King Skull

Uncanny Avengers #3

Well, the Red Skull has done a bad, bad thing. He’s dug up the body of the late Charles Xavier, pulled out his brain, and grafted parts of it into his own brain to give himself powerful telepathic abilities. Now he’s using those powers to turn New Yorkers against each other, specifically by giving them the ability to sense mutants, then goading their bloodlust high enough that they’ll attack and kill anyone who they perceive as a mutant. And he’s got a pack of superpowered allies who are working to create even more chaos. Can the Avengers help? Well, yeah, except for Captain America having to fight through the Skull’s mind control to resist succumbing to mutant bigotry. And Wolverine losing his mutant healing factor. And Thor defecting to the bad guys.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Really ramping up the pressure on this one, and it’s all quite nicely done. Lots of hopeless situations and tension, which is exactly what a new series like this needs. John Cassaday’s art is great, of course — but I do wish his attention to detail didn’t mean that the series was already running behind. More issues should’ve been in the bag before the first issue was released.

Wonder Woman #16

Diana meets Orion and one of her new half-brothers, Milan, who can puke up an infinite number of bugs and see anything in the universe. Zola and Hera go out for drinks. And the guy who just got dug up in Antarctica (I don’t think they’ve yet said who he is — I’m betting on Prometheus) beats up a bunch of frost giants.

Verdict: Thumbs down. It was mostly pretty dull. The good stuff wasn’t particularly good, and the dull stuff wasn’t particularly good either.