Also this week...

EXILES #93 - This is the penultimate chapter of "Enemy of the Stars", Chris Claremont's opening storyline.  It's a five-parter, and from what we've seen so far, that's really too long.  It's an unobjectionable, by-the-numbers Exiles story, where the team visit a world gone wrong and fight some bad guys.  But it doesn't offer anything that couldn't have been covered in half the time.  I'd rather hoped that Claremont would take the opportunity provided by Exiles to do the sort of swashbuckling adventure stories he clearly loves.  Instead we've got yet another mind-control story, a concept that Claremont has overused so much that his editors really should be enforcing a moratorium on it.  It's not a particularly bad story, but it's too long, and Claremont can make better use of the format than he's doing here.  B-

FALLEN SON: THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA - THE AVENGERS - Although billed as an Avengers one-shot, this is really the second part of a five-issue miniseries.  Since I was quite negative about issue #1, it's only fair to acknowledge that this one works a lot better.  Following the "five stages of grief" format, this issue is anger, which Loeb covers by following both teams of Avengers at once.  Mainly, this means that Ed McGuinness gets to draw the official Avengers fighting monsters, and for once, Iron Man's team appear alongside the renegade counterparts without seeming like bastards.  Lightweight, but good fun.  B+

NEW EXCALIBUR #19 - Another lengthy Chris Claremont story, as he continues his slow-burning Albion arc.  I'm not thrilled about the decision to bring back the shadow X-Men (whom we're apparently now going to call Shadow-X), since they weren't terribly interesting villains in the first place.  But given the shortage of Excalibur villains established to date, and the fact that they're playing second fiddle to Albion, I can see the logic in using them.  It's a relatively straightforward, traditional team book story, and Claremont's fans will find plenty to enjoy here.  B

RED MENACE #6 - The concluding part of this largely overlooked WildStorm miniseries about a (literal) McCarthyite witchhunt against superheroes in the 1950s.  I found the first issue amusing mainly because it came out at the same time as Civil War and did a rather similar concept much more plausibly.  Over its six issue run, Red Menace has hovered awkwardly between a political thriller and a classic-style superhero story, but overall I'd judge the book a success on its own terms.  These ideas have been explored before, but this book does it with a nicely constructed logic, and Jerry Ordway's old-school art fits perfectly with the setting.  It's not going to change your life, but it's a fine little series.  B+

WISDOM #6 - The miniseries that nobody seems to be buying except for me reaches its penultimate issue.  This is one of the most enjoyable overlooked titles of the year, if you ask me, and at this stage I'd be sold on an ongoing series.  Of course, given the sales that's hardly likely to happen, but I can dream.  Putting this book in the Max imprint was probably a mistake; there's very little here that merits a mature readers certificate, and it's really a big sweeping superhero book with alternate realities and such forth.  Manuel Garcia is doing a great job on art considering that he was brought onto the project late in the day, and Cornell makes a persuasive bid to become the thinking man's Mark Millar.  A

There's more from me at If Destroyed, and if you're desperate for more Article 10 columns, you can always hunt through the archives on Ninth Art.

Next week, Astonishing X-Men #21.  And that's it - despite the large number of X-books coming out in May, none whatsoever were scheduled for the first week.  Astonishing is only coming out because it's a month and a half late.

Oh, and as I sit down to write this, I'm reminded that there was an issue of X-Factor I missed when I was on holiday.  Completely forgot about it.  Must see if I can find it.

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