Since Fraction arrived on the title, Uncanny X-Men has taken a definite upturn, with the dialogue and cast fully re-energised. It never felt like Brubaker was in it for the long haul, and Fraction’s enthusiasm appears to eclipse Brubaker’s, giving this arc a distinctive, new-writer feel to it. Under Fraction, the pacing of the title has received a little rethink - it’s been some time since individual issues of X-Men felt this satisfying to read.

Pixie’s character material in this issue gives the book a nice break in tone as she definitively fills the role previously occupied by characters like Kitty, Jubilee and Armor, right down to a scene where she hangs out with Wolverine. We get to see more of how the X-Men work with the San Franciscan authorities, and some background on the leader of the Hellfire cult, the former Hellion Empath. A scene where he uses his powers to evade the X-Men is particularly well executed, as the cast find themselves wrong-footed by his increased abilities.

Greg Land’s artwork veers between passable and downright scary. Almost every page depicts at least one character grinning manically while they talk. Whether or not he’s tracing the images is a completely moot point - it’s simply poor storytelling. Fraction and Brubaker almost seem to be playing to Land’s strengths by including the fetishistic Red Queen as the power behind Empath. So far there are no clues to her identity, assuming she’s not a new character entirely, but given her powers and Hellfire Club theme, it’s possible that she’s Lady Mastermind (though having just wrapped up a story about her half-sister, one hopes the reality of the situation will be a little more original.)

While not everyone appears to be enjoying the revamped Uncanny X-Men title, I’m very pleased that the line is definitively out of the directionless rut it’s been in ever since Morrison left several years ago. All we need is to wait for the Dodsons to return on art and the book will finally be achieving its full potential.

Captain Britain continues to defy expectations. After its loose association of heroes managed to rise to the occasion and protect the country from the alien threat, most titles would take an issue or two to establish the status quo. Paul Cornell, however, is obvious intent on keeping the tempo up, with the expected character moments coming amidst an escalating feeling of panic as the next crisis starts to hit.

The Skrulls have been stopped, but Pete Wisdom finds himself in a race against time to ready M.I.13 for the threat he unleashed in the process. Unlike Mark Millar’s Ultimates, the book’s sheen of militarism is used to accentuate the humour in its more conventional super-hero elements. Wisdom’s “Go” button is wonderfully realised by Pat Olliffe, and the Black Knight’s cringe-inducing conversation with the Hussains is a highlight. That said, Cornell finds room for some more serious points here, particularly in the throwaway comment about the crusades. The writer never slips into soapbox territory, but does manage to show that he’s fully aware of the issues inherent in the situation. His latest creation initially looked in danger of being a box-ticking exercise, but the self-awareness Faiza shows here is endearing. The issue isn’t quite perfect, however. There’s an uncharacteristic stumble in the cliffhanger, as Blade swiftly gets to the point. The cover alone hints that the inherent conflict between the new arrival and Spitfire might easily spill over, and the last page is more a case of acknowledging the elephant in the room than the sudden shock Cornell clearly imagines it to be.

The feeling of freshness that has permeated the book continues here. One of the writer’s most inspired moves is refusing to give superfluous explanations for some of the lesser-known cast members. Everything you need to know about Union Jack to enjoy the issue is already present here, with Cornell wisely refusing to over-burden the reader with backstory. The overall impression is that the adventures of Marvel UK have been continuing for years, irrespective of where they were being dramatised in comic form. The book feels reminiscent of the Ultimate line in its heyday, as the reader constantly discovers new wonders and old friends. The same economy of exposition is demonstrated in respect of Captain Britain’s new powers, with only the bare bones of the mechanic laid out.

By keeping its initial momentum while expanding and retooling its cast, Captain Britain continues to be an essential purchase. Aside from Buffy’s Season Eight adventures, it’s difficult to think of an ongoing series of such consistent quality.

This week marks the start of the new Sunday Pages format, incorporating capsule reviews alongside news tidbits. Since Julian’s now joining us, you can identify his contributions by the initials [JHa] and mine by [JHu], while Seb , obviously, gets to keep the more concise [SP]. We’re still feeling out the specifics, so be sure to let us know how you’re finding it, and whether or not you think it could be improved! Look inside for mini-reviews of Action Comics #869, Amazing Spider-Man #572, Greatest Hits #1 and X-Factor #35, as well as some discussion of Neil Gaiman’s reaction to the new Hitchiker’s Guide book.

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It’s become a little clearer, recently, that all the emphasis on Nick Fury’s new team of heroes in Mighty Avengers is acting as a not-entirely transparent lead-in to the forthcoming series, Secret Warriors, which is going to launch out of Secret Invasion. Unfortunately, this realisation leaves me slightly bitter about it, since I’m not currently planning to buy Secret Warriors. While I applaud Bendis’ attempts to put some new characters back into the Marvel universe, I can’t say I find this issue that engaging - it’s already been so long since we were introduced to the characters - who have largely just shown up and shot things in Secret Invasion - that I’m not feeling very interested in how they were trained.

That aside, though, the story does show that Bendis has a good grip on Nick Fury as a soldier who’s never stopped fighting a war. His training methods are brutal (reflecting the modern idea of “what needs to be done”) and he only ever gives people enough information to make them do what he wants. Even so, it almost looks as if his training methods could backfire on him, when the invasion finally blows up and the group finally gets to go into action.

A large problem with this issue is the cast. While the characters were well-defined in their initial appearance, there’s no real development to speak of here, just a lot of interchangeable super-powered types. In contrast with Secret Invasion, the pace is so quick that we don’t spend enough time with the individuals and I’m struggling to remember all the new arrivals so long after their proper introduction. Caselli’s artwork, coloured rather mutely by Daniele Rudoni, is really the saving grace of the book, showing a lot of cinematic enthusiasm. He’s not quite in the same league as Cho, Bagley or Maleev yet, but it’s possible that one day he will be.

It’s become clear lately that Mighty Avengers is a book without an identity, and seems largely designed to service the needs of the crossover. Much like its sibling New Avengers, it failed to show its original premise in action much before that premise was hijacked by crossovers, and not one member of the Avengers team shows up in this issue at all, and not for the first time. Bendis is reportedly leaving the title with #20, and presumably thing will get back on track after that - although whether readers will care about the “secondary” Avengers title without Bendis attached is a different matter altogether.

There’s been something about the timing of All-Star Superman. It was strangely fitting that #10, with its portrayal of the creation of Superman in a world in which he didn’t exist (interpret it literally as “our” world if you want, but let’s not get into the metaphysics of it all right now), should have come out in the same week as the Siegel ruling. And now, barely a month after a clueless studio exec said that the next Superman movie would “try to go dark”, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely wrap up their magnum opus with an issue that shows a deep-rooted understanding of exactly what Superman means (clue : it’s not “going dark”).

I’m well aware that quoting wholesale a passage from the issue isn’t really the best thing to do in a review - firstly, it’s a reproduction of copyrighted content, and secondly, it spoils it for those who’ve yet to read - but the following speech, delivered by Jor-El (yes. Jor El. Don’t ask, just read it), is the pure encapsulation of Morrison’s vision, and the series as a whole, and as such I can’t help but share it :

Your work is done. You have shown them the face of the man of tomorrow. You have given them an ideal to aspire to, embodied their highest aspirations. They will race, and stumble, and fall and crawl… and curse… and finally… they will join you in the sun, Kal-El.

There’s plenty more I want to say about this issue, but it’s going to have to wait until I can do some kind of retrospective - because anything I say is going to have to delve into pretty major spoilers for the way the whole thing wraps up. And I can’t even really say anything new about the quality of the series, either. What, you really think they’re suddenly going to have dropped the ball at this point? But I can say that almost everything is wrapped up in a satisfactory way (although not always in the manner you’d expect, and a lot is done through subtle hinting rather than directly showing you - but then, right from the moment in issue #1 where Clark rescued a man’s life by “accidentally” knocking him over, the blend of subtlety and bombast has been one of the series’ defining attributes). There’s a touch of strangeness about a couple of the finale’s elements, and the specific note upon which the closing pages dwell is not the sort of image you’d expect either. On the other hand, there is absolutely no fake-out - Morrison somehow manages to deliver the ending that he’s been promising from day one and yet still turn it into a story about hope, and belief in the future.

And it doesn’t scrimp on the action - nor shy away from the big punch-up promised at the end of #11 - or the tender moments, or the iconic imagery, or the beauty of Quitely’s draftsmanship, or the mind-screwery (or the “Did he really just do that?” moments - in this case, I’m pretty sure he’s making a direct reference to one of the most infamously-awful aspects of JJ Abrams’ aborted movie script, and making the idea work in the process). Let’s not go over the top, though, mind. It’s not the best issue of the series (those are #6, #10 and #11), and in telling “the last Superman story”, it’s placing itself directly up against Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow? - and, although they do different things (Morrison’s is bravura, experimental, unique; Moore’s is quintessential, timeless, iconic), All Star falls just short of “greatest Superman story ever” in such a straight comparison.

But that’s hardly an insult. The simple fact remains that we have been treated to a genuine, bona fide masterpiece. These are the men who brought us Flex Mentallo and We3, and yet they’ve still managed to make this the absolute high-point of their respective careers. And now that it’s a complete whole, I can finally even go so far as to call it the absolute high-point of twenty-first century comics so far. You can never really say, of course, whether people will still be talking about a particular book in twenty, thirty or even fifty years’ time. But in the case of All-Star, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that they will. The only question is - how will either of them follow it?

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

With the Secret Invasion event wrapping up, it’s worth reflecting on the change in Brian Bendis’s writing style the crossover has necessitated. After the mixed success of House of M, Mark Millar was brought in to write the core book for Civil War, with his explosive writing style seen as being more appropriate for the bombast of an all-guns-blazing crossover. Given the care with which Bendis has seeded the invasion, however, there was little option but for him to take the reins himself. However, as this issue makes clear, the venture has been considerably distant from his comfort zone as a writer.

After “Spider-Woman” abandons the team and removes the Skrull Electra’s body, the outlaw Avengers are at something of a loss, with the implications of the conspiracy beginning to sink in. Meanwhile, the attempted sale of a stolen SHIELD cyborg heralds a shakeup in the super-powered underworld. The issue flicks between the two settings fairly evenly, with the auction scenes adding some much-needed drive and energy to counteract the slow onset of paranoia during the team’s debates. Bendis’s understanding of Peter Parker is used to great effect here, as the character’s comic quips serve as a perfect way of articulating what the rest of the cast are thinking. The writer takes some elementary but sensible steps to build intrigue, keeping glimpses of the Hood to a minimum while having his “representative” do the talking, making the reader as much a victim of his sales pitch as the villains attending the auction. Jessica Jones’ ignorance of the doppelganger plot is used for a brief recap, and even niggling issues such as where Hawkeye acquired the combat skills now on show are tied into the ongoing development of the Marvel Universe. Everything feels so polished and coherent that it’s impossible not to get drawn into the wider world that the writer is crafting.

The final section of the book plays to Bendis’s strengths perfectly. With such a large cast, it makes perfect sense that one of them would go looking for trouble, and the writer picks the right character for the job. Wolverine’s confrontation with the Hood makes clear that the auction scenes are directly relevant to the arc, and leaves the reader intrigued as to how this new plotline will intersect with the larger Skrull story. Returning to the issue a year later, it’s hard not to miss the gradual progression of events which have characterised the author’s work. Irrespective of the weaknesses of the Secret Invasion’s structuring, Bendis is one of the industries brightest talents, and a return to his home turf is eagerly awaited.