Comic book reviews with Ben Raza: A new X-mission after the X-split, while Spiderman teams with the Red Hulk

You know how it is - if you read comics you’re bound to have your favourite characters. Writers must be the same, so how do you get the balance right?

Which leads us to the latest UNCANNY X-MEN. Anyone who is more familiar with the films than they are with the comics will know that Cyclops is the X-Men leader, Wolverine is the most popular with the fans, and the two of them don’t get along too well.

Which has seen the pair of them split into two competing X-Men teams.

Uncanny X-Men centres on Cyclops’ team. He has a plan. It’s a bad plan, which it’s easy to see how it might go wrong.

Long-time villain Mister Sinister has his own plan though. And this one seems to be quite well thought-out.

Cyclops’ team is designed for combat - so this issue sees the big guns getting into the field and fighting killer robots.

Casual fans may be surprised by a few elements. Magneto (aka Ian McKellen or Michael Fassbender, depending on what film you last saw) is now a good guy. And Colossus now has a demonic entity that gives him even more power, at the expense of making him a mite unpredictable.

The interplay between characters is nice, and splitting the X-Men means you’ve got less problems of everyone fighting for screen time.

All told, it’s an interesting idea that will take a while to play out, so get the first edition or expect to be truly lost in a month or two.

Meanwhile there’s an all-new Spiderman title - THE AVENGING SPIDERMAN - which opens with a superhero team-up.

There’s a new Incredible Hulk on the scene (don’t ask), who is reluctantly teamed with the titular hero.

This has everything you’d expect from a Spidey book - the hero is full of jokes, newspaper boss J Jonah Jameson is still an idiot, and there’s a giant underground monster.

Okay, so the underground monster is new - but who wants a new series with the same old villains? It’s not quite an instant classic but still good fun.

All comics supplied by Close Encounters in Midland Road. For more information visit www.closeencounters.co.uk