Also this week:

CABLE & DEADPOOL #22 - "Bosom Buddies", part 3 of 4.  In the way of penultimate chapters, our heroes track down the villains, go after them, and get into a fight.  After the baffling plot convolutions of early issues, we're now getting to a more streamlined point, and at least a reasonably coherent explanation of what the Dominus Objective actually is.  (Couldn't we have just had that two issues ago?)  The big mystery here is built around the identity of Black Box, although as the "next issue" box admits, chances are you've either worked it out already, or you've never heard of the rather obscure villain in question.  Reliably entertaining, though, as usual. B+

EXILES #72 - The World Tour enters its second leg as the Exiles visit the New Universe.  Apparently nobody involved with this story has noticed that the New Universe has already crossed over with the Marvel Universe in the past, leading to their earth being dragged into the mainstream universe and put behind a barrier.  (Don't ask.)  Instead, for the purposes of this story, if you travel to the New Universe, you end up in 1987, in the early days of those ill-fated titles.  It's a strange story, which seems to have been written largely to demonstrate the creators' affection for the New Universe characters - DP7 turn up for no particular reason other than to ensure they were included, and Ken Connell gets to deliver a speech so that we know for sure he's just come back from Star Brand #5.  There's a perfectly serviceable plot in here too (as well as a nice epilogue for Beak, who mercifully lost his "powers" in Decimation), but it does feel like it's spending too much time on a nostalgia kick which few readers will remember.  B-

Last week's Article 10 is still up at Ninth Art, and now that a hectic few days of work are over, I'll be posting more stuff shortly at If Destroyed.

Next week, X-Men: Deadly Genesis #1 begins a five-issue miniseries which Marvel have been hyping heavily.  More to the point, it's by Ed Brubaker, so chances are it should be decent.  (It's also got art by Trevor Hairsine, so place your bets on the first issue to be delayed by more than a month or to feature fill-in art.)  Meanwhile, there's also the final issues of Mutopia X and Weapon X: Days of Future Now.  Captain Universe / X-23 #1 is the X-books' contribution to this month's Captain Universe event, which hasn't really attracted much attention thus far.  X-Men #177 begins a Decimation tie-in arc.  And Marvel Milestones finally makes itself useful by reprinting Ultimate X-Men #1/2.

Astonishing X-Men finally ships its second trade paperback, Ultimate X-Men reaches volume 12, and Essential X-Factor finally gets under way.

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