INCORRUPTIBLE #1 – BOOM! Studios is still one of the most underrated companies out there and is quickly gobbling up both licenses and market share. Add Maid Waid as both writer/creator and editor-in-chief and you’ve got a great product. Spinning out of the Irredeemable series, in which The Plutonian (a Superman-like hero) goes off the deep end and begins to commit mass genocide and other assorted crimes; Incorruptible focuses on the only being to ever trade blows with The Plutonian and live. Missing for weeks Max Damage reappears as the remnants of his gang are on the way to pull a heist without him and using weapons they shouldn’t. Stopped on a bridge by cops, his gang begins to fight back and is surprised when Max shows up and starts to help the cops. After helping the cops arrest his gang, Max kidnaps the police lieutenant and takes him to his hideout. Burning all of the money in his vault, as well as the rest of the hideout, Max tells the lieutenant that he needs help going straight. When asked if he found Jesus, Max replies, “No, but I saw the face of God…” as he flashes back to hiding from an insane Plutonian. Mark Waid’s little universe that’s he’s been quietly creating at BOOM! is never dull and has the perfect mix of heroes we can strive to be and heroes that have real issues and frailties. The best line in this issue is when Max tells the lieutenant, “We were all playing a game until the Plutonian went and turned the board upside down.” Some production studio out there needs to grab both of these properties to either develop for a movie franchise or better yet, a TV series. If you are looking to try some new, be sure to pick up Incorruptible.
Undercover Fanboy Rating: 
Astonishing X-Men #33 – Now this is scary… Warren Ellis is telling a better X-Men story than what’s happening in X-Force and X-Men Legacy. Not to say that Ellis is a bad writer by any means, just that most superstar writers with a Vertigo pedigree aren’t very well suited for mainstream superhero titles. Like Grant Morrison. Great writer, just not on mainstream hero titles (see New X-Men issues #114-154). Last issue had Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Emma Frost, Beast, Armor and S.W.O.R.D. Director Abigail Brand fighting off cloned Broodlings and Bio-Sentinels housed within dead mutants. This issue picks up with Brand telling the X-Men that someone has hacked both their and S.W.O.R.D.’s computers, gaining access to literally every known way to create or destroy mutants. The coolest thing in this issue was Cyclops cutting loose on a Krakoa/Brood hybrid – cutting it in half! Half. It’s whole and then one half is just gone. I may have been a little prejudiced towards current series artist Phil Jimenez since his earlier X-Men run with Grant Morrison (yick), but seems a bit cleaner with Andy Lanning on inks and the story doesn’t suck like Morrison’s run. I guess that’s making a difference to me. Ellis only has three issues under his belt and has already grabbed up some previous loose ends for his own uses and created an unknown villain/group that wants mutants and specifically the X-Men dead. I honestly haven’t enjoyed an entire issue of X-Men like this since the Chris Claremont run. I mean, I’ve enjoyed how awesome that Matt Fraction is making Cyclops and the whole Nation X storyline; but Astonishing X-Men just “feels” like the X-Men I remember.
Undercover Fanboy Rating:
NOLA #2 - I was right. This is going to be a revenge story. Nola begins to remember her time in the hospital after the accident and realizes that there was a conspiracy to let her die so that man she was with wouldn’t be smeared in public. Left in the hospital as Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and causes some of the worst flooding in U.S. history, Nola wakes to find her hospital bed floating and the building evacuated. Not realizes that she’s been in a coma for most of the flood. She makes her way to her mother’s house to find a neighbor sitting on the roof and her mother dead due to not being able to get more pills. Picking up where we were left last issue, Nola has made her way back to the hospital after a confrontation with police guarding the bridge into downtown. She discovers who was the doctor who left her behind and where he lives. While in his office, she also notices that he is in photos with the man she was having the affair with. Confronting the doctor in his home, she shoots him in the hand to get him talking and when she’s satisfied, shoots him in the stomach. As she walks out, he tells her that he can also tell her about her real father. Bum-bum-bah… Heck, I can see where this is going from a mile away and I still want to go along for the ride. Writers Chris Gorak and Peirluigi Cothran have done a great job capturing the grief and anger felt by many of the residents left behind during Katrina and artist Damian Couceiro gives the title a very dark, “Vertigo” feel. Once again, BOOM! Studios has brought us a possible movie script that Hollywood needs to pick up.
Undercover Fanboy Rating:
Rating System: 0 to 1.5 stars = save your money unless you are just mindlessly collecting the title. 2 to 3.5 = worth a shot if you are up to trying something new or wanting to get back into a title. 4 to 5 = a must buy for any comic reader.
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