First, you can just do a comic where Stuff Happens and hope everyone who hasn’t read it can keep up. As a rule of thumb, a comic is often good when stuff actually happens in it.

Second, you can do a comic where No Stuff Happens. These aren’t necessarily bad – indeed, they tend to have more staying power because the stories work in isolation – but you’ll maybe feel a bit betrayed that you bought a comic you might not previously have bothered with because you thought Stuff might Happen in it.

Third, and finally, you can do a comic where Stuff Pretends To Happen. One example of this was that issue of Hulk: The List where he got slightly irradiated again, but it didn’t actually seem to matter (or get acknowledged) in the long term.

So, with the parameters established… the comics:

Siege: Loki

I won’t go on about how great a writer-artist team Gillen McKelvie is, but this is a one-shot that manages to be both fun and entirely helpful in clarifying what Loki’s reasons are for all his plotting and scheming. And at the end, stuff happens.

McKelvie’s Loki is the perfect embodiment of a trickster god, charismatic and ingratiating, almost all style and very little substance. Much has already been said about the guyliner-sporting, androgynous look employed, which I can’t really add to, but I would like to draw attention to the moment where Loki reveals his intention take on the Disir and transforms from a sly, subtle (if theatrically so) figure into a warrior badass. An unusual posture for Loki to take (literally) but one that becomes all the more striking for that reason. He is, after all, from a warrior people, so of course he knows how to fight. Combined with the dialogue, it’s probably my favourite page in the issue. That said – if I’m being honest, as much as I like how McKelvie draws Loki, it’s impossible not to love his take on Hela and Mephisto more.

Gillen, meanwhile, weaves together disparate plot threads into an actual tapestry of events. It certainly helps that he’s got Thor, this one-shot and New Mutants #11 to hammer out Marvel’s norse mythology during Siege, and you’re certainly rewarded for reading them all. Gillen is in full-on Shakespeare mode, too, showing how Loki treats the world as his stage and everyone else as merely his players, complete with a bow to the audience at the end. This, friends, is Comics with a capital C.

Verdict: Stuff Happens.

Siege: Captain America

I know some of you have already disagreed with Seb’s recent article, disputing how confusing it is to have two versions of the Flash with identical powers, wearing the same costume and using the same name. If you want to see how that works in practise, try reading this issue, which features Captain America and Captain America fighting Crossfire and Razorfist in a the ruins of Asgard. Which, just in case you were hoping for some visual cues, are generic and featureless. The story itself is the kind that it’s necessary to tell right now, hammering out the identity issues between Bucky-Cap and Steve-Cap. And, if you haven’t read one that establishes Bucky as the new Cap, this is as good a place to start as any – although as far as Siege goes, it isn’t really important, but nor does it have much in the way of ramifications for the characters either. It’s simply one of a set of torch-passing/torch-accepting stories that need to exist at the moment.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of technically weak areas that drag the comic down. Due to the nature of the problems, I suspect it’s the artist (and I might go into more examined detail later) but we get things like: a civilian, caught in the collapse of Asgard, telling an assembled Steve and Bucky, in a two-panel exchange, that “I know you can do it…you’re Captain America.” I’ve scrutinised it and I can’t tell whether he’s supposed to be addressing Steve (as in the first panel) or Bucky (as in the second panel), and it’s actually kind of important to know, given the identity issues that are central to the story. Maybe he thinks he’s seeing double after his injury. Or maybe he just means “There’s a good chance that at least one of you must be Captain America since you’re both dressed like him.” There’s also a nigh-incomprehensible sequence where the two first engage Crossfire that – and I don’t play armchair editor very often – really should have been cleared up with dialogue, if not redrawn entirely.

Verdict: No Stuff Happens.

Siege: Young Avengers

Finally (at least for this week) the Young Avengers fans get thrown one of their semi-regular bones. Like everyone who read them, I really enjoyed the first couple of Young Avengers series, and Young Avengers Presents… – but after that, I’ve had trouble keeping track of the characters, especially because I’m not reading Mighty Avengers which I gather features a whole bunch of them. The thing is this: they’re great characters, and they work great together – but if, like me, you only read about them when the book explicitly says “Young Avengers” on the cover, it’s rapidly becoming clear that there’s not a continuing franchise to follow – and trying to create and/or advance inter-character subplots when they’re so rarely in the same room together strikes me as a difficult task, so it baffles me somewhat that McKeever tries to do so here.

On the plus side, McKeever’s character work is enjoyable and his plotting nice and tight. Mahmud A. Asrar does a more than adequate Jim Cheung impression for his part. If this were but one issue of a Young Avengers ongoing, I’d certainly be reading the series – but knowing that it’s just a one-shot, hanging helplessly in limbo… it’s hard to get too excited.

Also, the final verdict: this is not a comic where stuff happens. Unless you consider the inching-forwards of various Young Avengers romances to be “stuff” when there won’t be another Young Avengers comic on shelves unless the latter half of this year – and as much as it’s a fun read, well… I don’t.

Verdict: Stuff Pretends To Happen

This second instalment continues to present an outwardly conventional face, with Bucky’s plan to infiltrate the Watchdogs going awry and the insane 1950s duplicate of Steve Rogers receiving an unexpected addition to his arsenal, but there a degree of subversiveness under the surface. Much of the conventional feeling comes from the artistic partnership of Luke Ross and Butch Guice. It’s hard to pinpoint whether the pencils or Guice’s heavy, near-noir inks imbue the book with it’s old-school vibe, but there’s an interesting feeling of the middle of the twentieth century in the Falcon’s attempted flight trough the fire escape of a run-down hotel. The narrative has given the fifties Cap the upper hand, and the art reflects this by adding an element of his lost era to the action.

What sets the book above its pulp inspirations is the occasional moments of sophistication, such as the 50s Cap’s fleeting recognition that the world he desires is long gone or continued re-writing of Bucky’s origin to increase the character’s plausibility. The stand-alone components of Brubaker’s Captain America may sometimes slip of the radar, devoid of reference to the broader Marvel Universe, but there’s a steady vein of richness running through the apparently inconsistent book.

Review: Captain America #602
I’m someone who’s barely paid any attention to Brubaker’s run, but in the aftermath of the disappointing-yet-intriguing Reborn and really-quite-good Who Will Wield The Shield?, decided to give this a punt as it looked a fairly decent jumping-on point. And it is. Recent events are neatly summated, and it seems that – for the moment at least – Brubaker really is just carrying on with ordinary stories about Bucky continuing in the role. Which is fine, because they still work. And the concept here is strong, not to mention particularly relevant given recent events and the ongoing theme of identity – the idea of yet another Cap running around, this one somewhat psychotic (and yet with a singular belief driving his actions), and the fact that some people, with rumours flying around about Steve’s return, believe him to be the real deal. I don’t know how long this sort of thing will continue (surely Steve will end up wielding the shield again in the longer term?), but for now, it’s good stuff. [SP]

Review: Dark Avengers #13
One can only wonder what Paul Jenkins, creator of the Sentry, thinks about the direction his character has taken since being adopted by Bendis. Initially a single-use Superman/Miracleman riff, The Sentry has been turned around so many times that each time we see “the truth” about the character the concept becomes less and less clear, the character less and less able to support his twisted backstory. This issue sees the Sentry’s origin rewritten once more, with a hefty allusion that the character is, somehow, part of a lineage that includes both Jesus and Moses. To which even the most ardent Bendis fan can only say: what the hell is going on here? Levelled against that kind of development, the fact that this “Siege tie-in” barely (if at all) mentions the event seems positively minor. Not the title’s finest hour by a long shot. [JHu]

Review: Thunderbolts #140
Jess Parker’s first few issues as writer of Thunderbolts were shakey, but as soon as the team actually started besting Agents of Atlas, things looked up a little – it’s just a pity that Parker’s first instance of writing the characters well involves killing off one of the few cast members who actually developed any kind of personality worth mentioning. Of course, it’s a development that was visible a mile off, so it’s hard to be too outraged. Unfortunately, it means that at this point, the cast has little going for them, the concept has spent almost a year spinning its wheels, and the only thing keeping me interested is the certainty that post-Siege there’s going to be another shake-up that’ll probably wipe the slate clean again – and that’s not exactly a good reason to be staying with a series. [JHu]

Shameless Plug: T-Shirts!
If you’ve an interest in nerdy (and especially comics-related) chest material, then you might find something you like at a new t-shirt shop I’ve started over at Spreadshirt, called Choose Your Own Adventure! In particular, the “Alter Egos” range (which currently contains five designs, but will be expanded soon) represents a slightly different way of showing your allegiance to a particular superhero… [SP]

The rest of you, though, can keep reading.

So. The news that Rogers won’t immediately re-assume the role of Captain America was, for what it’s worth, something of a twist. Whether this is a genuine act of deference or merely killing time to allow for a more public return during Siege is less clear – but for now, we’re free to enjoy the potential stories it opens up. Will Steve take on a new identity? Will Bucky give it up before the classic Avengers team reassembles? It isn’t immediately clear, and that, in itself, is an impressive quality in a comic, because it means that Brubaker’s plotting and characters are well-formed enough to throw doubt on company character politics – even when there’s a Captain America movie in the works.

The issue itself, while posed as an epilogue to Reborn, is actually more of a segue back into the regular series, with Brubaker writing and Guice on art. The content, though, marks it out as something particularly special, with a fantastic grasp on the role of Captain America and how it applies to both Bucky and Rogers. Brubaker infuses Rogers in particular with an unusual sense of melancholy about being Captain America – and not just because of what he thinks is in store for Bucky if he re-assumes the role. There’s one fantastic scene where Steve watches Bucky in action, and when he steps in himself, it’s shown as not so much as a natural response, more as an entirely mechanical one. Would that all superhero comics were capable of such nuance.

Although Reborn ultimately came over as a bit underwhelming, this issue reminds us exactly how Brubaker managed to make Captain America into such a high-selling title in the first place. Yes, it’s been out a couple of weeks now, but despite the title of this one-shot, it’s worth picking up for plenty of reasons far beyond the mere plot it contains. It’s really the kind of character piece that can be enjoyed over and over.

Review: The Brave & The Bold #30
Haven’t checked in with this title in a while, so I don’t know when it decided to do a Superman/Batman and just decide to tell random stories from unconnected points in continuity – but this J.M. Straczynski tale isn’t half bad. There isn’t really a story as such, so much as a bit of a philosophical discussion between Hal Jordan and a past version of Kent “Dr Fate” Nelson – but despite being a little overwrought, it’s fairly thoughtful, and it’s nice to see a bit of time given to a character that nobody really thinks about any more. Really selling it, though, is some gorgeous, subtle artwork from Jesus Saiz. It’s not a spectacular comic, but if the title’s doing a succession of done-in-ones that have a vague point to make, and if JMS can rein in his worst excesses, this could be a series to keep an eye on for a little while. [SP]

Review: Cable #21
In which Duane Swierczynski demonstrates that even when granted the advantages of an eventful plot, with the book now entering its endgame phase, he can still deliver a somewhat irritating read. This issue sees Cable shrugging off having his throat cut (“Tis but a scratch!”), an expositionary AI which pointlessly has the voice of a dead boy and a turn of events which sees Bishop following Cable and Hope through time out of force of habit, despite not having any physical means of doing so. Told as a six-issue miniseries, the story of these two fugitives could have been of interest, but the twenty-odd issue as it stands is merely a depressing black hole which threatens to sap energy from the imminent Second Coming X-Event. [JHa]

Review: Captain America Reborn #5
So it turns out that those recent appearances by Steve Rogers weren’t even spoiling this issue of Cap: Reborn? There’s another one to go after this? Bloody hell, that’s a scheduling screw-up of magnificent proportions, isn’t it? Shame, as I went into this expecting the big triumphant finale, but instead it’s only half of it. As it happens, it’s not bad – probably the best issue so far, as for once it’s fairly clear what’s actually going on (even if I’m still not really sure how we got to this point). It’s all quite obvious “final act” stuff, but there’s no denying that the action scenes are well-paced and well-choreographed – this is the sort of thing, after all, that Marvel consider it worth waiting for Hitch to finish for (even if you half-suspect that this is the last hurrah for this style of comic – as has been discussed elsewhere, “widescreen” comics were a defining approach of the ’00s, but already seem to look faintly outdated as we enter a new decade). It’s just impressive that events elsewhere have conspired to make this entire miniseries even more pointless than Battle of the Cowl was. [SP]

Review: Dark Avengers #12
This series started off so well, but this issue does very little to convince me that Bendis really has much of a plan. Well, scratch that, he apparently has a plan, but it doesn’t involve telling stories so much as patching continuity and making certain scenes spring fully formed from nothingness and then return from whence they came without actually justifying their existence. The revelation that the Sentry is, essentially, the “good” Molecule Man makes very little sense, needlessly complicates an already poorly-defined character and worst of all, came out of absolutely nowhere. Meanwhile, scenes depicting Osborn’s ongoing psychological breakdown are so vaguely realised that it’s impossible to draw a coherent point from them. Ever since the Utopia crossover, the series has been generally disappointing and with Siege about to hit the title, Bendis’ track record with crossovers suggests that there’s little likelihood of that trend reversing any time soon. [JHu]

Review: X-Men Legacy #230
Hmm. Three issues and an annual seems like a lot of page time for what amounts to little more than an extended fight with Emplate, but the tone is so different from Carey’s recent work that despite my better judgement, it comes across as quite the palette-cleanser. I wouldn’t want every arc to be like this, but it makes a nice change of pace – though I admit being a little confused by the Gambit subplot. Turns out, it’s an actual subplot, and doesn’t even try to wrap up with the conclusion of this arc, which is slightly at odds with the tight choreography of the rest of the story. Still, not a bad little X-story when all is said and done, and Acuna’s art has certainly raised it a notch or two above what it could’ve gotten away with under a different penciller. [JHu]

This week: Vengeance of the Capsule Reviews! Covering Anti-Venom: New Ways to Live #1 (the second stupidest-named comic on stands this week), Batman and Robin #4, Captain America: Reborn #3 and Vengeance of the Moon Knight #1!

Review: Anti-Venom : New Ways to Live #1
Zeb Wells has never really convinced me as a top-level writing proposition – offering moments of excellence but never really any consistency – but I find the premise of this (partly because it’s the Proper version of Venom, and partly due to spinning out of one of the better post-relaunch Amazing Spidey arcs) intriguing enough to give it a shot. And… well, in typical Wells fashion, it’s inconsistent. It suffers from a problem I’ve found in his work before, in that it occasionally feels like either there’s a page missing, or he’s simply forgotten to bother to tell the reader a plot point that’s sitting in his head; and early scenes with drug dealers and cliched “street” dialogue drag. Where it shines – and what bodes well for future issues, at least – is in Brock’s self-examination, and things do kick up a notch when the Punisher shows up, even if we’ve had the “O noes, lead character might be DEAD!” cliffhanger a bit too often recently. Siquiera’s art is serviceable, generally getting the job done well – and handling the lead character with aplomb – but damn, does he lose credibility points for the near-pornographic portrayal of Jenna (one panel in particular shows a flagrant disregard for how clothes actually work). And I know I may sound like a broken record, but if people keep on doing such downright embarrassing stuff as this, I’ll keep commenting on it. [SP]

Review: Batman and Robin #4
The change in artists was always going to be a jolt, but no-one could have foreseen that the landing would be this rocky. Philip Tan turns in a book in the generic DC house style, but fumbles the ball badly when it comes to storytelling. At several points in the issue, it’s hard to follow the course of events, and Tan’s depiction of Batman is one hundred percent Bruce Wayne. Matters are compounded by an excess of ink and some frankly incompetent colouring from Pete Pantazis- the Red Hood’s costume shades are actually inverted from the Frank Quitely-coloured cover, and the Red-Cave’s crimson wash is a severe error. [JHa]

Review: Captain America: Reborn #3
Halfway through the story, things are starting to look a bit sketchy for Reborn. So far, very little has been achieved except to roll out Captain America’s greatest hits and have us go “ooh, yes, Kree-Skrull war, I remember that.” Hopefully it’s going somewhere, and the idea of Cap Quantum-Leaping his way into his own body while it was frozen in ice is a nice one, but we’re just being told what we’ve suspected all along: Steve Rogers’ best stories are all in the past. A scene with the Arnim Zola Skull is a nice piece of character work, as the vain Skull struggles with genuine horror at his present condition, but we’re still no closer to a story point on that front either and halfway through the series, one feels like we probably should be. It’s an entertaining read and looks utterly brilliant, but I’m not convinced it’s bringing Captain America back in any meaningful sense, and if this comic can’t do at least that, then it’s really in trouble. [JHu]

Review: Vengeance of the Moon Knight #1
Moon Knight has been hanging around the fringes of the Marvel Universe for a while now, and although it hasn’t drawn much acclaim, the title has nonetheless dodged cancellation, so it’s good to see Marvel reward that success with a relaunch. The relaunch isn’t without a little retooling, though – a new writer and a new concept sees Moon Knight bought back towards straight and narrow superheroics, following his stint as a complete mentalist. He’s still a little deranged, but there’s nothing like the violence that the previous incarnation of the character was prone to. Alongside the issue is a reprint of the original Moon Knight one, which is a 70s Marvel curio at best. To be honest, I’m still not convinced there’s a need for a Moon Knight title, and given the utter lack of interest there’s been in the relaunch, I’ll be surprised if it survives much beyond the first year. [JHu]

[We don't normally say it, but since this is a big event: Beware. Spoilers are ahead.]

Okay. There’s this series, right. It’s intricately plotted, tightly dialogued and it isn’t afraid of playing the long game when it comes to handling its myriad secrets and mysteries, leaving its fans hanging for months, even years before revealing the whole picture. It’s truly unique in its field, with a multi-faceted cast and a brilliantly consistent level of quality. Just when you get a handle on where it’s going, it yanks the rug from under you. Somehow, against the odds, it’s managed to stretch beyond the genre-ghetto that spawned it and truly enter the public consciousness without ever compromising the singular vision of its creators. And we all know what that series is.

Yes, I like Lost as much as the next person. And the next person is apparently Ed Brubaker, because for reasons I can’t begin to comprehend, he’s managed to replicate one of Lost’s most memorable plot points wholesale. And we’re not just talking homage, here, we’re talking “oh, that’s a good idea, I can use it.” And we know this because the issue delights in using the same wording – that’s THE SAME, not SIMILAR – that Lost itself uses to distill its often complicated concepts into simple, comprehensible slices of dialogue. “Steve Rogers has come unstuck in time,” says Armin Zola. “[They] kept referring to me as The Constant,” says Sharon Carter. “We have to move the island,” says The Falcon. Well, maybe not that last one, things are already starting to blur a little.

Now, let’s be fair – Lost didn’t invent the “unstuck in time” concept. Slaughterhouse Five did it way earlier, for one. But it didn’t have a “Constant” like Lost did and Cap does, nor was Slaughterhouse Five the basis of a massively prominent TV series watched by millions over the last 5 years. Let me be clear: I am in no way questioning Brubaker’s credibility as a writer – everyone gets their ideas from somewhere, after all. I am, however, questioning his timing and judgement. Was now the right time to do an  “unstuck in time” plot? And was there really no better way to refer to these concepts than the same way Lost does? The story itself isn’t bad, but it undoubtedly suffers when considered against the wider cultural context of its release.

And what of the story? Well, it’s… okay. Hitch’s pencils are as good as ever, though the scenes of WW2-era Cap make Reborn look far too similar to the Millar/Hitch Ultimates for comfort. In a book where the originality of the writing already feels compromised, it doesn’t help to have large swathes of the artwork looking like re-purposed Ultimates offcuts. The prominent use of both Mighty and Dark Avengers cast members takes the book outside Captain America’s usual insular world, justifying the story’s spinning-out into a miniseries, but the additional grounding in the Marvel Universe means that it lacks the timeless quality of Brubaker’s run to date. It’s all a bit, well, underwhelming.

One thing you can’t fault it for, however, is delivering what it was supposed to. If you want to know what happened to Steve Rogers, well good news: there’s no dodging it here. And the question of how they’ll get him from where he is to where he should be does sound like a story I want to read. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether the rest of the series can give me something to worry about that takes precedence over how similar its plot points are to Lost. It’s not impossible, but really, that shouldn’t have been this big of a distraction in the first place.

And then the pace began to slacken. Bucky Barnes’ adventures seemed to be stuck in a holding pattern, endlessly dwelling on his past. Almost as if the book was waiting for a certain issue number.

It’s impossible to write about ‘Captain America #599′ without considering the wider implications for the character of various hints from Marvel as to the content of next month’s spectacular. It may sound rather shallow to hold Brubaker’s run in less esteem if he has indeed always intended to raise Rogers from the dead, but the writer’s work will be viewed differently if his radicalism does prove to be a front.

The appeal of Brubaker’s run, and the reason why the writer has had so much success in drawing in readers with no particular attachment to Cap, was that he treated the property as a living, breathing entity. Of all Marvel’s properties, Rogers most resembled the Fantastic Four, who for decades have held little appeal for readers due to their static status quo. Over time, this has become a self-perpetuating view, with any actual change to their set-up being dismissed by readers as a temporary gimmick, and abandoned by the publisher when it fails to fuel sales.

This issue itself gives grounds for optimism, with last month’s return of energy to the writing maintained, as Barnes considers over half a century of birthdays. Given the tendency to melancholy the book has shown in recent months, it’s refreshing to see Cap’s musings being interspersed with comparatively light-hearted action, as he fights off an assassination attempt in modern-day New York. Another novel development is the inclusion of the Avengers in the book. While Brubaker has obviously enjoyed his work’s isolation from the Marvel Universe, a story about how his character has grow into his place in the world wouldn’t be complete without an appearance by his team, and the writer sensibly breaks his unwritten rule. At the risk of sounding rude, this issue is a very well crafted brick. It just remains to see what the finished house looks like…

This week, we serve up more capsule reviews for Captain America #48, Dark Reign: Elektra #1, Thunderbolts #130 and X-Men: Sword of the Braddocks #1.

Review: Captain America #48
The flashback elements fade into the background here, as Ed Brubaker concludes his musings on Bucky Barnes’ origins. The arc appears to have been conceived as a more reflective story for the title character after the last two traumatic years, but a number of elements have seen the book feeling a little lost in recent months, with its ignoring of the Dark Reign shake-up a little odd and a nasty descent into stereotypical racism for the villain of the piece here. Despite some superlative art, Captain America has drifted away from “essential read” status. [JHa]

Review: Dark Reign: Elektra #1
Elektra was a fairly smart choice for the “first Skrull” reveal – a character dogged by inconsistency and almost defined by her malleability, it’s easy to drop her into almost any role and still have it feeling like the same Elektra readers have come to know. Capitalising on the interest in the character Secret Invasion will have generated, this series picks up moments after the release of the Skrull replacees, explaining What Elektra Did Next. Wells’ take on Elektra is a strange one, playing the title character as an enigmatic, unknowable figure even in her own title. As brutal as she is mute, it seems an odd that there’s little attempt to re-establish the character more definitively after her time “out of play”. Elektra comes over as an ineffable force of nature instead of 3-dimensional human being. Apparently that’s what Wells was going for, but personally, I’d have preferred something a little easier to identify with – it seems unlikely Marvel can win over any new Elektra fans with a comic along these lines. [JHu]

Review: Thunderbolts #130
This issue is the second part of Deadpool-crossover “Magnum Opus” and the book shifts quite radically in tone to accommodate its guest star. The most noticeable means by which this is achieved is in the artwork, which is by Bong Dazo, an artist who fits well with Deadpool’s Paco Medina, but Diggle also seems to be writing a little more bombastically than in the past. The air of businesslike amorality that permeated the title through Ellis’ run and Diggle’s opening issues is virtually non-existent here, and it’s hard not to feel that the title is bending a little too far in trying to cater to Deadpool’s wackier side, especially with it’s painfully unfunny cliffhanger. Thankfully it’s only a short crossover, but it’s not one I’m going to look back on fondly. [JHu]

Review: X-Men: Sword of the Braddocks #1
Much like the solicitation for the recent Nightcrawler one-shot suggested it’d be telling a major story where Nightcrawler left the team, but didn’t, so the solicitation for “Sword of the Braddocks” implied that it’d show Psylocke returning to the X-Men, but doesn’t. Since I’m fond of Psylocke as a character, I decided I wanted to read about her return. What I ended up with instead was a one-shot tying up a loose end from New Exiles and a near-incomprehensible backup strip reprinted from an old X-Men Unlimited. Only an appearance of Captain Britain saves the issue from being entirely unremarkable, and if the interaction between the Braddock siblings is this interesting under Claremont, you have to wonder what Cornell could make of it… [JHu]

Review: Captain America #47
It’s tempting to say that Bucky’s Chinese excursion has gone exactly to plan. However, when the plan in question results in his being entirely helpless before his sadistic opponent, it’s difficult to describe the sequence of events as a victory. Despite some utterly magnificent art from Butch Guice, the story feels rather slight compared to the intrigue that the book was recently host to. While it’s understandable that Ed Brubaker wishes to plough his own furrow at this point, having invested more than any other writer in the “Initiative” scenario, this under plotted tale feels a little insubstantial. [JHa]

Review: Mighty Avengers #22
For me, the problem with Slott trying to do an “old school” Avengers run is that, well, Busiek did it so well that anything after is going to seem like a pale imitation. After that, it took Bendis’ “New Avengers” overhaul to make me pick the series up again, after it spend a couple of years floundering. Slott’s take is still some way from a status quo emerging, but it’s already clear that it’s aimed at someone who isn’t me. This issue was too much fast-paced action, not enough exposition, and the only thing I find myself caring about even a little is why the Scarlet Witch is back, a development Slott seems determined to keep as tight-reined as possible. Unfortunately, it’s already too late for me and this book. [JHu]

Review: She-Hulk #38
If there’s one thing Peter David knows how to do, it’s give a series a sending-off. His long career in comics means he’s knows how to tie up a series neatly, and often delights in giving a nod to the circumstances surrounding its cancellation. Despite that praise, it’s hard to deny that his She-Hulk run never critically matched up to Slott’s despite the seemingly natural fit for the combination of Hulk and Peter David, and perhaps it’d be for the best that the book gets a little fallow time – although the “Savage She-Hulk” comic coming in a few months time suggests that, whether it’s successful or not, Jen Walters won’t be headlining her own series again for some time. [JHu]

Review: X-Force #12
Seizing control of the various threads planted during the previous two arcs, the first part of “Suicide Leper” manages the extraordinary feat of combining elements from mid-nineties X-lore, the Messiah Complex storyline and some of debris left over from Peter Milligan’s weak Adjectivess run, without loosing coherency for a second. It’s easy to lament the departure of Mike Choi from pencilling duties, but Clayton Crain’s superb two-page splash cliffhanger proves him worthy of his mantle as the book’s chief artist. Not even a slightly forced two-page recap introduction of Rahne’s new love interest derails this freight train of a book. Simply magnificent! [JHa]