Also this week...

CEREBUS #283 - Ah, Dave hasn't been taking the pills this month.  Half of this is a fairly amusing mock Woody Allen monologue.  The other half is a mind-numbingly tedious dissertation about Sodom and Gomorrah, amounting to ten pages of solid text, only about five of which I could be bothered to struggle through.  Nobody somebody will let me know if it picked up near the end.  D+

CRUSADES #20 - And that'll be the end of that one.  Crusades had a nice starting point for a story - medieval knight inexplicably turns up in modern day New York - but never quite seemed to know what to do with it then.  This is a fairly obvious accelerated wrap-up story, and in the manner of these things, it doesn't really work.  Still, at least it provides some degree of closure to a series which had some promise but never really clicked.  B-

ELEKTRA: GLIMPSE & ECHO #4 - Looks great, but the story remains rather generic.  Either there's a whole level of subtle meaning which is going right over my head here, or it's really just a bit a of a lightweight story with extraordinarily good art.  A bit of a mismatch.  B

FANTASTIC FOUR #62 - Beginning Mark Waid's first three-parter.  I can see up to a point why some of the hardcore fanbase is grumbling about this, as Waid seems to be going out of his way to do a very traditional take on the book, largely resetting everyone to their traditional roles.  But then, that is the classic format for the book, and Waid seems to be having enormous fun with it.  Not really my sort of thing, but cute, in a good way.  B

HOOD #6 - The miniseries ends, but sets up a sequel in the process.  Now that's something I'd be pleased to see, although given the sales for this book, I won't be getting my hopes up.  Certainly one of the best things to come out of the Max imprint so far (only Alias is really giving it serious competition), and with this and Y: The Last Man, Brian Vaughan is finally starting to show what he's capable of.  A

JLA #74 - Have I not dropped this book yet?  Damn, I must have forgotten to tell the store.  Oh well.  We're back in the dim and distant past helping to free Aquaman, and despite Joe Kelly's best efforts to persuade us that this is very exciting stuff, I'm just not convinced.  Maybe once he settles down a roster that he has more control over, things will improve.  C+

PETER PARKER, SPIDER-MAN #49 - End of the present two-parter, which seems to be an opportunity for Jenkins to bring in some ideas he has about the true nature of Spider-Man's spider-sense.  As a story, it's a perfectly solid "revenge on evil corporation" piece, and Mark Buckingham's art is consistently excellent.  B+

VERTIGO POP: TOKYO #4 - And another miniseries winds up, in suitably over the top fashion.  Whether this was really making a serious point about pop culture as per the remit, or just having fun, I'm not quite sure.  But it was enough fun that I don't really care - an endearingly over the top story, and gorgeously detailed art from Seth Fisher are good enough for me.  A

And now, a question for all regular readers.  From the look of the stats, there are probably more of you reading this on the web or on the mailing list than there are on Usenet, where the X-Axis started off.  But you only get to discuss it on Usenet.  This may not be a problem.  You may not want to.

Would there be any interest in an X-Axis forum at Delphi?  Let me know.  And I will give it some thought.

Moving on, there's a new Article 10 at Ninth Art on Monday.

Next week, Agent X follows up on the Mary Zero story, and Wolverine sees whether Frank Tieri can follow up his reasonably promising start to the new direction.  X-Statix is also on the schedule for next week, but doesn't seem to be on the shipping list just yet - not that that necessarily means anything these days.

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