Also this week:

ASTRO CITY: THE DARK AGE, BOOK ONE #1 - This is the start of a sixteen-issue storyline broken up into four books - in large part, it seems, to justify the regular breaks between acts that will allow the book to stay on schedule this time round.  As the title probably suggests, it's a loss of innocence thing tying in the end of the Silver Age with the roughly contemporary (in publishing terms) events around Nixon and such forth.  I'm a little surprised that Busiek wants to tell such a lengthy story about this period, because it's always seemed like a period that stands in opposition to most of the things he appears to hold in affection.  There's nothing hugely unexpected to be found in this first issue, and the "two brothers, one's a cop, one's a criminal" set up is a bit of a cliché.  But it's good enough, as a set-up issue.  B

FANTASTIC FOUR: FOES #6 - Wow.  That was dreadful.  When this series was first solicited, it sounded as though it was going to be something vaguely interesting along the lines of character studies of the villains.  It isn't.  It's "the Fantastic Four fight all the B-listers from their rogue's gallery at the same time."  It's poorly paced, the ending misfires badly, and the art just doesn't seem ready for prime time.  At this stage, Kirkman's reputation rests almost exclusively on his work elsewhere, and the quality gulf with his work for Marvel is becoming painfully noticeable.  D+

NEW AVENGERS #6 - In which Wolverine is invited to join the team, although we don't find out whether he accepts or not.  Mind you, since he's already a member of the Avengers in at least three other storylines currently running in other books, it's not like there's much mystery about it.  Bendis is setting up a reasonably interesting conspiracy subplot involving SHIELD, but the book still isn't clicking.  The problem, I think, is that the concept just isn't strong enough.  When you get down to it, the premise of the Avengers is little more than "a bunch of heroes get together and fight evil."  As a starting point for a series, that's utterly generic and dull.  What used to give Avengers some sense of identity beyond that was its sense of accumulated history, but this incarnation can't draw on that, and it doesn't have anything else to replace it with.  B-

QUEEN & COUNTRY DECLASSIFIED vol 3 #1 - Another miniseries, this time about Northern Ireland and the SAS.  For the first time in Queen & Country, Greg Rucka isn't writing.  Instead, it's Oni mainstay Antony Johnston.  Not that the difference is noticeable, which has to be a good thing.  Nominally these Declassified stories are supposed to be about the back story of the supporting cast, but Johnston seems more interested in the character of Lauren Mullen, the child of the Troubles.  Can't say I blame him, because she's a very interesting character, summed up by the scene in which her university tutor reprimands her for bending the facts to fit her pre-conceived conclusions.  Like all too many people over there, everything she does makes perfect sense once you recognise that her unshakeable worldview is sustained by terrifying levels of confirmation bias.  Interesting, and worthwhile in its own right.  A

SPIDER-MAN: HOUSE OF M #1 - No, I'm not treating every issue of a line-wide crossover as an X-book.  You've got to draw the line somewhere.  But they'll make into the capsules, for what it's worth.  This is Spider-Man's tie-in mini, with a reasonably promising creative team - Mark Waid and Tom Peyer writing, with Salvador Larroca pencilling.  Spider-Man's world has turned out pretty well (as is the case for most of the heroes, of course).  In this world, his powers are a positive boon, and he's been able to pursue all his various interests with incredible success.  Except that, of course, he's not a mutant.  He's just told everyone he is.  It's a nice little idea for a House of M crossover, making use of the environment without having to feed in to the core story arc.  This is the sort of concept that might well justify the whole event as a storytelling exercise.  Shame about the co-ordination glitches, though.  If House of M itself is trying to sell Wolverine as the only one who suspects what's wrong, we shouldn't really have Spider-Man doing the same thing in his own book.  Otherwise, surprisingly good.  A-

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

Next week, it's remarkably quiet.  X-Men #172 continues "Bizarre Love Triangle", but only because it's running late.  Marvel Select #1, the flipbook which includes Astonishing X-Men, also turns up at last - not that I'm going to be bothering with it, of course.  New X-Men: Hellions #2 continues Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir's de factor swansong for the mainstream versions of these characters. 

Plus, because you demanded it, a sequel to Wolverine: Soultaker, as Akira Yoshida brings us X-Men: Kitty Pryde - Shadow & Flame #1.  (And you thought X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong was a stupidly long title.)  Marvel have so much confidence in the series that they've already cut it back from six issues to five, and what does that tell you?

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