Also filed under "God, who cares?" is Exiles #24.  It's so hard to work up the enthusiasm this week, it really is.  There's just so damn much of it, and it's so bloody average.

Somewhere or other I had picked up the impression that the Weapon X storyline was to be a two-parter.  It isn't; this is part two of three.  And it's not like part one was exactly bursting with ideas.

I remember a time when I was enthusiastic about this series.  It always had a tendency towards formula, forced on it by the premise, but it had snappy dialogue, strong characterisation and great art.  Two years later, and the umpteenth miserable alternative dimension later, I really wish the book would get a second idea.  It's not just fallen into the Quantum Leap format of "arrive, find problem, solve problem, leave"; it's always the same sodding problem.  The world is all miserable and bad.  The Exiles will sort it out and move on.

But this is Weapon X, the dark version of the Exiles.  So what do they do?  Why, they turn up and reinforce the nasty government by helping them to crush the last remnant of opposition.  Do you see what they've done there?  They've inverted the premise.  In the most obvious way imaginable.

Throw in the usual arbitrary guest appearances ("What if Wonder Man was standing next to the Hulk in a nuclear blast and became kind of like the Hulk too?  And he lived with Scarlet Witch and Dr Strange, only Dr Strange had no legs?") and we have another issue that looks like the result of feeding the Marvel Encyclopaedia through a Fanfic Randomiser.

This isn't particularly better or worse than other issues.  It's just the usual formula with a rather obvious twist.  The problem is that the formula has been ridden into the ground.

Rating: C+

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