Also this week:

ASTONISHING X-MEN #13 - Your trivial yet still dramatically valid plot nitpick for the week: how come it goes dark in the Danger Room when they turn the lights out?  Why doesn't the glowing kid with the fire powers light up the room?  You know, the one you showed in tight close-up twice in the preceding three panels?  No?  Oh, forget it.  Astonishing X-Men returns for its second season and, as promised, there's much more focus on the characters.  Kitty and Colossus' relationship is finally made to seem natural rather than merely nostalgic, which has to count as a success.  On the other hand, I really don't like the direction Whedon's going in with Emma Frost, who (lest we forget) hasn't actually been a villain since 1991.  Putting her back with the Hellfire Club still strikes me as the single least interesting and most banal thing you could possibly do with her, and nothing here persuades me otherwise.  Still, beautiful artwork, and enough genuinely good material to just about overcome my serious reservations about this storyine.  B+

EXILES #77 - It's the Squadron Supreme's world, and you know the drill by now.  Proteus shows up, the Exiles come after him, a fight ensues.  And in fact, that's pretty much the whole drill here, because the Squadron's world isn't actually all that interesting.  They're a knock-off of the Justice League, and their main function is to appear in meta-stories and "who'd wins".  This is the latter category, so everyone has a big fight.  One of the least inspired World Tour issues, feeling as though the Squadron have been included out of a sense of duty rather than because Bedard had anything in particular he wanted to do with them.  C+

ULTIMATE WOLVERINE VS HULK #2 - I know some purists don't like this book because the "Wolverine getting ripped in half" stuff is so silly, and I can kind of understand that.  But much to my surprise, this heavily hyped title is turning out to be vastly entertaining.  Issue #2 is all the Hulk, explaining what he's been up to since we last saw him in Ultimates.  Mark Millar never really seemed to have a grasp on Banner beyond the level of very broad stereotype, and Damon Lindelof does wonders here turning him into a more workable character and less of a one-dimensional joke.  He's still a joke, mind you, but with rather more dimensions, and some actual sympathy from the writer (something Millar seemed to be constitutionally incapable of providing).  Best story anyone's done with Ultimate Hulk yet, actually.  A

WOLVERINE #39 - "Origins and Endings" lumbers on as Wolverine fights the Winter Soldier for a whole issue.  This is really just an excuse for the Winter Soldier to fight him off and then deliver a one line revelation at the end of the issue - something that he and Wolverine both already know, by the way, so it doesn't actually advance the plot.  I suppose there's at least enough action here to distract attention from the lack of movement, and it's probably the best issue of this arc, but it's still not very successful.  Millar and Romita did much better action sequences, and the story simply doesn't have the weight to sustain this level of portentousness.  B-

X-MEN #183 - Peter Milligan tries to write a big event more or less straight, and as you'd expect, it's not really his thing.  He's trying his best, though, bless him.  In fact, after coming across as a bit of a fool last issue, Apocalypse is presented rather better this time round.  He's plainly mad, but at least there's a certain internal logic to his scheme.  He's come to the Institute to recruit remaining mutants from the 198 Camp; and he's going to level the playing field for mutants his way, by wiping out 90% of humans too.  When somebody points out that the mutants would still be outnumbered by millions, he explains that "It's a symbolic figure", which seems strangely appropriate to his way of thinking.  I rather like the idea of Famine simply subjecting opponents to overriding hunger rather than literally emaciating them, which seems a little more workable.  But there's still something a little off about this - Milligan just isn't a natural at this sort of story, and it can't help but show through.  B

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

Next week, the Sentinel miniseries wraps up with issue #5.  X-Factor #4 has more of Layla, New Excalibur #5 guest stars the female Captain Britain, and there's more Shi'ar material in X-Men: The End - Men & X-Men #3.  Plus, the twelfth Exiles trade paperback.

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