Before I get to today’s review, I wanna let y’all know that I’m expecting work to be a bit busier than normal, and I’ve got houseguests coming over next weekend — so blogging may be unusually light until next week.

Anyway, on to the review:

Astonishing X-Men #24

The team splits up, with Cyclops and Emma Frost staying back with Colossus at the site where a prophecy and/or a blueprint says he will destroy the Breakworld, and Beast, Wolverine, Shadowcat, Armor, Danger, and Agent Brand heading out to stop the planet-killer missile aimed at Earth. So is Peter actually going to decide, for some reason, to go ahead and blow up the Breakworld? And what’s the awful secret of that big, bad missile?

Verdict: Thumbs up, nominally. As always, good dialogue by Joss Whedon and gorgeous art by John Cassaday. But I ain’t at all sure about some of the weird plot twists in this one. Yeah, I know cliffhangers have to be pretty big to be effective, and maybe it all comes together in the end, but it really seems a bit senseless right now.

Astonishing X-Men #23

This one was sooooo cool.

Let’s review: Last issue, the X-Men were on the run, and a powerless Cyclops decided on a plan for him to lure the Breakworldians away on an escape pod so the rest of the team could escape. And the Breakworldians blow up his ship and kill him.

And in this issue, the Breakworldians bring him back to life just so they can torture him into revealing details of the X-Men’s Leviathan program. Wolverine and Armor are captured, while Beast, Emma Frost, Colossus, and Shadowcat make their own plans. And Cyclops reveals that the entire team knew all along that the Breakworldians were spying on them. What follows is this wonderful of last issue’s debate as the team prepares to send Cyclops off to his death — this time, however, with the added psionic thought-balloons as everyone telepathically makes their real plans. “Leviathan” is a hoax, designed solely to get Kruun, the Breakworldian leader, to bring Cyk back to life to interrogate him about the “doomsday device.”

Frustrated, Kruun says lies are humanity’s greatest weapon and demands to know what other lies Cyclops has told. Turns out that the “powerless” Cyclops isn’t powerless any more.

Verdict: Secret telepathic conversations, Kitty’s awful acting, and four pages devoted to a single optic blast make this a very solid thumbs up.

Well, I’m pretty far behind on my reviews, so let’s get a few done real quick…

Astonishing X-Men #22

The X-Men are still stuck on the Breakworld. The aliens think Colossus will destroy their world, and they’ve got a great big missile ready to blow up Earth in a couple of days — and no one can stop it. Emma Frost asks Danger, the sentient Danger Room computer, to kill her, and the robot can’t do it — her programming won’t let her kill anyone! Lockheed gets revealed as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Cyclops still has no powers. And the Breakworlders have the heroes badly outgunned, with no way to escape. But Cyclops has a plan that will require one member of the team to take an interstellar dirt nap…

Verdict: Thumbs up. I generally hate X-Men stories where the team goes into space, but this one has just been fun. Generally, Joss Whedon and John Cassaday have not done a single thing wrong in this entire series. Go git this one, a’ight?

She-Hulk #22

This is the first issue with Peter David as the writer, and there’s not much plot I can tell without giving away the good spoilers. But Shulkie is now a bounty hunter instead of a lawyer, and her latest pickup goes bad in a big way.

Verdict: Basically, thumbs up. Plot is pretty good, dialogue is good, mysterious goings-on are good. The thing is, I don’t like the idea of Shulkie as a bounty hunter. Bounty hunters are stupid. But could David have written her as a lawyer? Maybe not — no rap on his skillz, but it ain’t easy to write about legal issues if you don’t have the background. Still, Peter David is a good writer, and he deserves enough of a chance to win me over.

Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters #2

What if Lindsay Lohan had superpowers? Sure, she’d fight crime, but she’d also be passed out drunk everywhere, going into fake rehab, screaming at the press, showing up blitzed at super-battles. Well, that’s what Phantom Lady does in this comic.

Verdict: Thumbs down. We get more than enough shallow celebrity-obsessed fake news as it is without it showing up in comics. This one just bored and depressed me.