NEW COMICS: 09.13.06

Ultimate X-men #74 - So, I haven't been a big fan of the Magician storyline overall, but this wasn't a bad little resolution to it. I'm actually glad to see that Kirkman made the Magician neither his "pet character," but nor did he make him an "evil mastermind." Instead, we got an interesting take on the traditional Reality Warping-type mutant powers. And a character that can either be ignored going forward, or might actually prove to have some story potential in the future.

So, not great, but solid.

New X-men #30 - A fun issue, overall. But one that also seemed to race by almost a little too quick. I actually really like the fact that, for most the issue, the enemy is effectively defeated. But, because of miscommunication and bad decisions, it looks like the fight will be resumed next issue.

Yost and Co. don't seem to be hesitant to show the teams relative inexperience and have them bungle-up a mission. Which I actually really appreciate. These are kids after all, with little combat experience (well, not counting, say, X-23... who apparently will get the name "Talon" at some point), so it would make sense that they would mess-up. And, actually, it would harder to beleive a story where they just raced in and "saved the day."

So, overall, a solid issue.

New Excalibur #11 - Yawn. This issue wasn't bad, per se, just boring. Which is a shame because its loosely about Arthurian Legend, and I'm actually a fan of that topic. Unfortunately, instead of actually rooting the story in anything that happened in Arthurian Legend, Tieri's story seems to take a page from the Dungeons and Dragons playbook and presents us with a Dragon Invasion!!™

As I said before, "yawn." And the matter isn't helped much by the fact that Ryan's art -which I generally like- seems to be on complete autopilot here and presents us with nearly nothing interesting or compelling to look at.

Oh, and for the record, while I'm not a huge Pete Wisdom fan, the character is sometimes entertaining. But, whenever American writers get their hands on him, they just cannot seem to write him correctly.

Boring.

Cassanova #4 - Why is it that most $3 comics can't seem to generate half the fun that this comic does for only $2 an issue?

To get this story started, a David Blain-style magician has been meditating for 12 years straight in an attempt to reach double-Nirvana and beat Buddha himself. Cassanova has been charged with stopping him, so as to avoid chaos erupting from the Buddhists of the world. And that's just the first couple pages, because things of course go horribly wrong.

Fun stuff made even more entertaining by Matt Fraction's "back matter" where he talks about his inpsirations for the story. I especially like his descriptions of dreaming up an adult Johnny Quest gone horribly wrong. Funny stuff.

I'm not giving the issue 5 stars, because the story gets a little confusing at times, but still darned close!