X-Factor #233 - So... ok. This was good. Mostly talky, which seems to be David's strong point, but the anti-mutant militia scenes were good too. I didn't love the art; the splash with Polaris in the middle of the book looked especially weird somehow. But overall, i'm liking this a lot better now that we're out of the alternate dimensions (for now).

New Mutants #39 - Being much less reserved here: this was great. I love the art, especially Warlock. I love an issue written from Warlock's perspective; it may have taken the idea just as far as it could possibly go (it felt a little thin at times) but it was a nice one-issue thing. The weird swampy Ani-mator and the gross-out body merging makes for a
different sort of plot as well, but it's really the character interactions (and the continuity mining!) that make this book great.

Thunderbolts #171 - It's odd how both here with Songbird and in X-Factor with Siren I learned that both "sonic scream" characters also apparently have the ability to cast Charm Person. I actually think it'd be better if they both had unique powers that didn't cross over into Venus of Agents of Atlas territory, with Siren's powers being a direct audio assault, Songbird being trippy hallucinogenic sound-to-light stuff, and Venus being the seductress. But i guess in Siren's case, at least, well, her name is Siren and it was also a way to differentiate her from her father. I dunno. Feels like a bit of power creep to me. Anyway, i guess that's not directly relevant to either issue; i'm only commenting because just learned about it. On to the issue itself. Dr. Dorcas doing mad scientist stuff is cool, and i guess it's more power creep for Songbird. I always liked the idea that she was using Klaw's technology, but it's nice to make her self-sufficient. I imagine there will be complaints that her capture situation was somewhat exploitative, but i think it was handled well and she came out of it looking strong (the mollusk-man licking her feet might have been a bit much, but it was also worthwhile from a creepy gross-out perspective). Surprised to have a Songbird solo story but it's a break from the evil Thunderbolts' Cross-Time Caper.

I agree with all of your comments except I may've enjoyed the alternate universe madrox stuff more than (especially IF it will have bearing on the 'real' world) though thought it could've of been shorter. But, I think X-factor comes out 14-16 times a year now so it gave the feeling that some time has passed with madrox 'dead'. Also, Siryn is Banshee now, too.

I agree on the power creep thing too. (I hadn't heard that expression before). I feel they should be trying to make characters unique rather than archetypes from a role playing game.