X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #16. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Ah, so apparently the appearance of a duplicate Beast last issue wasn’t meant to come across as a new villain, which is how I read it… but the plot of this issue is basically that he turns out to be a villain. So that doesn’t exactly work for me. Still, I see what we’re doing here: the duplicate Beast is a mutant who simply takes on the persona of whoever’s around him, with little underlying personality of his own. And the idea is clearly to test the idea that something about the Beast inherently dooms him to become a villain by confronting him with another copy. The idea makes sense but I’m not entirely convinced – I think the issue for me is that the mimic character is just a bit too obviously contrived to fit the theme, so it’s hard to buy him as an actual person.

Oh, and no issue of Savage Wolverine this week, so apparently it was a miniseries. I’m quite relieved about that, to be honest, even though I liked the book, since Marvel seem to be determined to restore Wolverine to the level of overexposure that plagued him for so many years.

UNCANNY X-MEN #3. (Annotations here.) Four ongoing titles in a single week! It’s been a while since that happened, but that’s mainly because they’ve taken their time on rolling out the relaunch. Still, we’re back down to two next week.

Uncanny is still a bit of a mixed bag at this point. The art is lovely, and the Outliers seem like interesting characters. Most of this issue is basically more introduction for them, with a bit more interaction with the established X-Men, and some outline origin flashbacks for them all. I’m still much less convinced about the villains. Sarah’s magical angle goes some way to addressing my concern that the book’s bad guys were just a straight retread of Orchis, but I can’t say the concept is really my thing. Still, Uncanny‘s main strength so far is in the character work on the X-Men and Outliers, and that side of the book is working rather well.

X-FORCE #3. (Annotations here.) Mmm. There’s a theoretically interesting idea in here about Forge having blind faith in the product of his powers, and going on essentially arbitrary missions simply because he trusts that his powers must be sterring him right. In practice it all feels very episodic and random. I suppose you need to have everything go smoothly for a while before you can pull the rug out or start having the Analog steer the group to less clear cut threats – so far, it’s just sent them to places where the threat is obviously real and the team need to intervene. I can see it picking up as that theme gets developed, but for now the book feels like a series of random encounters which aren’t especially strong ideas in and of themselves. It’s a nice looking book, there’s the occasional good character touch, but I don’t think it’s working.

PHOENIX #3. (Annotations here.) This two parter really doesn’t get Corsair at all. Playing him up as a rogue or having him be mainly interested in stealing something valuable – that’s all fair enough. But the idea that it’s some sort of new development for the Corsair to be doing heroic things, even as basic as “flying the rescued slaves back home”, is just completely nuts. Still, the bigger problem here is that the book isn’t making a case for Jean Grey as an interesting solo lead. Perrikus, Adani, Hakan and even the book’s oddball take on Corsair all feel like stronger and more engaging characters than Jean, who feels by far the blandest person in her own book.

I said when the relaunch started that I probably wouldn’t do annotations for all the secondary ongoing titles, but we’d see how it went. Right now, it ain’t looking good for X-Force or Phoenix, but I guess I’ll give them both a little more time.

NYX #3. (Annotations here.) Now this is more like it. It’s Anole’s spotlight issue, although really it’s more a story to introduce the latest version of the Morlocks. Anole fits in here because he’s the only visible mutant in the core cast, just like the other Morlocks. But the Morlocks themselves are the more intriguing element here, since it’s not just a straight revival of the old 1980s concept. This version are also positioning themselves as a sort of continuity Krakoa, and it makes sense that the original mutant separatist community would do that – even if most of the actual Morlocks left for Madripoor rather than staying on Krakoa. But for the most part these aren’t even the original Morlocks, and the story off handedly raises some intriguing questions about where they came from. How did Caliban turn into a solemn leader figure? What on earth is Sobunar, of all people, doing in this group? But it doesn’t feel random – there’s just enough done to suggest that this is meant to strike us as odd, even if it doesn’t register quite that way with the cast. Mortarino’s art has an understated charm to it, and really does sell the quietly dignified, slightly off kilter nature of the new Morlocks.

WOLVERINE: REVENGE #2. By Jonathan Hickman, Greg Capullo, Tim Townsend, FCO Plascencia & Cory Petit. Well, it’s a story about Wolverine in the post-apocalyptic USA looking for revenge on the guys he fought in issue #1. I do quite like the fact that it avoids the usual post-apocalyptic tropes; it’s just a rundown world without power, except for the bits that Forge has got working. It’s newly post-apocalyptic. But it does look to be mainly a book about letting Greg Capullo draw what he wants to draw, rather than a story which is about anything in particular beyond the surface. There are certainly worse reasons to have a miniseries than to showcase Capullo’s art, though, and it’s a decent enough tale on its own terms.