Unreachable Star Reviews May 14th, 2008 (SPOILERS)

This is our 259th edition. Three books today. No preliminary
comments.

This week we have...

Captain Britain and MI:13 #1 - 3.25 Stars
newuniversal: shockfront #1 - 3.25 Stars
Serenity: Better Days #3 (of 3) - 2.75 Stars

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Captain Britain and MI:13 #1 - "The Guns of Avalon, Part One" (Writer:
Paul Cornell, Penciler: Leonard Kirk,
Inker: Jesse Delperdang, Colorist:
Brian
Reber)

The Skrull invasion has hit Britain, hard, and many of Britain's
heroes
must join together to fight it off, especially when they learn the
Skrulls are going after the Seige Perilous.

Paul Cornell last worked on Wisdom, a very good MAX miniseries
involving some of the same characters. This issue doesn't quite
rise up to the level of humor and occasionally inspired madness,
but that's made up for by it being a much smoother read, possibly
due to the change of artist.

The book does start right in the thick of the skrull invasion,
which might be confusing to somebody who wasn't following that
plotline, but it's not even a serious flaw... a reader can
quickly grasp that shape changing aliens are invading the world.

I'm going to make this my Pick of the Week for this week.

Review: 3.25 stars

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newuniversal: shockfront #1 - "Tumble"

Izumi has gone back to her old life while hiding Ken Connell in her
apartment. However, more people are developing super powers, with
deadly results.

As I'm an unabashed fan of the original New Universe, part of the
fun of the series is seeing characters from there pop up, and this
issue introduces too more, relatively minor characters. However,
owing to Ellis' sensibilities, their newly developed powers cause a
lot more havok, right off the bat. This does make the book a little
bloodier, but it also hits home the danger of these abilities better.

For the moment, I'm enjoying having it back... I hope this mini moves
more quickly than the last, but I'm satisfied with the first issue.

Review: 3.25 stars

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Serenity: Better Days #3 - (Story by: Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews,
Art by: Will Conrad, Colors by: Michelle
Madsen)

Mal is captured by people who think he's got a terrorist past, and
the rest of the team goes to rescue them.

As a conclusion, it leaves a lot to be desired, but I suppose that's
only to be expected. Having set up too much that could not be
changed short of hokey plot twists, they were forced to resort to
those twists to revert everything, making the mini feel like a
waste, as though nothing in it mattered. The plot didn't even
flow very well if you take for granted the reset button.

Disappointing.

Review: 2.75 stars

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Well, that's it for this week folks. Next week, according to the
shipping list, there's three. There's Ultimate X-Men #94, X-Factor
#31, and X-Men: Divided We Stand #2.

See you next time...

Peter Dimitriadis
http://www.unreachablestar.net
The Unreachable Star - Comics & SF News/Reviews/Opinion