Also this week...

AUTOMATIC KAFKA #3 - Kafka decides to hide in plain sight by becoming a celebrity, so that nobody will dare kidnap him.  So he goes off and does a ridiculous TV show that reminds me of something out of Judge Dredd.  Silly, but fun.  Ashley Wood is continuing to break out of the rut he'd been in over the last few years - covering pages in mock-corporate logos in hideous orange/cyan colour combinations may not be subtle, but it works for the story, and it's good to see him spreading his range.  A-

CALL OF DUTY: THE WAGON #2 - We go into action story mode, as a character from another book chases a burning man across town in an ambulance.  Not actually much for the book's own lead character to do, mind you.  Good looking art from Danijel Zezelj, but the slow pace of the Call of Duty storyline is still not helping.  B-

ESTABLISHMENT #13 - Final issue, and everything implodes into a cloud of WildStorm references.  Not desperately good, to be honest, although the rush to resolve the series never does cancelled books any favours in their dying days.  C

DAREDEVIL #37 - Elektra comes round to visit Daredevil and generally make matters worse for him.  Although the pacing picks up a bit this issue, the overall storyline has certainly been quite slow in monthly form.  But I enjoy Bendis' scripting and Maleev's art enough that I'm not really too bothered about paying for another three conversation scenes.  They're good ones.  A

ELEKTRA #14 - The Coalition tries to hunt down Elektra, and as you might expect, all does not go quite as planned.  It's the big action issue after the slow burn of the last few issues, and very good it is too.  Still, I'm hoping that Rucka doesn't entirely move away from the direction this arc seemed to be heading in, since it was an interesting place to go with the character.  A-

HOOD #5 - Parker sets out to raise money for John's lawyer, which isn't as easy as it seems.  I somehow managed to miss issue #4, and got to spend Saturday touring Glasgow's comic shops in order to track it down (which I did).  Great series, anyhow, and one of the best things to come out of the Max imprint so far.  A

HULK #45 - Surreal mystery time, as Banner is taken in by a woman only to find her murdered in seemingly impossible circumstances.  All very odd, and a little on the contrived side, but Bruce Jones and Stuart Immonen pull it off.  Entertaining, although no doubt the old school readers will complain again that the Hulk isn't actually in it.  I don't care, we're better off without him.  A-

PETER PARKER, SPIDER-MAN #48 - New villain time, and it's an Asian woman with mind-altering lotuses.  Or something.  Mark Buckingham isn't the first artist who springs to mind for this sort of thing, but he sells it quite well by breaking down the panel borders rather than resorting to the cliched psychedelic imagery.  This is a bit more like it, now that the Green Goblin's out of the way.  B+

PROMETHEA #22 - The top of the tree, and much cooing about the origin of the universe and the nature of god.  Yeah, fine, whatever.  My attitude to this whole arc has hovered between issues which were moderately interesting on a metaphorical level, and stuff like this which is just quasi-mystical gobbledegook.  Nice art, though.  B-

THING: FREAKSHOW #4 - And another typically thrilling Icons miniseries wraps up.  Next.  C

THUNDERBOLTS #72 - The Heroes Reborn Earth and the real one can't both exist, and the Thunderbolts need to come up with a solution.  Or do they?  Nice artwork from Chris Batista, although the plot is becoming a bit contrived here as the justifications are wheeled out to support the dilemma.  B-

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #27 - Still fighting the Green Goblin, I see.  Still not interested.  Good epilogue with Nick Fury, though.  B

Y: THE LAST MAN #3 - Yorick makes it to the White House, which is under attack from aggrieved widows.  There's something a bit screwy about the timeline here (it's been how long since the disaster, and characters in Washington still haven't worked out who the President is?), but overall this keeps up the interest from the first two issues.  A-

Last week's Article 10 is still up at Ninth Art.  Vague connections with Marville, if you're looking for a thematic link.

The draft shipping list for next week says we're getting Agent X #3, which is good, and Wolverine #181, which is the first issue of the new direction, and I'll believe that when I see it.  Plenty of books have been coming out over the last few weeks without being on the shipping list, though, so look out for Ultimate X-Men #22 (which should have been out this week) and X-Statix #3 (originally due for next week.

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