It's a strange, bitty week for the X-books.  Nothing of any great importance is happening in the regular titles, but we have two miniseries finishing, one starting, and a thoroughly unlikely one-shot.

The thoroughly unlikely one-shot is Captain Universe / X-23 #1, the third part in a five-part storyline based on long-forgotten novelty character Captain Universe.  The gimmick is that Captain Universe is a sort of cosmic power that floats around and transforms ordinary people into Captain Universe so that they can fight evil.  Somebody has apparently dusted this character off from the vaults and decided that he's been unjustly overlooked, as next year sees a Captain Universe series. 

In order to promote it, we have a strange weekly miniseries by Jay Faerber, where Captain Universe bonds with a different superhero every week.  This allows them to put five different character's names on the cover and bill all five chapters as issue #1.  The tenuous plot justification is that the Uni-Power has been malfunctioning of late.  It's wandering around bonding with various heroes so that it can copy their powers, which will apparently then allow it to go off and investigate the problem.  Presumably that's the subject of the 2006 series.

This issue's guest stars are the unlikely duo of X-23 and the Scorpion (the one from Amazing Fantasy, not the Spider-Man villain).  Incidentally, unlike some purists, I have no problem with the way Marvel is pushing these two characters.  The Marvel Universe needs a turnover of new characters to avoid becoming stale, and since readers steadfastly refuse to buy them, that pretty much dictates that you've got to hammer them into the landscape by guest appearances.  Besides, Scorpion's Amazing Fantasy storyline was rather good, and she's a character well worth pursuing.

Having said all that, Faerber finds himself straining mightily to justify the plot of this issue.  Part one featured the Hulk, which made passable sense because he's met Captain Universe before.  Part two featured Daredevil, which also made sense because the previous chapter had set up a murder trial.  Part three features X-23, who happens to be passing.  Not exactly the best way to do a team-up.  Incidentally, X-23 seems to be back on the streets at this point, which also seemed to be the understanding of the incoming writers of New X-Men last week.  One wonders if the editors have noticed that they never actually got around to doing any such story.

Anyhow, X-23 stumbles upon Scorpion and the Uni-Power, who are still caught up in a big fight with AIM from the last two issues.  AIM have loads of information about the Uni-Power, and the heroes team up to get it back.  And that's about it, really.  It's competent but unexceptional, with some rather attractive art by Francis Portella. But Faerber never really seems to work out quite what X-23 is doing in the comic in the first place.  She's a difficult character to make work at the best times, and cosmic story concepts are horrendously unsuited to her.  It's just a big, awkward mismatch, never really bad, but which never really seems to click on any level.

Rating: B-

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