While jrpbsp enjoys his honeymoon, this bitter divorcee will pick up the slack on the Wolverine appearances of the week…

We start first with Astonishing X-Men #32, a not-quite epic issue by Warren Ellis and Phil Jimenez.

Astonishing X-Men #32 (preview)
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Phil Jimenez

While the return of the Brood and the next generation of Sentinels make for a refreshing story, Jimenez’s art doesn’t give the book the astonishing feel that John Cassaday and Simone Bianchi gave before him.

And the reveal of the issue seems to be exploring the same ground that ‘X-Force’ has been plowing since its inception.

That said, the Wolverine vs. Brood sequence is a nice homage to Wolverine’s first encounter with this species back in 1982.

X-Men vs. Agents of Atlas #2 (preview)
Writer: Jeff Parker
Pencils: Carlo Pagulayan, Gabriel Hardman, Chris Samnee & Carlos Rodriguez
Inks: Jason Paz, Gabriel Hardman, Chris Samnee & Terry Pallot

I can’t say that I’m really a fan of Agents of Atlas, and this crossover is rather standard team-up fare. Two teams get into a battle over a misunderstanding and compiling assumptions, only to have said misunderstanding resolved by the end of the crossover. So from my perspective, its another meaningless story that adds nothing to the week in comics.

Other than that, big thumbs up!

Psylocke #1 (preview)
Writer: Chris Yost
Penciler: Harvey Tolibao
Inker: Paul Neary

A nice attempt to clean up the continuity and array of bodies that Psylocke has been using of late. Wolverine is along for the ride… quite literally.

Black Widow: Deadly  Origin #1 (preview)
Writer: Paul Cornell
Penciler: Tom Raney
Inker: Scott Hanna

I really enjoyed this romp through Black Widow’s past, though as has been par for Marvel continuity of late, these Logan flashbacks are at odds with the history as revealed within ‘Wolverine: Origins’.

Is it just me or does Daniel Way’s look into Wolverine’s past get very little respect within other Marvel titles?

Shifting gears, I’ve been taking a hard look at my Wolverine collection recently and have come to the conclusion that for me to enjoy Wolverine like I used to, I need to separate the wheat from the chaff. And the first part of my collection to make it to chaff-dom is alternate realities.  So of course, two titles came out this week indulging on that very premise: ‘House of M: Masters of Evil’ #4 and ‘Marvel Zombies: Evil Evolution’.

The former wraps up the miniseries so hopefully no more needs to be said about that. The latter is a painful amalgam of Marvel Zombies who have jumped the shark and Marvel Apes that began their existence, to continue the ‘Happy Days’ analogy, as ‘Joanie Loves Chachi’.

To quote Stan Lee, “‘Nuff said.”