Also this week...

ESCAPISTS #4 - I know on one level Brian Vaughan's "small press creators make good" story is laughably contrived, but somehow it still hasn't lost me.  Vaughan has made his characters likeable enough so that I don't just want them to win, I'm actually prepared to run with the plot when it bends reality to let them.  The cutting between the "real" world and the Escapist comic book isn't used quite as effectively this issue, but it's still good for contrast.  There's something intriguing about the way that the comic book world is drawn in (admittedly very good) grim'n'gritty semi-experimental style, while reality is simple, direct and almost cartoony.  With a lot of creators it would have been the other way around.  This way works better.  A-

FABLES #1 - Curious reprint of the first issue put out as a 25c book to promote the upcoming Fables original graphic novel.  The first issue holds up nicely on re-reading, and it's actually very representative of what was to come.  At times Fables can be a bit Sandman Lite, and unfortunately the preview from the graphic novel seems to be in that vein.  But if you haven't read the series and you're intrigued at all, you should take them up on the cheap reprint.  A-

UNCANNY X-MEN #479 - In this issue: a man with a ridiculously large sword!  No, really, it's enormous.  It's so huge that even the other characters feel compelled to laugh at it.  This looks decidedly like a story where the creators have got their wires crossed and what should have been a big, imposing symbolic sword has turned into an utter joke, forcing Brubaker to try and save the day with a self-deprecating script.  Imagine if Rob Liefeld had outfitted Cable with a sword and you get the idea.  There's a story in here, of course, which would probably have been a lot better with a more sensible sword.  But to be honest, I just spent most of the issue gawping at the page and thinking, "Good god, that looks utterly ridiculous."  Shame, because I can visualise the same script being perfectly decent without the huge lump of steel.   C+

WOLVERINE: ORIGINS #7 - On the plus side, Origins seems to have shaken off its pacing problems.  Things do at least seem to be happening in this second arc.  Unfortunately, they aren't very interesting things, and we're essentially going through the motions of a "hunt-the-macguffin" story.  Adequate, but totally unmemorable.  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 is insanely heavy.  Two miniseries wrap up - Civil War: X-Men (which at least has some wider plot significance) and Claws (which has no significance whatsoever).  X-Factor #12 is the pay-off for the first year of stories.  Wolverine #47 concludes his Civil War tie-in arc.  Cable & Deadpool gets back to its regular storylines with issue #33.  And the Lizard appears in X-Men: First Class #3.

Your Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk update: issue #3, originally solicited for 19 April 2006, and subsequently rescheduled for 17 May, 12 July, 9 August, 20 September, 25 October and 1 November, has been rescheduled yet again.  It's now due out on 27 December 2006.  That's "due out" in the sense of "they'll wait until the last moment before pushing it back yet again", of course.

Since issue #2 came out in February, we're now looking at ten months between issues.  Bearing in mind that it's a six issue miniseries, and that the final three issues haven't even been solicited, at this rate the book won't finish until 2009.  Personally, I no longer believe that the remaining three issues will ever come out.  Leaving aside questions of basic professionalism and willingness to fulfil his commitments, Damon Lindelof apparently couldn't find time to write a single script over the last ten months.  So when is he going to write the next three, eh?

Serious prediction: after issue #3 comes out, if it ever does, they'll tell us that they're not soliciting issue #4 until it's ready.  And then we'll never hear of it again.  At this point, though, does anyone still care?

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