Also among this week's comics...

BIRDS OF PREY #57 - Ed Benes' art remains a particularly tough stumbling block for me.  I mean, what the hell is that thing strapped to the bed on page 3?  That's not even cheesecake, it's just stupidly wrong.  Thank god he keeps her legs out of shot for the remainder of the issue, because he seems to have found them a real challenge.  What is she wearing on her legs, anyway?  Leather plastercasts?  As a script, it's fine; it's a decent plot, the dialogue is snappy, and if you can tolerate the art, you'll probably enjoy it.  But god, I just can't get into this.  I really can't stand the art, and I'm too busy hating it to properly pay attention to the story.  It's not even good exploitation art; it's just ugly and frequently inept.  Oddly, he's fine when he's not trying to draw like that; but he spends enough of the issue on that mode to wreck it for me.  I see for some reason this didn't bother me so much when I reviewed the last issue; maybe it's cumulative exposure.  I want to like it, too, but... I just can't get past that damned art.  I'm just not in the mood to tolerate this stuff at the moment.   C+

BLACK PANTHER #62 - The final issue, although since it's effectively been rolled into The Crew, that's a rather academic concept.  Old supporting characters return for a reprise, and fortunately, it turns out that not all of the plot was spoiled in Crew.  Of course, as a closing issue for the series it does have the glitch that it's bringing back supporting characters from a different character entirely, following the drastic shift of direction a year ago.  And there's a very, very contrived plot twist - what, you mean I was supposed to take all those talking-to-ghosts scenes literally? - which I don't really like.  Still, a pretty good resolution.  B+

INHUMANS #3 - The Inhumans arrive on Earth and set about not settling in.  Well, Alaris does, anyway.  Although he's the big strong one, McKeever is writing him as an insanely enthusiastic and naive character - funny, but a little odd in that even the other Inhumans seem to find his behaviour a little strange.  As you'd imagine, much of this is devoted to general set-up of the Inhumans being unpopular with the locals, and it hits all the usual points efficiently enough.  Meanwhile, now that the core cast of five have been established, McKeever starts setting up the soap opera conflicts.  A pretty good book so far, which doesn't seem to have quite attracted the attention it deserves.  B+

WILDC.A.T.S. #12 - The first year rounds off with Marlowe considering the implications of his newest discovery: the alien Halo batteries are so damn powerful that they can get rid of the need for petrol altogether.  Casey has long since abandoned any serious pretence of this being a superhero book, in favour of a bizarre and ambitious storyline about Marlowe using the Halo corporation to change the world.  The plot details continue to glitch regularly, unfortunately - why is Marlowe only just realising that he has an infinite energy source when surely that was implicit back when they first launched the batteries and declared that they would last forever?  But the ideas are strong, and the general direction of the book is well worthwhile.  A-

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

Next week, just Weapon X #11.  Well, that's going to make a thrilling review.  Fortunately, there's also the first issues of Empire, Red, Silver Surfer and Thor: Vikings out, so I'm sure we'll find something to fill the pages.

If you're wondering what happened to everything else, there was only ever one book scheduled for next week.  It was X-Treme X-Men #29.  That's been pushed back to the first week of August (as have New X-Men and X-Men: Phoenix).

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