Also this week:

MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #16 - An unexpected and exciting use of non-linear storytelling livens up this final part of the... oh no, hold on.  It's just that the pages are all stapled in the wrong order.  That makes two Marvel books this week where my copies have a serious printing error (the other one being Ultimate X-Men, where lines of dialogue disappear off the top of a misaligned page).  I'm not best impressed about that.  Anyhow, once I finally unscramble the page order, this turns out to be a competent but unexceptional resolution to the story.  A decent premise is let down by the fact that Ethan never comes across as a proper character as opposed to a collection of reference points and plot developments.  Cute epilogue, though.  B

MNEMOVORE #6 - Final part of this miniseries, eschewing the obvious finish in favour of something a little more cryptic and a lot more downbeat.  A bit confusing on first read, but the more I think about it, the more I'm coming round to it.  The big idea of this story is to literalise the fear of losing your identity and not being able to rely on your perceptions, and the creators follow that through to an appropriately strange conclusion.  Marks off for littering a "fade to white" sequence with adverts, completely ruining the effect.  Worth getting the trade paperback, on the optimistic assumption that Vertigo produce one on a sensible timescale.  B+

MUTOPIA X #3 - This week's lone House of M crossover, and the book seems to be settling into a more routine story.  Izzy's tryst with Lara looks set to destroy everything, since his wife wants to leave him, and Kaufman wants to kill him in revenge.  The conflicts are set up effectively enough, but the material with Absalom Mercator doubting his mission comes across as forced, and a massive closing infodump seems horribly out of place, as if David Hine had suddenly realised he was more than halfway through the series and had completely forgotten to introduce a major plot thread.  Okay, on the whole.  B

ULTIMATE X-MEN #63 - Part 3 of "Magnetic North."  Once again, Brian Vaughan and Stuart Immonen produce a simple, direct and effective superhero book.  Alex's band of mutants try to break Lorna out of prison, and Scott's X-Men try to stop them.  Naturally enough, a fight ensues.  It's usually difficult to make these issues interesting, but this one works.  Immonen's art has the dynamism for action scenes without losing the characters, while Vaughan's nailed the art of giving all of his vast cast a moment of their own in the midst of the chaos.  Wonderfully done.  A

WEAPON X: DAYS OF FUTURE NOW #3 - Oh, okay, I guess I see where this is heading.  Wolverine and the Director fight one another time and again, their teams are destroyed each time, but they keep picking themselves up and starting again.  From Wolverine's point of view I don't really buy the Director as a long-term nemesis like this, but it works from Weapon X's perspective, which is all that really matters here.  The mass slaughter of characters seems increasingly like a cop-out on actually resolving any of their individual stories, but there's no doubt Tieri is trying something interesting here.  B- 

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

Next week, "Wild Kingdom" continues in Black Panther #8; more House of M in Exiles #70; and Mark Millar wraps up his run on Wolverine with a World War II story.  Plus, more trade paperbacks for Exiles and Rogue.

If you're wondering what happened to NYX #7, which was supposed to be out next week - well, what a surprise, it's been pushed back again.  It's now due out on 28 September.  The issue was originally scheduled for 24 November 2004.

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