Also this week:

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #43 - Peter and Aunt May go to Hollywood to track down Mary Jane, who's playing a superhero's girlfriend in a film. Talk about obvious parallels. On the bright side, though, the story does have a very nice take on Dr Octopus in a subplot, which bring a bit more credibility back to the character.  B

APACHE SKIES #1 - It's another updated western, this time with characters avenging the death of the Apache Kid. Technically this is quite a good book, with some excellent painted artwork from Leonardo Manco. But the western genre has always left me cold, and at the end of the day, this is still a western. Consequently, it doesn't do anything for me. B

CATWOMAN #9 - End of the "Disguises" arc, and a cute finish which gives a bit more moral ambiguity back to the lead character. She'd been looking uncharacteristically heroic for some of this story.  Good way to round out the story, and it's good to see the series remaining stubbornly disconnected from the other Batman books. B-

DEADLINE #4 - Last issue, and as you might expect, Kat works out what's been going on. Rather unusual use of minor supervillain the Tinkerer here, and I'm still not quite sure whether I buy it or not. Anyhow, the series has been a pleasant surprise. We already knew that Guy Davis is good, but it was less expected to discover that Bill Rosemann can actually write. B+

FUSED #2 - Continuing the origin story, pseudoscience abounds in order to justify Mark becoming unable to leave his armoured suit. Hell, it's the core concept, I'll allow it a bit of leeway to get it out of the way. Steve Niles continues to underplay the artwork nicely. A back-up strip introduces a bunch of superhero characters into the plot, which seems a slightly odd choice, but we'll see how it works out. B+

GREEN ARROW #15 - Ehh. End of the Onomatopoeia plot, and no real explanation of what the point was. I'm not a big fan of plot device villains, and this story doesn't really hold up for me. Still, the art's good. C+

INCREDIBLE HULK #43 - Everyone stands around quoting Coleridge at one another and intermittently advancing the plot. It feels a bit forced, as all three main characters seem willing to debate the symbolic significance of the albatross in Rime of the Ancient Mariner so that Jones can drag it kicking and screaming into his plot. If you're prepared to let that slide, though, it's otherwise another strong issue. B+

INFINITY ABYSS #4 - More retro cosmic stuff. Fine if you like that sort of thing, but unlikely to win over any new fans. And it still feels like a 1980s throwback, not helped by the fact that it seems to be tying itself into old Warlock stories from the Infinity Watch days. B-

MARVEL KNIGHTS #5 - And more of the same here. In fact, I quite like Alberto Ponticelli's artwork most of the time - although he produces a stunningly bad team shot near the end of the issue.  The plot, though, remains a pile of unrelated concepts that just doesn't hold together.  C-

THE ORDER #6 - End of the story, and the end of the Defenders series, since it's not being continued beyond this point. Perfectly acceptable superheroics, but nothing that's really going to make me miss the series. The curse concept was a neat attempt to get round the fundamental problem with this book - that the cast have no motivation to remain together as a team - but it's never really clicked, and after Larsen's departure, the book has drifted into slightly bland territory. B

QUEEN & COUNTRY #10 - The letters page is still screaming about Tara's tits, although my own objections to the art are considerably lessened this issue now that Tara has gone back to wearing sensible clothes which don't jar so horribly. That means we can get back to focussing on the plot, which is largely about Tara and Ed's affair starting to interfere with her professional distance. All good stuff.  A-

SPIDER-MAN'S TANGLED WEB #16 - And immediately, here's artist Leandro Fernandez again. Tombstone goes to jail and hooks up with various other minor criminals, in one of those stories that leaves me with too many niggling continuity problems to really get into it. (Such as: Rocket Racer as a villain? Wasn't that fifteen years ago?) None of these things really go to the heart of the story, but there's enough of them to be an irritating distraction.  B-

THING: FREAKSHOW #2 - Oh lord, it's a small town full of Kree and Skrulls. I'm sure I've seen this before somewhere. Anyhow, the art's rather good, but the story is drifting further away from holding my interest. Haven't we done the Kree/Skrull War to death by this point?  B-

Last week's Article 10 is still up at Ninth Art if you want to read more about Automatic Kafka #1.

Next week, the first issue of X-Statix.  Alpha Flight guest star in Wolverine #179, which is the third Matt Nixon fill-in issue. (I will be having a stiff drink handy.) And Kaare Andrews writes a jam issue in X-Men Unlimited #37.

Which means that Soldier X #1 still won't be out, and Agent X #1 is going to miss its shipping date as well. They're the only two late-running books, but god, if you're going to relaunch three titles in one month, it's not impressive for two of them to miss shipping.

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