Pete Wisdom heads up MI: 13, the British agency devoted to defending the realm from that OTHER realm. This bizarre mix leads to some incredibly inventive and hilariously inappropriate scenes that nonetheless work, such as when Pete & co. use a summoning circle to transport themselves to Faerie - inside an army helicopter.

I've enjoyed Cornell's Doctor Who episodes, so I'm ecstatic that his comics work is just as well-written. Over the course of the story, misfortunes develop that are inevitable without seeming overwrought, and his approach towards writing an established Marvel character like Wisdom is satisfying to first-time readers as well as the hardcore X-Men fanatics. (What he mumbled in his sleep fits well for the story as given, but for those readers in the know adds a very different shade.)

And the H.G. Wells tie-in was superbly fun.

Highly recommended!

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One of the major oversights in my library is that it doesn't have more Paul Cornell. I mean, I've loved every Doctor Who book, episode, and audio drama this man has written, from Love and War to Circular Time, from Human Nature, to, well, "Human Nature". So when I heard Cornell was doing a Marvel comic, I was there, despite having no idea who on Earth Pete Wisdom was. I ended up enjoying the book immensely-- Wisdom is a mutant who leads MI-13, a team of superpowered folks who defend Great Britain from weird happenings. And I mean weird happenings-- an assault helicopter in Fairyland, a village that is waking up, the Welsh mafia, and as for what this story does with Jack the Ripper... As usual, Cornell's story is as much about history and Britain as it is about the characters, and it tackles all of them excellently. Full of sex, swearing, and violence, this is what Torchwood should have been if it had wanted to be "adult". I look forward to reading Cornell's run on Excalibur. Oh, and: John Lennon the Skrull. John Lennon the Skrull. (originally written January 2008)