Also this week...

IRON MAN #7 - From the writer of Carnivale, which seemed awfully unlikely.  Actually, it's pretty solid superheroics, albeit that there's nothing tremendously new going on here.  Irritatingly, this is yet another comic that hasn't got the memo about Nick Fury being absent from SHIELD for the last two years, but other than that, everything's working surprisingly nicely.  If anything, I'm surprised that it's so very normal.  But a decent normal comic, so no complaints.  B

SENTINEL SQUAD O*N*E #4 - I just don't understand how this is possible.  It's a comic about giant robots fighting telekinetic cyborg dinosaurs.  How can it be so flat?  And yet it somehow manages.  Not bad, exactly, but the Squad went into this series as faceless nobodies, and that's exactly how they remain.  We know they're not in real danger because it's only their origin story, and the characters still haven't been rounded out to the degree that they desperately need.  Inoffensive but ultimately unnecessary.  C+

X-MEN #185 - Even more of Apocalypse.  Milligan finally seems to be hitting his stride with this storyline, as Apocalypse unexpectedly turns out to be a great character for him to write.  With a lunatic who thinks he's talking sense at the centre of the plot, Milligan has an outlet for his own sensibilities without needing to overpower the rest of the story.  Everyone else can plough on with appearing in a superhero story, while Apocalypse gets lines like "Ah, behold the weak sentimentality that leads to cultural dissolution."  Well, I think it's funny, anyway.  Not quite sure about the computer colouring style that seems to have completely erased the actual lines from Salvador Larroca's artwork, but it might yet grow on me.  B+

X-STATIX PRESENTS DEAD GIRL #4 - This, on the other hand, is pure-bred Milligan insanity.  To be honest, some of this issue is verging on the obvious - yeah, yeah, Hell has a bureaucratic level.  But there's some cute material with Dr Strange and Dead Girl doing some highly unlikely flirting, and a neat little subplot with Guy trying to win Edie back.  It's very clearly a Doctor Strange book and not a Dead Girl book, whatever it may say on the title, but it does have the X-Statix feel to it, and it's great fun.  A-

There's a new Article 10 on Monday at Ninth Art, and more from me at If Destroyed.

Next week, Wolverine #41 is an extra-sized fill-in issue, which I have a sneaking suspicion might have started life as an annual before they decided to launch Origins.  X-Factor #6 fills us in on the background of Layla Miller.  And Storm #3 continues the uphill struggle to persuade us that we care about Storm and T'Challa.  Oh, and Astonishing X-Men #14, shipping a week late.

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