Also this week:

GENERATION M #3 - Hmm.  I think by now we've moved beyond the phase of noting that it's not really the series people were expecting.  But there are other problems emerging.  The story cuts back and forth between Sally Floyd meeting ex-mutants, and the actual plot.  The plot involves Sally's refusal to acknowledge her alcoholism, and a serial killer who's going after ex-mutants.  The problem is that there's no real sense here of either plot thread progressing.  It's as though Jenkins really wants to write about this ex-mutant stuff, but can't find a way of linking it back to the story, so just has characters show up every few pages to remind us of the plot instead.  Might be mid-series flab, I suppose, but I'm getting the sense that this framing device isn't going to work in terms of providing the ex-mutant interview scenes with a dramatically interesting context.  C+

HELLBLAZER #216 - New writer Denise Mina takes over, and guess what?  Yes, John Constantine is visiting her home town!  Is there a DC bye-law about this?  Anyhow, Mina is a Glaswegian crime novelist, so apparently we're decamping to Glasgow.  This should be perversely enertaining for me, if nobody else, because I lived there for several years, and I'm rather looking forward to seeing a Glaswegian writer's take on their home city filtered through an Argentinian artist.  Considering that this is Mina's first piece of comics writing, she seems very at home with the medium.  On the other hand, there's not much sense of a distinctive authorial voice - if anything, it's got the feel of a standard (but very competent) Hellblazer story.  Maybe when she gets him to Glasgow.  B

Last week's Article 10 is still up at Ninth Art.  And If Destroyed will, honestly, be updated in the course of the week.

Next week, it's a bit of a grab bag.  Ultimate Fantastic Four/X-Men is the second half of the storyline which started last month in Ultimate X-Men/Fantastic Four.  "Origins and Endings" continues in Wolverine #38, leading into the upcoming Wolverine: Origins series.  Exiles #76 is still in Marvel 2099.  X-Men: Deadly Genesis #3 and X-Men #181 both show up, a week late.  And X-Men & Power Pack #4 wraps up that miniseries.  There's also a shared trade paperback collecting the X-Men/Black Panther crossover, "Wild Kingdom."

back | continue