Also this week:

BLACK WIDOW #1 - Ah, Bill Sienkiewicz artwork.  There's something we don't see nearly enough of.  Actually, Sienkiewicz is in relative conservative form on this series - it's stylish art, but sticking to fairly conventional narrative.  Still great to see him again, though.  As for the story, the Black Widow goes on the run after coming under attack from people who are killing off former Soviet agents.  It's intelligent action movie stuff, although a "helping a hitchhiker against a rapist" scene comes off as a bit cliched.  Good first issue, nonetheless.  A-

RUNAWAYS #18 - An epilogue capping off the first run of the book.  With the Pride out of the way, the remaining kids find themselves as wards of the state.  And they don't like it very much.  You can probably guess where this is heading.  It's a nice little wrap-up to the series, and does the job of showing a way forward for the book now that the group's original raison d'etre has been resolved.  This has been one of the best books Marvel's created in recent years (and one of the few completely new concepts to show any sort of staying power).  Hopefully the relaunch will be able to play off that to deliver the audience that it deserves - although admittedly, it didn't work for Sleeper.  A

There's a new Article 10 on Monday at Ninth Art.

Next week, Marvel are having a fifth week event with a bunch of 2099 one-shots.  One of them is Marvel Knights 2099: Mutant #1, which I suppose counts as an X-book.  Other than that, there's Gambit #2 and X-Men #162.  There's also a trade paperback collection of Wolverine/Punisher.

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