Also this week...

BATGIRL #32 - Something tells me this is a Robin fill-in story which has been dusted off and shoved into Batgirl because the book had a slot that needed filling.  Passable superheroics, but it's got little or nothing to do with the lead character.  C+

BEAUTIFUL KILLER #2 - The storyline may be a bit on the contrived side, but it's still decently told.  Jimmy Palmiotti seems to be producing much better work when he steers clear of superheroes and comedy.  Excellent art from Phil Noto is the stand-out feature, though.  B+

BLACK PANTHER #49 - The second half of the "Death of the Black Panther" storyline, tying up a lot of the loose plot threads in Wakanda before moving the character on.  This looks like it's making a clean break with the existing direction and supporting cast, which isn't entirely unexpected.  I can't say I'm all that enthusiastic about the new direction, but we shall see.  For the moment, this gives some closure to the book so far.  B

CALL OF DUTY: THE PRECINCT #3 - Okay, will somebody please sit down and decide what the hell this book wants to be?  God knows it seems to have absolutely no interest in the wider Call of Duty themes, and certainly not in the little blonde girl.  What we've got here is an awkward mixture of soap melodrama and police procedural with supernatural elements thrown in, and it just isn't working.  C+

CATWOMAN SECRET FILES #1 - I don't normally touch these things with a ten foot bargepole, but it's got a lead story by Ed Brubaker and Michael Avon Oeming, so that'll do me.  Really, it's  just a primer on the character and her current direction for new readers.  Fair enough as those things go.  In the back-up strips, the book gets around to explaining why Holly isn't dead (in a two-pager which basically tells everyone to chalk it up to Zero Hour and stop whinging).  B

FABLES #5 - Bigby gets to do his big explanation of the rest of the plot, which fits together in obligatory "Did you spot this really obscure clue" style.  Decent enough as mansion house mysteries go, but hopefully the book is going for something completely different in style on the next arc.  All this Agatha Christie stuff doesn't really complement the premise, now I think about it.  B

FILTH #4 - Another single issue story, so this is shaping up to be a rather strangely structured maxiseries.  Slade visits Landfill Station XXX, the cosmic porn dump.  Supposedly there's some sort of exposition on magic running through this series, but for me it's just an entertainingly ridiculous romp.  A-

HIGH ROADS #6 - Big finish.  They win.  Doesn't quite pull out the sort of imaginative twist needed to liven up an entirely predictable ending, unfortunately.  Nevertheless, the series as a whole has been fun, and it's been good to see Leinil Francis Yu drawing something he seems to be interested in again.  B-

IRON MAN #59 - It's a time travel story, and in keeping with that theme, it reads like it was done 20 years ago.  Iron Man goes back in time by a millennium, and what the point of the exercise is other than to do the usual "Oh no, we've found a relic that shows he died" time travel plot elements, I have no idea.  C

JLA #71 - Joe Kelly has much more freedom with his replacement JLA team than with the "big guns" (most of whom are cripplingly dull characters to start with), and I'm certainly enjoying this half of his JLA arc much more.  Nothing out of the ordinary, but a decently told story.  B+

POINT BLANK #2 - Grifter investigates what happened to Lynch, and Gen13 pop by.  I hereby give up on trying to keep track of WildStorm continuity, such as it is.  Again, I'm not really sure what this is doing in a mature readers imprint, but taken as a straight Grifter story, it reads well enough.  If anything, I could stand to lose some of the references to the wider WildStorm universe.  B+

POWERS #23 - Walker is brought back to the police force, and he and Deena interrogate the latest suspect.  With considerably less subtlety than you might think.  A thoroughly nasty scene which bucks expectations very effectively.  Great opening sequence, as well.  Best issue in a while.  A

STORMWATCH: TEAM ACHILLES #3 - I realise the superhero in this story is supposed to look like a prat, but the decision to dress him in a green, yellow and purple monstrosity results in nasty, nasty colours sprawling over much of the book and a thoroughly ugly comic to look at.  Possibly hammering its point a little too obviously, although the inversion of the "secret council who rule the world" routine at the end of the issue is a fun scene regardless.  B

TRANSFORMERS: GENERATION ONE #5 - Nice art, but at this stage the plot is serviceable at best, and degenerating into a string of conspiracy theory cliches.  I know it's only the Transformers, but still.  And there's not much point trying to build tension around whether Optimus Prime will decide to abandon being good and turn evil.  It's a bit of a foregone conclusion.  Pretty, though.  B-

VERTIGO POP: TOKYO #3 - Maki's scheme turns out to be a particularly demented piece of stalking, and the plot builds towards a gloriously insane climax.  If you haven't been reading this miniseries, look out for the inevitable trade paperback - it's one of Vertigo's most entertaining products.  The upcoming Vertigo Pop: London miniseries sounds promising, as well.  A

VISION #2 - The Vision wanders around with his memory removed, accompanied by a young boy who apparently doesn't watch the news often enough to recognise that the red-skinned robot dressed as the Vision is the Vision, one of the foremost superheroes on his planet.  And my suspension of disbelief crashes to the floor at the first hurdle.  Attractive artwork from Ivan Reis, though.  C

There's a new Article 10 up on Monday at Ninth Art.  Go read.

Next week, just the two X-books on the shipping list (but a raft of first issues as well).  Soldier X hits its third issue, and Chuck Austen begins his next storyline in Uncanny X-Men #413.  That means Ultimate X-Men is going to ship late, and also that Weapon X will be late with its first issue - though come to think of it, so were two out of the last three books Marvel launched.  I'm sure we can stand the extra week.

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