This week your humble comics reviewer managed to spend no less than £48 on comics. In fairness, £20 of this was an Age of Apocalypse graphic novel and another £14 was split on the latest Marvel Figurine Collection and Brian Wood's new OGN, The Tourist (seperate review coming soon) but still, that's a lot of notes. Last week was pretty quiet, though, as next week looks to be, so it's not such a bad amount of spending. Or rather, that's what I'll keep telling myself.

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AMERICAN VIRGIN #2

Publisher DC (Vertigo) • Writer Steven T. Seagle • Artist Becky Cloonan

American Virgin is quite possibly the only comic on the shelves that's able to challenge my Brian Wood obsession, and it's probably no surprise that it's being drawn by his repeat collaborator, Becky Cloonan. The first issue set up the premise, got us comfortable with the characters, and then ripped it all away from us at the last moment, so I've been dying to know where Seagle's going with it. The answer? Africa, as Adam sets off to find out who killed his girlfriend and why.

That's if you believe she's dead, of course. I'm calling it now - she's coming back. This is comics, my friend, and we've got a corpse but no head, and thus no positive identification. She's alive and she's going to come back and fuck Adam's world up when he least expects it, and I'm going to believe it until Adam sees her head on a stick (which, to be fair, may still happen). Until then, though, I'm going to cautiously believe she is actually dead.

Seagle's keeping Adam a sympathetic character as even though his views are generally considered freaky and cultish by the mainstream, we get the feeling his heart's in the right place about it. And, even better, between a hilarious scene where he's given a porn mag on the airplane and another where he fights a journalist, we can see he's far from a brainwashed Christian robot, so there may be hope for him yet. Art and writing superb, and if you're lucky you can probably go back and get issue #1 before it's too late. A+

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DMZ #6

Publisher DC (Vertigo) • Writer Brian Wood • Artist Ricardo Burchielli

It's been a couple of weeks but I have a new Brian Wood comic to rave over. We're six issues in now, judging by the weather, Matty appears to have been in the city a few months now (2 issues ago it was snowing, this issue Summer's just hotting up) and realising that life in a warzone is pretty far from the comforts as home as he spends the first half of this issue getting blown up, vomiting and fumbling around in raw sewage.

Matty's only just finished arguiing to his employer that he's got what it takes to stay in Manhatten when he's presented with the change to prove it, as Wood turns on its head one of the central beliefs that the reader, and Matty, held about the events at the start of the series. As usual, just as Matty thinks he's got a handle on things he's brutally reminded of the truth.

There's character in how Matty's handling events, but if there can be any criticism of the series so far it must be that Matty's still a little vaguely defined. We can predict how he'll react, but probably not what he reasons would be. Hopefully this 5-issue arc will give Wood some breathing room to really define who Matty is through the way he reacts to the situation he's been placed in. As ever, I can't wait for more. A

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MS. MARVEL #2

Publisher Marvel • Writer Brian Reed • Pencils Roberto De La Torre • Inks Jimmy Palmiotti

After last issue's excellent start to the series, Reed and De La Torre continue in the same vein with another fine installment. There is no praise I cannot heap upon this book, besides the fact that the main villain ("Cur") is sort of unengaging at this point in the story, because he's an extremely powerful mute cyborg with very little backstory. If you can get past that - and I can - then there's not going to be much disappointing in here.

As well as brood-smashing action, with the swarm that arrived last issue nicely dispatched in the refreshingly old-school manner of simply blasting them to death (morally justified, since they're insectoid fodder, and put Carol through some bad times in the past) Carol realises that maybe she should've concentrated more on the cyborg that the brood were trying to escape from and making off after him, just in time to fail to stop him before he achieves his objective.

This plays right up to pne of the best aspects of Ms. Marvel so far, that is, the heroine's willingness to second-guess and analyse her own actions. All too often we're faced with heroes who are emotionally weighted towards insecurity, such as Spider-Man, or simply hyper-confident like Captain America. Ms. Marvel is giving us a character who knows she can do better and is trying to see why that hasn't been the case 'till now, and it's a great new angle. I'm incredibly engaged by that plot even if Cur isn't grabbing me just yet. I would have liked to see Reed touch on Carol's history with the brood, seems as how they're appearing so early in the run, but I suppose it's realistic that it can't get mentioned every time the two meet. A

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THUNDERBOLTS #101

Publisher Marvel • Writer Fabian Nicieza • Pencils Paul Ross • Inks Cam Smith

Now, see, this is more like it. After wrapping up the previous few month's convoluted plot and shuffling off a whole bunch of characters into limbo, the cast and plot mechanics have returned to a managable size as the new status quo is established. Especially interesting is to see that Zemo, who should never be far from a Thunderbolts title, and The Fixer, one of Nicieza's favourite characters (and it shows in the writing) have returned as full members of both the cast and team, alongside some of the newer characters.

There are some notes that don't quite ring true, such as the revelation that Zemo's scarring has healed. Now keep a sharp mind about you here, because the character's history now goes: Zemo is badly scarred, as in established continuity. Zemo is killed by The Scourge (Thunderbolts #39) and his mind takes residence in the Fixer's tech pack. Zemo's consciousness is later transferred into an alternate, unscarred version of himself from the Heroes Reborn world. That body is then scarred protecting Captain America (in the Avengers/Thunderbolts series that preceeded this ongoing) and it's now revealed that the moonstones he controls have healed the scarring. I'm all for positive character development, but given how Nicieza was a writer on the original A/T mini, I'd hope for a little less flip-flopping about Zemo's status.

The art by Paul Ross is easily comparable to Grummett's work on the title, and Nicieza's direction for the title has improved. I'm looking forward to seeing how the civil war tie-ins affect the title because, as a team of super-powered heroes attempting to gain legitimacy, the super-power registration act that effectively places all heroes in control of the government will certainly be a tempting way for these characters to leave their criminal pasts behind. After a rocky few months, the future is looking brighter for Thunderbolts.B+

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Ultimate Spider-Man #93

Publisher Marvel • Writer Brian Bendis • Pencils Mark Bagley • Inks Danny Miki

Before I begin this review, I just want to say - if you know of the whereabouts of the real Ultimate Spider-Man #93 issue, please contact us and we'll put you in touch with the correct authorities. The proper story for this issue is currently missing presumed dead.

One thing I haven't done since I started reviewing comics is really horribly pan something. I mean, I'm the usual nerd type, when I watch or play or read something masterful it consumes my every waking thought, and when the opposite is true - even more so. Like, the only thing I love more than Star Trek is hating Star Trek. It's bad news for Bendis, then, because following last issue's incredikbly dodgy issue, I've lost all patience with this story.

You may be one of the people who picked up the last issue of USM and were surprised to find that the interior was actually an issue of Ultimate X-Men. Except, of course, that it wasn't, it's just that Bendis weighted the star part of "Guest Star" slightly too much. This issue has more of the same, and in addition to that, it's a bold new experiment in storytelling as what we get are pages and pages full of tiny panels with text captions designed to invoke the idea that we're watching this on TV. Except we're not. And it's fucking tedious trying to read a comic in this manner. It doesn't flow well, it doesn't convey the story well, and it's such a bad gimmick that even the decent material - the interaction between Peter and Kitty, and the reveal at the end of the issue, can't save it from being the worst issue of Ultimate Spider-Man that I've ever read.

Now don't get me wrong, I love Bendis' writing and this is the first time I've ever had to struggle to finish a Bendis comic, but when he gets it wrong, by god, does he get it wrong. X-Men. Cyborgs. Krakoa. Deadpool. It's all gone terribly, terribly wrong. Where the fuck is the Spider-Man cast and why aren't they in my Spider-Man comic? I can't even find it in myself to think up proper criticism because the more I try and articulate why I can't stand it, the more my brain gets blinded by a white rage that descends and leaves we gnashing my teeth instead of typing. Sure, it's not Chuck Austen level of crapness, but Bendis never will be, but it only makes it more horrible when you know what he should be capable of doing. This should've been an Ultimate X-Men/Spider-Man miniseries, because then I could've left it on the shelf.

And while we're on the subject, what the hell happened to Scott Hanna? Hanna is better than any of the replacement inkers that've cropped up recently, it must be said. And despite Bagley's obvious brilliance, because he spends most of the issue drawing horribly uninteresting panels, characters, and locations, Bagley's art isn't enough to save this issue from my lowest grade to date: D+

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Uncanny X-Men #472

Publisher Marvel • Plot Chris Claremont • Script Tony Bedard •; Artist Chris Bachalo

With the knowledge that he's off the title (earlier than expected - due to health problems Bedard is scripting over Claremont's plots) it seems like Claremont is about to provide resolution for some of those dangling plot threads that've left readers scratching their heads over the last year or two. For instance, how did Psylocke come back to life? The answer lies in her reality-warping (an insane) brother Jamie Braddock, who returns, presumably so that we can wrap up his pre-HoM storyline as well.

It's hard to get enthusiastic because despite enjoying the character, Psylocke's resurrection hasn't lead to any story worthy of it, and Jamie Braddock is probably more interesting to readers of the 80s version of Excalibur. Oh, and the Watcher turns up at the end to give some weight to Jamie's threat, except it's not quite working because the Watcher, as a concept, doesn't have much place in an X-Men story (thematically or traditionally) and furthermore no-one's really used him in this capacity for about a decade, so it falls a little flat.

There's also a subplot with Storm, who has made herself a constant presence despite being shuffled off to Africa to hang around until the comics catch up with the publicity and she marries the Black Panther. It's not interesting me at all.

Chris Bachalo's art is doing very well for itself, though. I love his style but he has a tendancy to over-busy the page in a way that obscures the storytelling in recent years. This issue shows a marked return to clarity for him, though previous returns have been short-lived and usually coincide with an issue that was done in a hurry, and given the amount of inkers, you can probably draw your own conclusions. C