Ridiculously late, I know, but then I didn’t actually get a chance to read any of these books until yesterday.  Such is the fate of those who rely on a combination of Diamond and the postal service.

Batman & Robin #11 – “The Return of Bruce Wayne begins here!”, says the cover, which is an odd thing to put on the second part of a storyline, but that’s DC for you.  In this issue, the new Batman continues to explore the underground bits of Wayne Manor, while Robin teams up with a bloke in a mask to fight some baddies.  Is the bloke in the mask Bruce Wayne?  Probably not, because that’d be a bit obvious.  As I feared, now that we’re getting to the obligatory mechanics of returning to the traditional Batman set-up, this really isn’t anything particularly special.  Part of the problem, I suspect, is that we’re now getting into the territory of established villains like Damian’s mother wandering about, and she’s a character I neither know nor care about.  And neither knowing nor caring about major characters is… an issue.  It’s fine, it’s well paced, it’s efficiently handled, it just doesn’t grab me.

Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love #6 – The concluding part of the miniseries.  I’m not sure this has really worked.  Partly, that’s because three Fables titles a month is stretching it, particularly when the third one is lagging so far behind in continuity that it’s evidently been tied up in development for an age.  But mainly it’s because the basic conceit of Cinderella as a Bond-style spy isn’t sustained effectively for the whole series.  The problem here is that they’ve ended up doing a story about a spy for the Fables universe, but that character doesn’t have a great deal to do with Cinderella, and so when they wheel out bits of Cinderella’s background, it feels rather forced.  And that means that the “characters from fables in the modern world” routine has been done better by the parent title.  Shawn McManus’ art is excellent, and the story itself is acceptable, but it doesn’t quite pull off the admittedly tricky task of blending these two ideas.

Deadpool & Cable #25 – Or just Cable #25, if you go by the indicia.  It goes without saying that Deadpool is overexposed to the point of self-parody these days, and Marvel seem to be trying to make a virtue of necessity by turning that into a joke in its own right.  So here’s Deadpool to bid farewell to a series he never really appeared in.  That said, while this is notionally the final issue of Cable, it’s actually more of a coda to the Cable & Deadpool ongoing series that preceded it.  It’s a flashback story, with Deadpool helping Cable out during the “Messiah Complex” crossover and fending off the baddies while Cable gets to safety.  It’s quite a nice way of bringing the book full circle, but it’s not really enough of a story to justify an entire issue.  Deadpool is in full-blown fourth-wall mode here, by the way, not only lamenting the demise of their partnership but berating the fact that there’s still been no adequate explanation of why anyone regards Hope as important.  It’s almost as though they’ve belatedly figured out that they botched that one.  Best viewed as a one-shot wrapping up Cable and Deadpool’s erratic relationship, and it’s not really a storng enough story to recommend even on that level, but it’s not without its charm.

S.H.I.E.L.D. #1 – Jonathan Hickman and Dustin Weaver’s new series is thoroughly odd, recasting S.H.I.E.L.D. as a sort of Marvel Universe version of the Illuminati who’ve been secretly protecting the world from alien invasions and such like all the way down the centuries.  The framing story is set in the fifties; it’s about a guy called Leonid being recruited into the organisation.  But much of the issue is given over to flashbacks as diverse as Imhotep fighting the Brood and Leonardo da Vinci taking on Galactus.  While it’s certainly a Marvel Universe title in the sense that Marvel’s own mythology is deeply embedded into it, it’s not a superhero book in any normal sense.  Hickman’s indie work has generally been more eccentric than his relatively conventional Marvel books, but here he seems to be going off the deep end into something genuinely odd.  At the same time, it also has the best feature of his Fantastic Four stories, which is his willingness to take a thoroughly insane concept and run with it.  It’s too early to judge it as a story, but as a set-up issue establishing a truly demented premise, it works.  Admittedly, my sense of intrigue is somewhat undermined by the fact that I can’t imagine something like this lasting a year in the current market.  But presumably all involved are sufficiently alive to the commercial realities that they’ve got a good self-contained story lined up for the first few issues.  On the principle that “it’s bound to get cancelled” risks being a self-fulfilling prophecy, I’m going to stick with this one for a bit.

Spider-Man: Fever #1 – Artist Brendan McCarthy writes and draws a three-issue miniseries for the Marvel Knights imprint.  Despite the title, in spirit it’s more of a Dr Strange story with Spider-Man as a guest star.  Weird magical stuff escapes from a weird insect dimension and steals Spider-Man’s soul; it’s Dr Strange to the rescue.  The story is functional, but that’s not really the point.  This is McCarthy paying homage to Silver Age Steve Ditko by teaming up his two best known creations and going to town on the psychedelic landscapes in the same way that Ditko did.  It’s incredibly stagey at points – some of Strange’s dialogue is downright stilted – but that’s probably deliberate.  Some comics really are just an excuse for the artist to go nuts, and some artists are interesting enough to make that a good enough reason to put out a comic.  And this is an example.

Turf #1 – We’re going to talk about this on the podcast this weekend, but this is the miniseries by Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards.  Now, while Jonathan Ross may be unknown in America, he’s a major star in Britain (think a younger David Letterman and you’re on the right lines), and even though he’s a well known comics fan, he’s a very big name celebrity to actually write one.  And he seems to be serious about it, too – he’s been doing the publicity rounds to promote the book, and he never does the publicity rounds himself.  For American audiences, of course, it’s an Image miniseries by an unknown writer and a well-respected artist.

So.  Any good?  Actually, on the whole, yes, it is.  The high concept is a turf war in prohibition-era New York between gangsters, vampires and, um, aliens.  But it’s played mostly straight – or deadpan, if you prefer – as a historical drama, with a dash of knowing absurdity.  Needless to say, Edwards is good at that.  It’s got an unusually rounded moral attitude to prohibition (yes, it’s a stupid law, but you are supporting organised crime…), and the gangster vampires are a fun idea.  On the downside… it’s probably a bit too dense, it’s very wordy (even Mark Millar’s characteristically enthusiastic afterword suggests a Don McGregor influence), and the tone is uneven, with occasional lurches into B-movie that don’t quite sit with the rest of the story.  But yes, it’s really quite decent, and a lot better than I was expecting.

Uncanny X-Men #523 – Part two of “Messiah Complex”, and fortunately we’ve got Terry and Rachel Dodson on art for this arc.  So not only is there brightly-coloured fighting, but it’s pretty and the characters are alive.  It’s a pretty good issue, too.  Part one set up the basic formula of the bad guys chasing Cable and Hope.  Fraction has fun with that here, as Hope gets used to a pre-apocalyptic society for a change, albeit one where everyone’s still shooting at her.  But he also introduces the second strand of the story, which is that all the dubious decisions Scott’s taken as leader of the X-Men over the last few years are evidently going to come home to roost.  X-Force have just been exposed, and the cuddly members of the group are thoroughly disconcerted.  Of course, they can’t exactly walk out now, what with the baddies trying to kill Hope… so they’re stuck with Scott for now.  And all this leads me to think that maybe recent commenters were right in suggesting that Scott’s the one in line for the chop here.  The build to this point has been decidedly erratic, but I’m still interested to see where it’s all heading, so job done, I suppose.

Wolverine: Weapon X #12 – The second part of “Tomorrow Dies Today”, in which timetravelling Deathlok cyborgs from the future come back to kill off leaders of a future rebellion – specifically, guest star Captain America.  Meanwhile, in the future, a band of rebels try to take down the Roxxon Corporation.  So… Terminator crossed with “Days of Futures Past”, then?  It’s fine, but it doesn’t have the inventiveness of the previous issue, and ends up getting a little more caught up in the cliches.