Also this week...

MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #13 - Reginald Hudlin and Billy Tan take over, and it's an odd sort of issue.  On the one hand, there's a whole lot of stuff about the new Avengers (including Wolverine as a team member before he's even been used in the parent title, by the way - tsk, tsk).  On the other hand, there's a fairly obvious attempt to get back to basics by getting rid of the teaching job immediately and shoving Peter back to the Daily Bugle.  And it immediately strikes me that I don't believe for a second that the other Spider-Man titles are going to follow in line.  Anyway, it's okay, but nothing particularly special.  B

TOXIN #1 - Peter Milligan and Darick Robertson with a spin-off from, of all things, Venom Versus Carnage.  Actually, it's not nearly as bad as that sounds.  The idea is that while Venom and Carnage both bonded with nutjobs, Toxin has bonded with a basically nice chap, and so while he's developed some slightly violent tendencies, he's actually quite sane, and trying to make the best of it.  So Milligan is writing him as a rookie superhero, testing the waters against established but C-list villains like the Cobra.  Much as I like Darick Robertson, though, I can't help feeling he's miscast on this book.  Venom and his spin-off characters work as visual designs because they look horribly wrong; in a Spider-Man comic, Venom looks like a part where the artistic style is breaking down and weird exaggeration is creeping in.  As a result, he only really works with an artist who can make that sort of thing work alongside his normal style.  Robertson seems to be trying to draw Toxin normally, and it just doesn't feel right.  B+

Last week's Article 10 is still up at Ninth Art.

Next week, a new villain debuts in Ultimate X-Men #58.  Storylines come to a head as "Time Breakers" begins with Exiles #62.  "Underground" concludes in District X #12, and "Voodoo Economics" wraps up in Gambit #9.  X-Force: Shatterstar #3 is the penultimate issue of the series.  And X-Men: The End drones on into Book Two #2.

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