It's an odd week for new comic releases, with less new projects coming out than recent weeks, but the few that are coming out are all well worth your attention. Who, for example, could turn up the chance to relive their childhood with Power Pack Classic collecting the first issues of Marvel's 1980s pre-teen superteam? Or, for that matter, Batman: The Black Casebook, a collection of some of the out-there 1950s stories referenced by Grant Morrison during Batman RIP? Only those who hate fun, that's who.

If superhero single issues are your thing, Marvel's releasing a new mini-series about Spider-Man's newest bad guy, Dark Reign: Mister Negative, as well as the first (of two) issues of Ultimate Spider-Man: Requiem, hopefully answering the question of whether or not Peter is dead (My money's pretty firmly on "No," but you never can tell with Brian Bendis...). There's also X-Men Origins: Gambit, for those who've fallen for Remy LeBeau following his appearance in the Wolverine movie. Plus the X-Infernus collection for those who fell for the New Mutants back in the 1980s like I did (I can't resist...!).

DC also has the first issue of Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen's Batman: Streets of Gotham for people who still need convincing that Dick Grayson really is Batman these days.

Single issue of the week, though, is easily Project Superpowers: Chapter Two #0, introducing the second series of one of the most bizarre superhero franchises around, complete with Alex Ross art, for just a dollar.

For those with more money to spare, however, there's a trilogy of books vying for your attention: Brian Fies' Whatever Happened To The World Of Tomorrow uses futurism and comic books to explore a character's relationship with his father to stunning effect, while James Stokoe's Wonton Soup Vol. 2 goes entirely in the other direction, making pop art out of space truckers and cookery.

If neither of those catch your eye, the first year of Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips' superhero spy book Sleeper gets reissued tomorrow, and if you missed it the first time around, it's definitely time to fix that.

All of this week's new releases - including the already-released-in-some-stores Captain America #600 - are listed on this week's Diamond Distribution Shipping List, which is just the thing to check before heading to your local comic store to find your four color fantasies. Just remember that three of those four colors are red, white and blue. The potentially undead Steve Rogers would want it that way.

In the original Inferno, the minions of Belasco unleashed a demonic invasion of Earth, beginning with Manhattan. Worlds lived, worlds died, and a mailbox ate a guy. But even more importantly, two long-running X-Men storylines finally concluded, as Jean-Grey look-a-like Madeline Pryor was revealed to be not just a clone of Jean Grey, but also a little bit of a hoochie mama, and Magik, sister to Colossus, finally expunged herself of the corrosive Soul Sword and the destructive Darkchylde persona.

Now, twenty years later, comes a sequel crafted by writer C.B. Cebulski (who helped keep Marvel's Ultimate Alliance videogame so on point with the comics' continuity) and edited by Nick Lowe (who did not, alas, produce most of Elvis Costello's best albums). X Infernus, a storyline which will bring Magik back into the lives of everyone's favorite mutants, had originally been conceived by Cebulski as an annual but as Cebulski told the audience at the panel, "Marvel said, this is too big for just an Annual, let's make it a big event."

Cebulski also credited Craig Kyle and Chris Yost over on X-Force. "Craig and Chris were kind enough to queue up the return of Magik in their book, and it set everything up nicely." Although an artist for the event was not announced on the panel — "we're almost ready to announce the artist, but not quite," said Lowe — fan favorite David Finch will be doing the covers.

The first issue of X-Infernus is scheduled for December 2009. Although it wasn't revealed whether, at crossover's end, Marvel audiences would be able to climb the frost-bitten beard of Chris Claremont and ascend to X Purgatorio (and then work off their sins by reading Warren Ellis' run on Astonishing X-Men), the news was nevertheless well-received by the crowd, particularly by fans of attractive Russian sword-wielding magic-users.