The good thing about really heavy weeks like this is that they provide me with the perfect excuse to skip past dull comics.  Look, here's one now!

The "Underground" storyline continues in Weapon X, and in all fairness, it's still one of the better stories in the book thus far.  But that's not a particularly high standard, and in practice we're still talking about stories which are just about okay, rather than, say, entertaining.  We've got up to a level where the characters are acting in a somewhat consistent manner, and there are a couple of plot points which are mildly interesting (for example, why is Weapon X sending Reaper and Wildside out to campaign against their own secret concentration camp?).

Nonetheless, it's hard to get worked up about any of this.  Most of this issue is taken up with Mesmero looking after his dying mother.  It will not surprise you to learn that Mesmero loves his mum, and therefore this is supposed to be touching.  In practice, the level of characterisation is thoroughly superficial, which prevents the story from really fleshing him out.  He loves his mum.  He was abused as a child.  These are arguably the two single most obvious ways of trying to flesh out a villain's character.  ("Ooh, but he's not wholly without goodness.  And he's suffered so...")  They need to be done with rather more imagination if they're going to work.

It's competent.  But it's still some way from being good.

Rating: B-

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