With both this and his work on Wolverine disappointing, I dont have high hopes for his upcoming other Marvel U. work (be it Hulk, Thor or whatever). He seems to work better with his own inspired books rather than this work-for-hire, well, hack work. Nothing in this book will be regarded as being one of the classic Spidey stories in years to come. Its an ephemeral entity; here today to be forgotten tomorrow. With so many other, better, books on the stands, spend your money elsewhere.

Unoriginal. Boring. Derivative. Bad. And thats just my review. Imagine how bad the issue must be.

Frankly, the anthology disappoints. Theres not enough new, quality material the watchword of A1 in its original incarnation to draw in old familiar readers. Nice set of covers, though.

My 2 bullets are for the art. After months of moaning that Deodato shouldnt be allowed to draw superheroes, just people, he gets a whole issue to strut his stuff, and does a great job. I cannot, and will not, hold him accountable for the writers action.

The art gets the points, its solid and pretty good.

This book is available now from the Diamond Previews catalogue, order via your local comics shop.

So, what #6 does act as, then, is a showcase for Ben Oliver's art - dark, moody, violent and kinetic, it's almost like his pitch piece for a Marvel MAX Wolverine series - plus there are some lovely full page pieces in here to break up the tempo a little, to show us his detailing in its full glory. His upcoming work on The Authority looks nice enough so far, but he does seem ideally suited to a dark, violent, restricted character set, anti-hero sort of tale - next artist on The Punisher, anyone?

In conclusion. the book does start slow and a little obvious, a few too many pages are spent telling us something that anyone whos read Lucifer or Sandman or any one of a dozen other comics will know as being well-worn ground, but the second half is a vast improvement, the last quarter in particular works very well with the exception of the last page! Im not a fan of recursive stories which ape their beginning at the end, its standard form for high school stories but not really work beyond that as it feels tired. However, although this is intended as a one-shot, the book does act as a great setup for a continuing series. At the end, I was left wanting to know what happened next, and thats surely a good recommendation in itself?

A promising book, hit and miss but with more hits and misses and definitely one to keep track of.

And so to the concluding strip, the last episode of the ten part Low Life: Paranoia story by Rob Williams and Henry Flint. This one has grown on me week-on-week; if Williams has a weakness as a writer its that he likes to tell long storieshis works for Rebellion almost always read better in one huge chunk than five pages every week or every month. Recommend tracking down the back issues and piecing this one together; its part-mystery, part-suspense, and it works superbly as a single story. Henry Flint was voted Best British Artist at the recent UK Comics Awards, this strip is an example why. 2000AD will be much the poorer when hes snapped up by Marvel or DC and given a high profile assignment.

Overall - a massive improvement on recent months for 2000AD, let's hope this is the start of the magazine's renaissance.

On the whole the magazine has a friendly, easy to read style, and its a pleasure to get lost in for a few hours. The future if a few bugbears are sorted is bright.

Nice touches include some off-screen violence, where the troops wonder what has happened but with a nod and a wink to the reader, we know without being told. Coupled with some good (if unsurprisingly dark after all, the story is mostly set at night, in some woods!) art by a fill-in crew, the series continues to consistently hit the high mark of quality.

The art is fantastic, and pushes this book into territory Hotzs work on The Agency and The Hood continues its development here, very nice organic feel.

Overall, a success a good issue to pick up as everything you need to know is explained, as well as the story moving on in leaps and bounds in this issue itself makes me wonder exactly how much ground was covered in #1 and #2!

Order it via his website - paypal should be accepted by now for US sales - and be in on the ground floor.

For the rest of you, theres this book. Its not perfect by any means you dont seriously expect the lead character to actually get killed, and hence loses a little bit of tension. But, Brent Anderson is once again on top of his form, Kurt Busiek writes deftly and with humour and when its over, you dont want it to be over.

My one concern with this book is that maybe the cover gives a little too much away - maybe another concern is the story is left open for Cla$$war II, we need to see that series, which will depend upon sales of this issue and the inevitable trade. So, it's down to you. Get it ordered.

Strangehaven is possibly the most undisposable, indispensible modern day comic you can buy, and with the ending of Cerebus is my current #1. Order it, buy it, read it, love it then pick up the trades and write Gary a letter.

The real problem with Strangehaven is that after one finishes an issue - one just wants more. A Misery-type scenario of kidnapping Gary Spencer Millidge and forcing him to write and draw the next six issues grows more and more attractive each year...I'll start work on the shack in the woods, but until it's complete, do yourself a favour and either pick up the first couple of trades and the issues following the second trade (13 to 17 available from the website) or just give this one a go as a sampler.

Excellent work by all concerned this is Warren Elliss best work of his career. Unmissable.