This week: the usual selection of capsule reviews, including Amazing Spider-Man #573, Captain Britain and MI:13 #6, DC Universe Decisions #3, Titans #6, Ghost Rider #28 and Uncanny X-Men #503. Enjoy!

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For the first two issues of his run, it seemed that Warren Ellis’s approach to Astonishing was working against him. His firmly sci-fi take on the X-Men moved with consistency and imagination, but its need to ground the revitalised team as the writer’s plots rooted themselves meant that the book was in danger of being overshadowed by Matt Fraction’s Uncanny. While Grant Morrison resolved a similar problem by presenting a visually radical take on the team, Ellis and Simone Bianchi were hamstrung by the need to maintain a superficial consistency with the title’s Joss Whedon incarnation. With the required slow start out of the way, however, the book is now free to fly.

Compared to the previous two issues, there’s a far greater density of story here, with the team taking stock and greeting a familiar face before arriving at a novel location. This quickening of the pace allows Ellis’s trademark big ideas to keep on coming, giving the writing a feeling of richness that matches Bianchi’s art. What really sets the issue apart is the addition of humour. Not the comedy pratfalls which traditionally turn up every so often in the book’s change-of-pace moments. Not wisecracks and quips. A proper joke that briefly becomes integral to the issue, as Cyclops abandons the main storyline in order to conduct a rigorous investigation into whether he said “fucking” to Agent Brand. There’s an undercurrent of hysterical glee to this sequence, which never quite breaks the fourth wall. Ellis manages to hang a serious point about the entirely reasonable nature of the new unreasonable Cyclops onto the exchange, while having Summers defend the parallel universe plot against allegations that it doesn’t belong in a X-book.

The purpose of the Ghost Boxes comes as no surprise- alternate realities have long been one of the writer’s obsessions. Although Ellis’s attempts to tie the mystery to mutation don’t entirely ring true, it’s a far more appropriate inclusion than Whedron’s injection of space opera into the title. Compared to Uncanny’s CSI gloss, Ellis’s psuedo-realistic take on super heroics comes as a contrast. You wouldn’t call the book gritty, but there’s refreshing realism at work here. A flight to China is a serious undertaking requiring much preparation, not just an excuse for a splash page of the Blackbird. The carefully picked cast allows the selection of the perfect voice for any scene, although Armour still comes across as an unconvincing Kitty Pryde/ Jubilee stock character. In the light of the book’s sudden weightiness, hopefully this minor blemish will soon be corrected.

This week, I’m going solo in the absence of Seb & Julian, who fell prey to the same problem I did last week of not actually having any comics to read. I’ve dropped in some news items about No Heroics and Dark Reign, and you can find capsule reviews of X-Men: Manifest Destiny and Secret Invasion: Inhumans #3. Enjoy!

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Unless Power Pack Vs Marvel Zombies is in the works, this is likely to stand for quite some time as Marvel’s most curious crossover. Mike Carey’s physiological take on Charles Xavier’s past has misfired several times during its brief life. However, it’s hard to see how its problems could be remedied by briefly merging it with Daniel Way’s distinctly retro Logan solo book. Judging by this one-shot opener, the two titles have brought out each other’s worst traits.

Original Sin’s linchpin is Draken, the estranged son which Way introduced early in Origins’ life. The bulk of the issue is context, with the young man falling in with even worse company than usual, while his father turns to the figure who helped him rise above a similar life. Way writes only a minority of the book’s pages, but the absurdly conservative characterisation he deploys sours the entire issue. In order to show Wolverine acting solo, he engineers a spat with Cyclops, with a momentary misunderstanding turning quickly to violence. Unfortunately, a number of plot details make the clash look like merely a playful conforming to type. If Logan really wanted to harm Scott, he’d only have to open his mind to Emma about his recent extra-curricular activities, while Cyclops doesn’t even threaten to deploy his eye beams. The scene merely exists as a lazy and unconvincing backdrop to the issue, sending Wolverine out into the city for the bulk of the action.

With Origins providing the a-story, Legacy’s contribution to the title is delivered as flashbacks to the formation of the All-New, All-Different X-Men. Unfortunately, Carey’s retcon work here is severely hampered by both the lifting of the twist from Mark Miller’s first Ultimate X-Men arc, and the fact that this story was comprehensively rewritten by Ed Brubaker only a couple of years ago. While the threading of Vulcan into the proceedings cleared up one of the X-franchise’s long-standing niggles, it’s hard to see any benefits arising from such a laboured and clichéd amendment. Mike Dedato’s sketchy, ink-heavy art complements the story well, but unfortunately Scott Eaton turns in some his weakest work to date for chapter two of the tale. The lack of texture in the images suggests a pressing deadline, and although his gift for expressions never quite deserts him, several backgrounds consist of only a couple of lines. Sadly, this perfunctory pencilling suits the book’s content perfectly.

The first storyline in this title served as something of an extended epilogue to Messiah Complex, as Cable skipped into the future with the baby, always staying one step ahead of the pursuing Bishop. Obviously, this formula couldn’t last forever, so after a 2-month gap in which we saw some fairly decent stories featuring Cyclops and Bishop take the place of the title character, the series returns with a new plot thread.

It’s been around 2 years since we last saw the characters, and Cable’s been hiding out in a small farming community in the future, keeping his head low while he raises the baby (who hasn’t been named, presumably to avoid having to confirm her identity.) It makes sense that Cable, an experienced time traveller, would eventually find a way to hide from Bishop, although it appears that Bishop’s come up with a new strategy to achieve his aims.

The main problem with the series thus far is that Cable is quite clearly positioned as the least interesting character in the cast. Bishop has a fairly complex motive and a history that backs it up nicely, even if he does come across as slightly crazed. Cyclops, too, has some depth as an appropriate choice of character for the supporting cast. Even the baby has the central mystery of her identity to keep people coming back. Cable, though, doesn’t seem to have any function in his own title, beyond putting one foot in front of the other. Indeed, his adaptability actually works against him, as the character we’re seeing in this issue doesn’t even feel like the same Cable we’re used to, having spent 2 years hidden away in a retreat in what can only be described as a fairly un-Cable-like situation.

It’s fair to say that the book’s not bad - a little plodding, occasionally a little sterile, but it does seem to have a clear idea of what it’s doing and where it’s going, even if it’s not rushing to get there. The main problem is that it shouldn’t really be called “Cable” at all - it’s not about him, and it doesn’t even want to be. At this point you could quite easily have titled the comic “Bishop” and it wouldn’t have been jarring. For something billed as a solo book, that’s inarguably a problem.

X-Force has quickly confounded expectations. On first announcement, it seemed like Chris Yost & Craig Kyle had grown tired of the constraints of the X-Franchise’s “Younger Reader” book, and had decided to balance things out with a gory rampage. While the Angels & Demons arc accordingly delivered buckets of blood, it was the willingness to casually reintroduce old X-Men plot threats into the action that literally marked the title as being for older readers.

To understand this approach, it’s worth considering a comment by Yost, who described the second arc’s use of the Vanisher as being a follow-up to Angel’s recent clash with the character. When the writer says “recent”, he means 100 issues and 8 years ago, adopting the perspective appropriate to a series of this length, if not to the normal definition of comics readers’ memory. The creators’ policy is to determinedly look at the X-franchise as being one continuous story, from which useful elements can be pulled without preamble. They don’t get caught up in resolving tiny inconsistencies in the past, simply cherry-picking plotlines which could be continued as a means of driving the franchise forward into new territory. What’s particularly interesting about X-Force is that the writers have abandoned the practice of including expositionary dialogue for the elements they reintroduce. While New X-Men cunningly engineered considerable discussion on the subject of the Nimrod Sentinel before it became a part of the plot, this issue’s cliffhanger relies on the reader instantly recognising the significance of the Vanisher’s target.

As the opening to a second arc, Old Ghosts’ first issue seems well judged; allowing the team some breathing space while the book’s main plotline develops outside of their control. A few minor issues are resolved as the writers sure up the book’s “secret team” premise, and a chilling montage shows Bastion beginning his work in earnest. Mike Choi and Sonia Oback’s art is spectacular, marrying detail with some superb storytelling. The pair’s experience of working with these writers shines through, making them a natural choice for secondary art duties. Choi is able to work in some of his trademark touches, such as Cyclops’ habit of wearing his New X-Men jacket over his present outfit, while keeping to the established style of the book. Also laudable is his actually making the cloned X23 resemble Wolverine, a detail that is often forgotten by other artists. The only misstep comes with Warren’s transformation into Archangel- where Clayton Crain was able to convey real horror in issue four, here a straightforward “turning blue” approach is adopted.

The series’ risk-taking ultimately pays off, however. While some plot points might leave casual readers of the franchise either confused or unmoved, the result is arguably a more essential purchase for X-Men fans than some of the core X-books.