Look, I'll be honest.  It's quite late, and even though Weapon X #13 is the final issue of the seven-part "Underground" storyline, I don't really care.

While last issue ended on a cliffhanger, this time we jump straight to the epilogue.  Basically, Brent Jackson has managed to get himself installed as the new Director of Weapon X, the Underground have had their memories wiped, and Marrow's made a break for it with them.

There's a sudden lurch of plot advancement between issues which feels a bit contrived.  Most of it is along the line of minor reshuffling of alignments, and while it's clearly meant to read as a major change of status for the Weapon X Project, it's hard to see that much of this really matters - the Project's as bad as ever, the Neverland programme is still ongoing, and nothing much has really changed. 

At the same time, though, it feels like it wants a bit more space - even though it's largely come full circle, the amount of plot advancement between issues feels awkward.  In all fairness, though, the book does seem to be marginally improving; this is merely below average, while some earlier issues were actively quite bad.

Oh yes - Dr Windsor, the bald scientist chap, turns out to have been Mr Sinister in disguise all along.  I was, at first, tempted to comment on the contrast between this issue and the big reveal of Magneto in New X-Men, which was so well foreshadowed.  But then I remembered that I had to re-read all of New X-Men to justify that claim, so it wouldn't be fair to make the same criticism without re-reading all Windsor's appearances in Weapon X.  And frankly, the prospect of sitting down and re-reading the entirety of this series, not to mention Windsor's previous appearances in Tieri's Wolverine run, is something I just can't be bothered with.  Given that foreshadowing and structure have been among Tieri's noticeable strengths, I can hazard a guess at what I'd find - if any of you want to go hunting through the back issues to look for clues, by all means do so, because I'm ready to be persuaded.

Barry Kitson provides fill-in art this month, with two inkers.  This series has seen quite a few multi-inker rush jobs of late, and this looks to be no exception.  Kitson is a very good artist, but there's no comparison whatsoever between this stuff and his work on Empire.  It tells the story clearly enough, and that's about all you can sensibly expect.

Technically, this is okay - and in fairness, it does seem to be setting out its subplots for the future with some degree of planning.  But I can't honestly claim to be remotely interested - the book still hasn't done anything to engage me in any of its characters.

Rating: C+

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