As a fan of Gargoyles, I was naturally intrigued to see if being continued, in a canonical way, in the form of comics. Any Gargoyles fan worth his salt knows that Season 3 of the show was a huge bust, with show creator Greg Weisman forced off and a resulting dip in quality. Last year, way before Buffy thought up the idea, the announcement was made that the real Season 3 would be coming to us in comics form, and I just had to check it out for old time’s sake.

It’s been a bumpy ride, but with the last couple of issues, the series finally feels like it’s living up to the promise of both the original cartoon and comments made about the comic launch. Which is why it’s disappointing to pick up Issue 7 and find it a complete chore to get through.

It’s told in a non-linear fashion, which isn’t a crime in itself, but in comics it can be very hard to do right, and this …doesn’t do it right. Comics are a visual medium. To set the scene properly in a certain time period, you need to be focusing on the plot AND look - just jamming a caption at the top of a panel that says “November 2nd,” having a single line of dialogue from one character who isn’t even in an identifiable location, and then repeating the practise several times in a row goes beyond “non-linear” through “disjointed” and finally pops out somewhere around “seemingly random.”

And it can’t be just me, admittedly already a Gargoyles fan, who is baffled by the vast scope of the cast. I counted slightly under 30 separate pre-established characters appearing in the book. Some for just a panel, yes, but trying to remember who I’m looking at, sometimes in their first comic appearance, is very difficult. One of Gargoyles’ strength is its cast, but that doesn’t mean you can use them all in one issue, nor does it mean you can neglect to tell the reader who they are. If this book needs anything, it’s a Dramatis Personae page at the front explaining some of who we’re seeing.

It’s all a pity, anyway, because the story, about Macbeth trying to safeguard the Stone of Scone (though it’s not ever referred to as that, which I see has confused some reviewers who are unaware of the significance of it) is quite good once you actually unravel it. I have a bad feeling the rest of the arc is going to jump about all over the timeline too, though, so if that’s the case, things aren’t looking great for the next few issues…

Following a good few months of barely comprehensible stories containing tie-ins with comics that still have yet to see print over in Mighty Avengers, this issue finally regains some sense of coherance. The New Avengers track down the up-and-coming crime boss, the Hood, and decide to ambush him and his super-villain army, using only their fists and a little magical trickery.

It’s a good issue for the character of the Hood. Dr. Strange asks him some pertinent questions about the nature of his powers, more concerned with which demon he might be incarnating than what he’s trying to do to the New York underworld. Meanwhile, once his crew gets put behind bars, he begins making good on his word to spring them, a storyline that’s coming to a head in New Avengers annual #2. It’s interesting to see a crimelord who’s this hands-on and if nothing else, the last few issues have managed to turn the Hood into someone I’d want to read more about.

The title is still suffering a little from crossover-itis. Spider-Man is still in his black costume, cracking wise like at no point during the Back in Black story that ran through his own titles (though that does lead to a funny line - “This ain’t just Spider-Man you’re getting spanked by, this is Black-Costumed Spidey. It’s going to be so much more a cooler story to tell. You know, in jail.”) That said, it seems pretty pointless to start worrying about Spider-Man continuity now, given the way things are about to go down over there. Yeesh.

It’s a decent issue in its own right, but as the concluding chapter of the current arc, “The Trust”, it just feels utterly irrelevant. Six issues ago They were fighting Ninjas in Japan and hauling dead skrulls around, in-between they’ve been dealing with symbiote-infected Mighty Avengers in half of a crossover that hasn’t happened yet, and now they’re taking down the Hood. Unless some of these people turn out to be Skrulls and give it some wider context, it’s going to read like a pretty disjointed story when it comes to be collected.

You probably know the drill by now. Messiah Complex has been nothing if not remarkably consistent. Tight plotting, strong focus on certain characters, it’s all here, again. Though I find myself wishing certain parts of it would hurry up a little.

This being the X-Factor issue, I kind of expected us to get a tight focus on the X-Factor characters, especially Layla and Madrox-2 in the future they’re visiting, where mutants are huddled in internment camps and even mentioning the word gets you arrested by the government. Unfortunately, rather than any resolution, we just get another little chapter and the rest of the story, once again, is coming in another issue.

X-Factor readers who aren’t following the crossover are sure to be feeling a little bit annoyed by this issue, which sees the series hi-jacked by the rest of the X-Universe. Writer Peter David does manage to throw in some interesting tid-bits regarding the nature of Layla’s power, as well as a sequence where a mutant on the run from Predator-X contacts X-Factor for help in a nod to the usual premise of the title, but he’s well out of luck and most of the X-Factor cast doesn’t appear at all. This issue would’ve been a nice place to tie up the loose end of what Rictor’s doing now that his cover in the Purifiers is blown, for instance, even if just to show him being sent away.

Wolfsbane’s role in the X-Force team will also be of interested to X-Factor readers. They only get one scene, but it’s good to see people addressing Warpath’s history with Cable (in a previous version of the X-Force team) and showing Wolverine’s often-neglected leadership skills. Speaking of leadership, Cyclops finally proves that not only has he grown a pair, he’s grown several, by kicking Patrick Stewart (er, I mean, Xavier, as rendered in full TNG glory by artist Scott Eaton) out of HIS OWN MANSION, sick of the old man whining that it’s gotten all draughty and he can’t find his cardigans since the place was destroyed by sentinels. That subplot is going somewhere big, I can feel it, and at this point that’s what I’m most interested in.

There’s a certain bittersweetness to the ending of a manga series. In my experience, the manga industry has refined storytelling into a variety of specific archetypes in a way western comics haven’t. Genshiken, being a manga in the “slice of life” genre, was always going to get an ambiguous, “life goes on” ending. That’s just how it works.

And, true to form, that’s what we got. The series’ major subplot - the unrequited feelings that uber-nerd Madarame holds for Saki, the only non-geek in their group of friends - is, if not resolved, at least brought to some conclusion, in one emotionally rough chapter near the end. It was always going to be a difficult moment to write, so I think the choice to make a silent chapter depicting the events after was an effective way of dealing with any expectations the readers had. Without being given dialogue, we’re free to insert our own, which, in a way, gives the story the exact ending we want, but for a series based around amusing and insightful dialogue, I’ve never missed it more than then.

Sadly, the other main plot I was hoping we’d see - the increasing trouble in Kohsaka and Saki’s relationship - never comes up. It’s the epitome of the life goes on ending - all the signs for the story are there, all the hints have been dropped, but when we leave the Genshiken cast, they’re not even thinking about it. It’s a chapter that’ll happen another day, without us.

The final volume isn’t perfect - the previous volume, in fact, is vastly superior - but it is a fitting end for the series. Most of the characters turn up for a last hurrah, and in Genshiken club tradition, a new president is chosen for the next Univesity year. As we leave, the club that began with Madarame, Tanaka, Shodai, Kugayama, Kohsaka and Sasahara consists of Ohno, Oguie, Keiko and Kuichi - the entire original cast have left the Genshiken behind, and presumably that’s why Shimoku Kio, the author, felt like it was time to wrap the series up.

I’ve said before, but I’ll say it again - Genshiken is nothing less than a must-read. Massively re-visitable, it’s up there with Scott Pilgrim as the comic I’d most like to be trapped in. You feel for these characters, not just because they’re well-written, but because you look at their actions, their thoughts, their successes and failures and you go “yeah, that could’ve been me.” I’ll never stop marvelling at how a depiction of geeks and nerds from literally halfway around the planet manages to be capture the mentality so well that it’s personally relevant to me. I’m sad to see it go, but glad that it never got bad.

Starting this week, every Wednesday we’ll take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue at random, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

This is, I promise you, not a fix. Admittedly there were a couple of false starts (a Flash 80-page Giant with too many stories to review concisely, and one part of the too-recent-to-count JLA/Hitman mini), but after those, I utterly promise you that the first issue picked out at random by my glamorous assistant Rachel just happens to be one of my favourite comics of all time. Sorry about that.

Anyway, in 1989, Keith Giffen and J.M. deMatteis were at the absolute height of their powers on their unforgettable Justice League run, and the annuals had begun to serve as something of a treat for the fans, ramping up the humour quotient and hinging it on plots that weren’t as crucial to the overall series. That’s certainly the case with JLI Annual #3. The plot, such as it is, concerns the inhabitants of a small South Pacific island (the to-become-infamous Kooeykooeykooey), who decide to offer it to the JLI as, essentially, another embassy (at this point, the JLI were an autonomous UN member state, with embassies across the globe. No, really). Meanwhile, a reluctant group of Leaguers are taken on a tour of their existing embassies, with the Kooeykooeykooey delegation struggling to keep up on a whirlwind teleport-booth-fuelled journey.

But really, the plot is immaterial – it’s really just an excuse for some top-notch character humour, sparkling dialogue, and dubious ethnic stereotypes. There are classic examples of deMatteis’ flair with running jokes – namely Blue Beetle’s “Aunt Millie” – and the team, particularly Beetle, Flash and Booster Gold, are at their best, the constant mixture of exasperation and childishness proving a comedic goldmine. The absolute highlight, though, comes with a visit to the London embassy – staffed by none other than Basil Fawlty. Seriously, I’m not kidding. Alright, he has a different name – but he speaks like him, is drawn to look like John Cleese, and employs a waiter who only speaks Spanish. There’s surely a part of me that should get offended by this (what, the British staff can only be well-known sitcom characters?) – but it’s so ridiculously funny that I can’t bring myself to be.

All of this, and there’s even a great backup story revolving around J’onn J’onnz and Batman. It’s not particularly funny – aside from a brief moment with Oberon – but it’s excellent character material that shows just how much of a handle Giffen and deMatteis had on their team. It’s true that the art on the main feature isn’t as impressive as it might have been if Kevin Maguire had still been around – Mike McKone, as with the various replacements on the main title until Adam Hughes arrived, would never be more than a passable substitute – but that’s really the only quibble it’s possible to find.

I picked this issue up at last year’s Bristol convention, having first read it as a wee nipper, and was delighted to do so – even moreso when I found that it made me laugh just as much as it had done back then, if not more. There’s one particular line at the end – I won’t try and repeat it as it won’t work out of context, but it involves surfboards and Metamorpho – that sets me off every single time. It’s as much of a cliché as the JLI’s embassy staff to say it, but they simply don’t make them like this any more.

If you’d told me a year ago that I’d consider a Viking comic one of December’s most anticipated new releases, I’d probably have been fairly sceptical. More so if you’d told me that it’d be coming from Brian Wood, who’s made his name writing a mix of hip indie, street-level blockbusters and the odd politically-tilted piece of speculative fiction. And yet, here we are. Northlanders #1 is the latest attempt by Vertigo to show they’ll go where other publishers probably wouldn’t dare. It’s certainly got a credible name on it, but since the only other viking comics I can recall are Groo and Hagar the Horrible, it feels like a fairly risky move.

Of course - no-one need have worried, because Wood simply goes from strength to strength and hasn’t had anything even resembling a flop since his first Vertigo mini, Fight for Tomorrow,scooted neatly under everyone’s radar after a fairly big launch - and even that was almost 5 years ago. If anyone can make this work, it’s him. Northlanders is Vikings done by way of TV’s Deadwood - even the hero of the piece is hard-talking, lustful and violent, and while he doesn’t talk like a viking, the curse-filled and blunt tone of the writing echos the spirit of the time, if not the letter of it. The first arc, Sven the Returned, focuses the titular hero, a cosmopolitan young Viking who returns to the home he abandoned to collect what’s rightfully his - his dead father’s money. When he gets there he finds his uncle has taken control of the village and with it, Sven’s money. After receiving a severe beating from his uncle’s goons, Sven vows to move on with his life and forget the past he feels no connection to. What are the odds that’ll happen?

In a way, this is the most out-there comic Wood has ever written, yet on closer examination, it’s actually not that different from his others. Wood’s signature themes are all present - family, homecoming, honour and obligation - these are things you can find as the subtext in a lot of his work. Perhaps, then, that’s why Northlanders works so well. It’s not simply concerned with being “the viking comic” but with telling good stories about good characters who also happen to be vikings.

Art comes from Davide Gianfelice who, I believe, makes his US comics debut. Wood has collaborated with European artists before, notably on his other vertigo series, DMZ , and it brings his comics a unique flavour. It seems that the language of comic art from mainland Europe is as different to their American counterparts as Italian is to English, and just as I never tire of Burchielli on DMZ, I can imagine the art in Northlanders will continue to delight with each new issue.