I missed out on the Eagle-nominated original run of this "supersoap", so it's a great compliment to Martin Eden's storytelling that he manages both to bring the reader back up to speed and to re-establish the main (surviving) characters in just 30 pages.

Initially planned as a complementary brace of season-openers, Eden ended up conflating both ideas into a fast-forward summary of Kelly's attempts to resurrect the O Men following the cataclysmic events which closed issue #1.26 two years ago.

Eden's a stronger writer than he is an artist, but he keeps the action flowing and the pages turning, no easy task when you regularly have to cram more than a half-dozen protagonists into frame (this may account for the couple of odd tributes to Kirby's Fantastic Four heyday at the halfway point).

Comics International has apparently dubbed this relaunch "triumphant", and whilst I wouldn't go quite that far, it's certainly a refreshingly assured series and one which I full intend to keep a closer eye in the future.

A5, 33pp; £2.00 from Ominous Comics, 11a Gatesone Road, London, SE19 3AT (make cheques payable to "Martin Eden); or e-mail martrpeden[at]yahoo.co.uk.