(Side note, has anyone noticed Jim Cheung does the John Byrne thing where male and female characters essentially have the same face? And somehow, it still works?)

The quasi-reboot of Legion of Super-Heroes was solid. It respects the Waid/Kitson re-imagining while bringing the book back to its roots (Karate Kid is sporting the Giant Yellow Collar again, for one thing). I also don't expect the character who "died" to stay dead for long.

Messiah Complex is still just treading water for me. People complain about nothing happening in Countdown? This supposedly earth-shattering x-over has done little except chase Cable around for nine issues. A situation which is only compelling *if we know why Cable's running* ... otherwise, WTF's the point?

That sounds so, so fucking bad, it almost beggars belief.

Greg: My overall sense is that your weekly comic book buying has doubled since you started asking for reader suggestions. I'm not going to go back and actually check, but I remember thinking, when you started this whole thing: "Greg buys way less comics than I do," and now I think "Greg buys almost as many comics as I do." I know you don't buy everything you write about here, but has your weekly purchase amount increased substantially, or what?

-R

My recollection from the cartoon was that the "M" stood for "Mutant". But I can't remember whether he got it when he was put into a camp, or when he joined whatever the future rebel/resistance version of the "X-Men" was.

Bishop's current statu quo is that he's very chummy with the O*N*E (the agency responsible for the Sentinels "protecting" the X-Mansion), as shown again in Claremont's post-Decimation Uncanny, X-Men: the 198, and Civil War: X-Men.

I, for one, see no problem with his current characterization. He was originally introduced as an X-Treme "shoot first, ask questions later" cop from the future, so his association with the O*N*E made sense.
Moreover, this is a character who has been directionless for more than a decade. So setting him up as Cable's antagonist is a good decision which fits nicely : he's someone from a different alternate future whose agenda conflicts with Cable. I'm surprised that the two of them have barely interacted in the past, since there is certainly a lot of potential in here.

That's one of the things that kind of bothered me when I returned to reading comics after 15 years away: inkers really have no personality anymore. I don't know if it's the printing process, or the fancy colouring these days, but when I was a kid, you could tell something that was inked by Tom Palmer, or Joe Rubenstein, or Kyle Baker, or Joe Sinott, or Klaus Janson, or Sal Buscema, or Bob Wiack, or Dan Green, or P. Craig Russell, or Vince Colletta, etc. Now it's straight, non-descript line work. It wasn't until the Lee Weeks DD fill-in, inked by Gaudiano, that I realised somebody was actually allowed to exhibit an actual style with their inks.

I will NOT be surprised if that's a Skrull right there!

And, to add to Kody's point the Christmas Special is a full-to-bursting 56 pages for 4.99, four whole pages over the solicited length.

We want to make sure those five bucks get you more than your moneys worth.

But FYI, the first issue is a 48 pages of pure content, not 22 like a regular comic, and there are no ads.

Bishop is a skrull.

There's no other explaination. It would work with his recent very out of character attitude as of recently. After seeing how he was written in Civil War and the X Men Civil War tie-in this would make sense. He was pro-registration...something that the government did to all mutants from his time. It didnt make sense that he would be for it.

Plus, I don't remember if it was in a book or from the X Men cartoon, but I somehow remember learning what that tattoo means on Bishops eye and how he got it. I don't think it had anything to do with prison camps though.

Also, I hit up that Goodbrey link. The man's a genius. Awesome!