Also this week...

BATGIRL #38 - Jesus christ, this is ugly.  It's a fill-in issue, apparently with the job of writing Spoiler out of the supporting cast to reflect developments in other Batman titles.  As a story it's passable, but guest penciller Jeff Parker completely misses the point of the lead character (sleek, agile and unimpeachably graceful) with a truly horrible loose, awkward and disproportionate rendition.  Thoroughly unpleasant on the eyes.  C-

CAPTAIN MARVEL #7 - After last month's reset button we seem to have settled down to a new status quo in which Captain Marvel is still mad as a nihilist hatter, but at least he listens to Rick again.  We also have Kyle Hotz on art, whose dark but comically exaggerated style is a good fit for this increasingly strange storyline.  This month, Captain Marvel declares himself to be god, and pops up to Asgard to explain the point to Thor.  B+

LUCIFER #36 - Lucifer recruits his crew to sail off on a mythical Asgardian ship on an insanely dangerous mission.  He won't be going, of course.  He's not stupid.  But it does bring back a selection of the book's supporting cast for an interesting collision of subplots and a typically warped quest storyline.  Looks like Lucifer will be taking a back seat on this plotline, but the rest of the cast are easily capable of holding interest.  A-

PARADIGM #7 - Ohkaayy...  This may be a first - a comic exclusively devoted to three characters delivering expository dialogue which still made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.  Paradigm is clearly a comic which a very clear plan in mind, but it's also a comic which sets out its agenda in the most oblique way imaginable.  The letters column makes clear that that's deliberate; the question is whether it's a sensible artistic choice, or merely something that obfuscates the story into a graphic version of the Times Crossword.  At some point this month I must sit down and re-read the entire series in the hope of reaching a firm view before issue #8 comes out.  C

SLEEPER #3 - Newly promoted, Holden meets his new colleague Miss Misery.  She's the sort of character whose powers are so ludicrously contrived that they really shouldn't work in a series like this, but Brubaker somehow manages to pull it off regardless.  I'm a little less certain about "Here's the people who really run the world", a concept that's surely been run into the ground by now - and this doesn't at first glance look like an altogether different take on the idea.  We shall see.  B+

THUNDERBOLTS #77 - No, I don't know why there's a half-dressed woman with knuckledusters on the cover either.  Is it meant to be parodying a men's magazine of some sort?  I don't know any men's magazines with an archaic-style logo, though.  Is that font supposed to mean anything to me?  Come to think of it, is that title supposed to mean anything any more?  Anyhow, this is another decent issue drowning under the weight of extraordinarily misguided promotion.  B+

WAR STORY: ARCHANGEL - It's been a while since the last one of these, hasn't it?  Anyhow, Gary Erskine joins Ennis this time round for a story about one of the more curious World War II oddities - camships.  Entertaining black comedy paired with an obvious respect for the people who worked on these bizarre contraptions.  Not the best in the War Story series, but still very good.  A

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

Don't forget to vote in the UK National Comics Awards at their website.  The X-Axis and Ninth Art are both eligible for the website awards.

Next week, we're going to be busy.  Agent X, Exiles, Wolverine, Weapon X, X-Statix, Uncanny X-Men and X-Treme X-Men, all in one week.

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