Also among this week's comics...

THE FILTH #13 - The final issue, and a calculated anticlimax.  I'm going to have to sit down and read the whole thing now, although it'll be a few days before I find the time.  Anyone looking for a big straightforward explanation of what they've been reading for the last year will be disappointed, but then that would have spoiled the fun.  It's not really all that bizarre, anyway.  In fact, there's something to be said for the argument that Filth is much the same ideas as Grant was explaining in Invisibles, but this time done much camper and played tongue in cheek.  It's been a completely insane series, but in a very entertaining way.  Books this strange don't come along too often.  A-

HUMAN TARGET #2 - In which Christopher Chance meets a man who's been in hiding ever since he took the opportunity to make a break for it during 9/11.  The World Trade Center was, of course, full of the sort of businesses that comics and pop culture generally like to portray as heartless scum, and I'm sure Milligan is quite intentionally pushing the buttons by invoking both horribly contradictory stereotypes in the course of one story.  Pleasingly, Milligan doesn't stick to the gimmick that any character could be Chance (which would lose its effectiveness very quickly through overuse).  As is often the case with Milligan, a basic story, but interesting because of the way it drags in all sorts of outside references into a horrible mess of contradictions that hover in the background.  A

iCANDY #1 - I remember groaning the moment this title was announced, without even knowing what was going to be in it.  I mean, when DC announce three comics with female leads and name one of them iCandy, you just instinctively know that a disaster could be in the offing.  Actually, this is somewhat better than I'd expected - basically, it's a computer game character come to life, which is a hugely corny concept, but at least the T&A levels are lower than I'd feared.  The actual lead character seems to be a quasi-autistic boy whose missing sister may or may not have been reincarnated as said character.  Odd concept, and one of those books that goes for a dark and brooding tone which isn't entirely at ease with the premise of the story.  Looks quite nice, though - in fact, this is a rare modern example of a comic where the interior is considerably better than the cover art.  B

PUFFED #3 - The end of the three issue black comedy, and rather than going for a conventional ending, it chooses to play games with the readers.  There's a string of false endings here - false to the point of including genuine house ads between the pages.  That's normally an absolute no-no in Image books, and the equivalent of doing a false ending in cinema that includes the first ninety seconds of the closing credits.  It's a cute device which is an admittedly funny joke, but leaves the ending feeling a bit malformed and kind of robs the reader of a satisfying conclusion.  Wonder how they'll handle it in the trade paperback?  Anyway, despite its flaws, this has been a bizarrely endearing series - worth a look, assuming they do a collection.  B+

RUNAWAYS #6 - End of the first storyline, and what's that sound?  Why, it's the Genre Cliche siren, as the series suddenly swerves at the last moment into establishing codenames, a headquarters, and a rationale for costumes.  I'm not at all convinced that that's the right direction to be going in with this series.  Not that it's a bad issue - it's as good as what's come before - but it takes the book back into much more conventional territory.  Surely that's not a good thing.  B

ULTIMATE SIX #1 - Meanwhile, in Fascist America...  It's another Ultimate universe pseudo-crossover miniseries, this time between Ultimates and Ultimate Spider-Man.  The titular six are the Ultimate version of Spider-Man's Sinister Six, in case anyone didn't know.  The rather odd set-up is that they've all been dragged off and held without trial by SHIELD, in a story which actually seems to cast SHIELD and the typically thuggish Ultimates as the villains.  Kraven, as before, is so endearingly crap that you have to wonder why they're even bothering to arrest him.  It's fun, but the fairly glaring political overtones will no doubt be a stumbling block - or a huge encouragement - for many.  B+

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

Plus, why not read Chris Allen's interview with me in his excellent Breakdowns column?

Next week, the final issue of Domino!  A mere, what, two years after originally scheduled.  Exiles #34 is the second half of that storyline that didn't appear to be a storyline at all.  Mystique #6 concludes the Cuba arc.  And a new storyline begins in X-Treme X-Men #31.

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