We kick off this week with the second issue of Soldier X, rather surprisingly making it onto the stands as scheduled, despite not having been on this week's shipping list, and coming only two weeks after issue #1.  Say what you like about Kordey, at least he's fast.

Although t.his issue is noticeably less insane than the first one, it's still pretty bizarre.  It kicks off with Irene delivering a monologue to camera for our recap page, which is at least a helpful reminder that those pages provide plenty of scope for messing with the format.  It then moves on to a rather superfluous three page scene with the two klutzy SHIELD agents from last issue, which serves mainly to give some kind of token explanation for the title change.

The main story, however, takes us back to Nathan's flashback account of what he's been up to over the last two years.  Blaquesmith has carted him off to Moscow, for no immediately discernible reason.

I like Macan's general idea here.  Starting with the premise that Nathan is largely directionless following the defeat of Apocalypse, Macan has him tailing loyally around after Blaquesmith on the basis that, as the last surviving mentor from his original mission, he'll give him some kind of direction.  Nathan doesn't actually have a clue what's going on, he's just vaguely trying to convince himself that Blaquesmith has some kind of plan in mind.  It's not a bad angle, and I'm interested to see where Macan's going with it.

The catch, of course, is that it involves using Blaquesmith, a tiresome character if ever there was him.  Even this issue describes him as an "irritating Yoda wannabe", which is pretty much accurate, and then sets about overhauling his character by giving him a pink mohekan and a newfound interest in bedding blondes.  As tends to be the case in Macan's stories, it's a little jarring, although that's deliberate.  It makes a certain degree of sense, though - Blaquesmith's raison d'etre as a character was simply to assist Cable in achieving his mission and make sure he stayed on track.  Logically he ought to be having the same lack of direction problems as Cable himself.  There's some obvious potential in bringing him back for that purpose, but it still faces the problem that he was such a deathly dull character to begin with.

In the background of all this, there's a story about a Russian girl with healing powers, and people shooting at her tower block, which is all a little confused.  Part of Macan's style on this book is a willingness to admit up front when the story is being contrived or ridiculous, and exaggerate that.  More bizarre touches abound, such as not just Blaquesmith and Cable but an entire restaurant more or less ignoring the explosion of the building across the road - which itself seems to happen for no plot reason at all.  The faint ridiculousness of it all appeals to me, but then I have a slightly warped sense of humour.  Inevitably it isn't going to be to everyone's taste, and I remain deeply sceptical that there's a big enough audience for this approach to the character to keep the book alive for very long.  But we'll see.

Kordey's artwork has tended to fluctuate in quality over the last year, seemingly depending as much as anything on how much time he had to finish it.  This is at the high end of his scale, with very strong layouts throughout the book, and an endearingly ludicrous redesign for Blaquesmith, who now looks like ET auditioning for Men In Black 3.

If Macan and Kordey's highly idiosyncratic approach is to your taste, then you'll enjoy the book.  Unfortunately, I suspect that may be a big "if."

Rating: B+

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