit part of the character, but he really does seem a delusional idiot here, and I'm not sure that was what they were going for.  Some characters just need to be played dead straight, which isn't Milligan's style.  A back-up strip with Sunfire works a little better, but overall, an issue that doesn't quite click.  Lots of points off for a scene in which Rogue is supposed to be touching Pulse and learning that he's immune to her powers - which has been drawn with both of them fully clothed.  Would it have been that hard to correct the art so that the central point of the scene makes sense?  B-

X-MEN: THE 198 #2 - Ah, it's going to be one of those stories were nothing happens because they've got to pad it out to five issues.  Magma arrives at the camp, everyone stands around discussing the "plot" for the rest of the issue, and then some of the inmates get into a fight with the guards at the end.  Oh, and there's a seriously odd cliffhanger involving a mutant oyster, which manages to rekindle my interest.  Otherwise, too damn slow.  The book wins some points for explaining why everyone's in the tents rather than the dormitories (which apparently were damaged when the Sentinels showed up), but that explanation should have been in the previous issue, and besides, I don't recall any such thing happening in the story in question.  And I can only roll my eyes in amazement at a scene with Erg of the Morlocks hanging around chatting with Arclight of the Marauders.  I know they're all in the same boat now, but for god's sake, she slaughtered all of his friends.  Shouldn't he be just a little bit annoyed?  C

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

Next week looks set to be another quiet one, with almost all the X-books mired in mid-storyline, and no new launches anywhere.  Looks like everyone's waiting until the One Year Later jump is out of the way.  Anyhow, the random miniseries generator brings us Frank Tieri's X-Men: Apocalypse / Dracula #1.  I'm struggling to imagine how that's going to work, but we shall see.  Uncanny X-Men #470 continues "Wandering Star."  And everything else is miniseries - Deadly Genesis and Generation M both reach issue #4, and we get the second issues of Sentinel Squad O*N*E and X-Statix presents Dead Girl.

Over in the trades, the thirteenth volume of Ultimate X-Men collects "Magnetic North", while the House of M collections continue with the New X-Men story and the Mutopia X minis.

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