Also this week...

ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - WRAITH #1 - After the moderate success of Annihilation (which was far greater than anyone would have predicted with its cast of D-listers), the sequel is attempting to a launch an entirely new character.  Wraith is... well, he's a sort of goth space cowboy.  This is one of those awkward stories where it's clear that the creators think Wraith is the coolest thing ever, but they don't do a very good job of persuading me to agree with them.  It's just sort of there, to be honest.  If you're interested in the big crossover storyline then there's certainly nothing wrong with this, mind you.  It works well enough on that level.  And it's got art from Kyle Hotz, who does a rather nice sci-fi underworld.  But I'm far from sold on the lead character - mystery is all well and good, but he needs a personality to go with it.  B- 

EXILES #96 - Ignore the ludicrously inappropriate cover, which is trying to be funny, but ends up just plain sinister.  It tells you nothing about the interior, which is Chris Claremont and Clayton Henry having fun with alternate realities and a world where Dr Doom has eradicated humour, because people were laughing at him.  Now that's a cute Exiles concept - I can actually see Doom being oversensitive enough to do something that ridiculous, and it's the sort of thing you couldn't really do in the mainstream Marvel Universe without it reading very strangely.  I'm not sure there's much substance to any of this, but the creators are clearly having fun and telling a solid enough story.  B+ 

NEW EXCALIBUR #21 - The other Claremont book of the week features lots of characters running around chaotically in a story that seems on the verge of falling apart.  The basic idea is okay - Albion wants to take the UK back to pre-technological days so that he can rebuild the place in his image.  The reality is a curious obsession with falling aeroplanes (surely there must be other consequences of an EMP over the UK), and characters who seem to travel across the country from scene to scene at wildly implausible speeds.  I really want to like this, because Albion's origin story had promise, but frankly this is just all over the place.  C

STORMWATCH PHD #9 - Because you demanded it: talking!  But it's a good issue of talking, as the Stormwatch cops investigate the attempted murder of Jackson King.  The clever conceit of this book is that there's a proper Stormwatch team out there as well, but we're following the low-budget street-level squad assigned to the police force.  In reality the "real" Stormwatch team don't have a book, but in story terms, they're the A-listers.  So there's a lot of potential in having the B-team investigate their own superiors, and Christos Gage shows that he could get a really special team book out of either set of characters.  It's a shame that the book is being dragged down by the general catastrophe of the WildStorm relaunch, because it's a great title.  A

ULTIMATE X-MEN #84 - Bishop unveils his new team of X-Men, after months of build-up.  I'm not sure I buy Scott's total indifference to fighting evil - I suppose it's technically consistent with the way he's been written in Ultimate X-Men but it's so far at odds with the established character that it just doesn't work for me.  Otherwise, Robert Kirkman is at least hitting his stride and establishing some sort of direction for this title.  It's nothing amazing, but it fills the pages well enough.  B

X-FACTOR #21 - I gather this Isolationist guy is supposed to be a character from Peter David's first run on X-Factor about thirteen years ago, but quite honestly, I haven't got a clue who he is, and if I don't know, I'm figuring most of the audience won't know either.  But his introduction into the story in this issue would work just as well as the debut of a new character, so even if his plans are decidedly obscure at this stage, it's working fine so far.  Meanwhile, the book continues to benefit from Peter David's gentle shift away from the noir elements of the earlier issues and back towards his strengths - humour and strong characters.  Certainly one of the strongest titles in the line right now.  A-

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, New X-Men #40 continues the "Quest for Magik" storyline.  Wolverine: Origins gets its first annual for some unfathomable reason.  And World War Hulk: X-Men #2 does something very unusual indeed.  It ships a week early.

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