Also this week:

CAPTAIN MARVEL #25 - Commercial reality finally prevails, and the book is cancelled.  And since this is a story by Peter David and Keith Giffen, that's not just the commercial reality - it's the plot.  Somebody's been watching the final episode of Moonlighting, as the entire comic is destroyed in a metafictional implosion.  Eulogy and Expediency, two previously unmentioned cosmic entities, turn up to perform their normal role in prematurely cancelled comics - ridiculously artificial closure, and bumping the whole thing into limbo.  Poor Captain Marvel is forced to listen to a patient explanation by Eulogy of where it all went wrong: the book was boring, and nobody really cared about him in the first place.  Very funny, and the best thing Peter David's written in ages.  A

CLA$$WAR #6 - Yes, the final issue at last.  Issue #1 of this six-issue miniseries shipped back in February 2002, but two artists and over two years later, the beleaguered Com.X have finally made it to the end.  There's some rather nice art from Travel Foreman (if a little flat at points), but by this point Cla$$war seems like a strangely contradiction - simultaneously a hamfisted anti-government rant, and a curious relic of a more innocent pre-9/11 era when you actually had to make up silly conspiracy theories to justify broadsiding the US government.  Oh, and it doesn't actually have an ending - it finishes by setting up for another miniseries.  We'll expect that in 2015, then, shall we?  C+

EX MACHINA #2 - Brian Vaughan and Tony Harris' series, about the world's only superhero becoming mayor of New York, is living up to its initial promise.  Rather than focus on the superpowers, most of the story is based around more conventional politics, with a refreshingly down to earth political problem - those idiots at the local modern art gallery have been spending public money on inflammatory crap again.  You wonder how many people really get worked up about the contents of modern art galleries, but it still takes the book in a more interesting direction than I'd expected.  A

SEAGUY #3 - End of the first miniseries, although Morrison apparently wants to do a trilogy, which explains the rather downbeat ending.  In this issue, Seaguy learns the origin of the Moon, and why we never get to see the other side of it.  (It isn't finished.)  The Prisoner-style ending works well enough if you treat it as the first act, although it remains to be seen whether Vertigo will actually commission the other two.  Hope so, because this has been great fun.  A-

SERENITY ROSE #4 - Wonderful comic.  Nobody seems to buy the damn thing, so I'm going to hammer the point once again - wonderful comic.  Yes, it's a bit goth.  Don't let that put you off.  I can't stand goth either.  This is the acceptable face of goth - quiet, intelligent, funny, and faintly exasperated.  The premise: the excessively cute Serenity Rose is one of the handful of witches in the world.  Some of the others are famous.  Some are in showbiz.  Serenity... does nothing.  At all.  Except sulk.  She's the world's least motivated protagonist.   She just wants to be left alone.  And for the most part, the extremely relaxed plot tends to oblige.  This time, however, she gets dragged into the city and might end up meeting another witch.  After four issues of not a lot happening (very entertainingly, though), it comes as a genuine surprise to see a plot finally kicking into gear.  Buy the damn thing.  A+

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

Next week, the first issue of the ongoing Rogue series.  Can it really work?  Astonishing X-Men #3 continues Joss Whedon's first arc.  X-Statix #25 wraps up the Avengers storyline.  More dubious skin treatment in Mystique #17.  And if we close our eyes and wish real hard, maybe Excalibur #3 will just go away.

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