Since I'm running badly late this week, let's just stick with the rest of the X-books...

EXILES #79 - On to another world, and this time it's the "Future Imperfect" timeline from Peter David's Incredible Hulk run.  This is the first time they've visited a world I'm not particularly familiar with, and I must admit the episodic style of this storyline is becoming a bit wearing.  Chase Proteus to another world, meet the locals, have a fight, and so forth.  It's decent enough, but it's definitely time to wrap this one up. B 

NEW X-MEN #25 - We're now six issues into the new creative team, and I'm starting to wish they'd lighten up on the grim and gritty.  I know they're establishing a total change of direction, and god knows the book could have done with a bit of drama.  Even so, the body count is getting excessive.  Stryker's a very timely villain right now, but the level of angst in this story has reached such a peak of bludgeoning melodrama that it's actually becoming hard to take it seriously.  We've swung too far in the other direction, and it's time to bring it back under control.  B-

SON OF M #5 - Now here's a miniseries which is working out rather nicely.  Quicksilver tries restoring the powers of the Excalibur supporting cast, and of course, it all goes horribly wrong.  It's plainly heading for a tragic finish, but I'm enjoying the way this is all coming together.  And the book has a good take on Pietro himself, who's plainly wrong, but who combines self-interest with altruism in a very convincing way.  A bit odd to see O*N*E suddenly charge into the series at the last moment, but they're prominent enough in the other X-books that Son of M can just about get away with it.  A-

UNCANNY X-MEN #472 - Chris Claremont's final storyline, although due to his illness, Tony Bedard is scripting.  Chris Bachalo returns from a break of several issues, and he's got eight inkers in tow, so it's good to see he's been using the time wisely.  Although apparently not on research, since we've got two bloody great tigers wandering around Africa.  Anyway, this is the Jamie Braddock storyline that's been building up for a while, and we get a perfectly good little fight scene when Jamie shows up at the mansion.  Jamie is a gift for an artist like Bachalo, and he has a very good take on the character - although he blows it on the penultimate page, which is utterly incomprehensible since it features Jamie being pulled through a portal which isn't actually drawn on the page.   Not a bad start to the arc, though.  B

X-MEN: THE 198 #4 - Meh.  David Hine's providing me with plenty of entertainment on Son of M, so I'm disappointed that The 198 is floundering so badly.  There are fundamental problems with this whole story.  It wants to have the oppressed mutants fighting for their liberation from the O*N*E camp, but it doesn't work, because it ends up making O*N*E into outright villains acting like borderline fascists.  As a result, Valerie Cooper and the X-Men are made to look like utter idiots for tolerating them at all.  Hine's overplayed the threat, removing any real moral complexity from the story, and making his supporting cast into fools.  And so it lies flat on the page.  Should have been a lot better.  C

Last week's Article 10 is still up at Ninth Art, and there's more from me at If Destroyed.

Next week, Wolverine: Origins #1, a whole new second monthly Wolverine title.  Because god knows we need more of him.  X-Men #185 continues the Apocalypse storyline, and over in the miniseries, Sentinel Squad O*N*E and X-Statix Presents Dead Girl both reach their penultimate issues.

Over in the reprints, there's the massive Uncanny X-Men Omnibus, collecting five years of the Claremont/Cockrum run.  Essential Wolverine reaches volume 5.  X-Men & Power Pack gets a digest collection.  And there's the first volume in a belated New Mutants Classic series of trade paperbacks, collecting the original 1980s series (which, apparently, can't be reprinted in Essentials format because of Bill Sienkiewicz's art).

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