A weekly review of comic books with a focus on the X-Men family of titles, written by Paul O'Brien. His reviews show an occasionally wicked sense of humor as well as an awareness of Marvel continuity. His capsule reviews of other comics cover other genres, so there's something for non-X-fans as well. His archived reviews at http://www.esoterica.demon.co.uk go back to April 4, 1999.
Also, if you're curious about what's been happening in the comics while you've been away, O'Brien has brief, well written indexes (indices?) of past issues as well.