The usual weekly capsule reviews, this time of Angel: After the Fall #16, Astonishing X-Men #28, Thunderbolts #128 and X-Men: Manifest Destiny #5

Review: Angel: After the Fall #16 download corn patch the aka lockjaw rise of the kulev serpent movie
There’s really very little that springs to mind after reading this issue except “What, is that it?”. Lynch opts for a reset-switch ending and even the more sycophantic Whedonverse fans are rolling their eyes a bit at this. There’s one issue of epilogue to go, but it’s safe to say that “After the Fall” never clicked for me as much as I wanted it to. It doesn’t help that the artwork was never better than average, but the blame has to fall squarely on Lynch for some of the least satisfying pacing and plot exposition I’ve tolerated in years. The dialogue was usually the saving grace of any given issue, but that alone isn’t really enough to justify buying it. Unless that epilogue issue sets up a substantially better status quo than “everything’s undone and Angel’s a public superhero” that’s where I’ll be parting ways with the series. [JHu]

Review: Astonishing X-Men #28

In a distinct change of approach, the premier mutant team here have an issue largely devoted to combat, and the result isn’t entirely successful. It’s tempting to conclude that Simone Bianchi’s breathtaking art, with distinctive silhouette panel outlines and smaller sketches to convey movement, isn’t suited to fight scenes, but I think that the problem here lies with the colouring. I’m a strong advocate of realism in superhero art, but the muddy washes applied here leave the reader peering at each panel for too long, distracting them from what is actually some strong sequential storytelling. Some degree of vividness is necessary to compensate for the lack of motion, and it’s hard not to wish that a slightly more conventional colouring approach had been adopted. [JHa]

Review: Thunderbolts #128

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It’s a strange day to be a Thunderbolts fan. On the one hand, the concept and some of the characters have really made the leap to the mainstream, in a little title you may have heard of called “Dark Avengers”. On the other, the book itself is receiving another extensive overhaul that sees much of the characters and concept being junked. Diggle quickly establishes a new status quo within the framework of Dark Reign, and much like the first time the series was launched, takes the opportunity to start fleshing out a group of D-list villains. It’s not the Thunderbolts title I want, necessarily, but this opening issue is good enough to keep me on board for a few more months to see how it pans out. [JHu]

Review: X-Men : Manifest Destiny #5
You know, for the fifth issue of a five-part miniseries apparently designed to plug in little continuity gaps in the most notoriously continuity-heavy franchise in mainstream comics, for two-thirds of its page count this issue is surprisingly accessible and engaging for a casual X-reader such as myself who hasn’t even read the previous four. Frank Tieri’s story is somewhat dull (and seems to serve little purpose – how interesting can you make a story that just consists of “Wolverine and Colossus turn up at Avalanche’s bar to act tough and threaten him before leaving him alone”?), but Mike Carey opens the issue with a neat character vignette about Iceman and Mystique. Despite knowing little about these characters’ recent history, enough about it is succinctly communicated that I can follow what’s going on, and it’s a decent little piece. The real highlight, though, comes with Kieron Gillen doing a Dazzler story (and it really is worth stopping and pondering those words again for a moment). It’s not entirely removed from Phonogram territory, both in the story itself and in its theme (hell, it could almost be a backup strip), but what it is is terrific. It shows an assured grasp of character, it chucks in a characteristically-Gillen comment on pop culture misogyny, and the dialogue’s as strong as ever. It’s a pretty idiosyncratic way of stepping into one of the “proper” superhero universes for the first time – but were it not for Matt Fraction’s Uncanny annual, it would be the best X-story I’d read in bloody ages. [SP]