Department of "Gee, are they still publishing that?" - Weapon X.

This is officially part 1 of "Defection", although that doesn't count last issue's Prologue.  And since the Prologue is essential to the story, one might wonder whether this is just a fancy way of labelling half the story as "Part 1" in the hope of reeling in audiences.  Talking of which, by the way, you'll see that that's Wolverine on the cover.  Wise indeed of Marvel to draw attention to Wolverine's vitally important appearance in the final three panels.

By the way, this book is running horribly late.  This entire arc was supposed to have been finished by the end of last year.  So expect a rush of issues as they try to catch up.

Anyway, last issue Chamber defected to join Weapon X after they got him out of jail (where, in contrast to their attitude in other books, the X-Men decided to leave him).  This issue, we find that the plucky Weapon X scientists have succeeded in restoring Chamber's face, which is more than the X-Men ever managed.

Thankfully, the Weapon X programme has been given a bit of an overhaul since we last saw it.  The central credibility flaw with this series was that the Director was so obvious and openly insane and abusive to his staff that it was inconceivable he wouldn't have been got rid of years ago.  Brent Jackson, his replacement, is superficially sane and has at least turned it into a fairly pleasant place to work.

Of course, they still go around assassinating enemies of the state.  But at least they now look like a slightly dodgy wetworks department rather than a lunatic asylum with a munitions budget.  It helps matters tremendously.

In the manner of such stories, Chamber is given an assassination job to test his loyalty to the new administration.  Fortunately, it's somebody who's clearly a villain, so at least there's some genuine ambiguity about it.  Rather oddly, it's New X-Men villain John Sublime.  He's meant to be dead already, but that hasn't stopped characters called "Sublime" cropping up in New X-Men, so why not here?

Perfectly unobjectionable, and I'm pleased to see that the key problem with this series has now been addressed.

Rating: B

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