Weekly Comic Book Review

By: Kieron Gillen, (writer); Greg Land (penciler); Jay Leisten (inker); Justin Ponsor, Laura Martin and Guru eFX (colors)

The Story: The Montana State Tourism Board gets a new attraction to boast about.

The Review: Oddly, in the wake of the Schism, Uncanny X-Men has become what you might call the traditional X-Men Book, while Wolverine and the X-Men has been the one breaking new ground. I expected the reverse, because while Cyclops is trying to preserve the remains of mutantkind from an island of San Francisco, Wolverine is re-opening the very school where the X-Men began. But author Jason Aaron has made Logan’s book completely fresh by putting the emphasis on the running of an actual school; under Xavier, the school always was more of a headquarters than a learning center. Meanwhile, Kieron Gillen has used Uncanny to tell science-fiction stories about a group of super-powered individuals fighting monsters and supervillains in a world that fears and hates them, all in the hopes that their benevolence will garner goodwill. You know, the standard X-Men storyline. So when Uncanny X-Men is successful, the success is derived not from innovation, but rather from the excellence of the execution. Sadly, the execution of Uncanny X-Men #5 is uneven, and as such just doesn’t get as interesting as it should.

This series opens with our heroes preparing to investigate a town in Montana that has mysteriously turned into a completely alien landscape. Readers of Uncanny X-Force will remember this as Tabula Rasa, a small town Montana Archangel destroyed and then accelerated in time so that a hundred million years worth of evolution could pass within it in a matter of minutes. And here I have to applaud Gillen’s ability to smoothly integrate continuity. Sure, this helps tidy up some dangling plot threads from another title, but it’s a completely natural fit for his work. He manages to use another author’s ideas in a way that actually enriches them while still providing a solid, self-contained story.

Still, when you boil it down, the setup is simple. Some locals, curious that a neighboring town has become Pandora, have gone in looking for survivors and now need rescuing themselves. It basically provides a backdrop for X-Men to fight bat-bees, appreciate butterfly-roses, and be revered as Gods by the new natives. It’s all fun stuff, but watching the X-Men interact with this environment is the real delight. Gillen has a fantastic handle on the characters. Each one has at least a moment to shine, though Magneto’s moments are my favorite. During an exchange with Psylocke where she calls the master of magnetism a monster, he dismisses her thusly, “Please, Betsy. You’re on a secret assassination squad. You’ve long lost the right to judge me.” +1 Zing!

The art, unfortunately, does not do this issue justice. Specifically, the creativity is underwhelming. If it weren’t for the trippy colors from Justin Ponsor (assisted here by Laura Martin and Guru eFX), I would have a hard time believing that the plant life wasn’t straight out of the Everglades. This is a place where life has evolved completely separately from everywhere else on Earth! What’s with all the palms? Tropical does not equal otherworldly. Characters’ faces have no subtly whatsoever, leaving us with “serious”, “yelling”, and “big smile!” as the only models available. I mostly blame penciler Greg Land for these shortcomings, but Jay Leisten on inks isn’t faultless. He does good work with the foreground, but tends to get lazy with the background. This means many panels appear to have a lot of flat backdrops behind well-drawn (if un-emotive) characters. It’s not distracting, but it sure is disappointing.

Conclusion: Uncanny X-Men #5 is a well-written issue, but it’s held down by unimaginative art. It’s fun, but ultimately fails to take flight.

Jumping on point?: Definitely. I’m surprised Marvel didn’t stick a “.1″ on the end of this one.

Grade: B-

-Jim Middleton

Some Musings: -Speaking of what became of Warren, Psylocke says, “He’s a blank. There’s an irony for you. This whole mess led to two Tabula Rasa.” No! That is not an irony! Gillen, you should know better than that. Also, just because you got my pedantry up, the plural is Tabulae Rasae.

-You can officially chalk Greg Land up there with all the artists who can’t draw Hope’s face so that she looks like a teenager. In fact, Land seems to be going out of his way to avoid drawing her face at all, even when she has dialogue. Why do so many artists have trouble with this? Also, is Hope flirting with Namor, or just getting a kick out of his narcissism?

Filed under: Marvel Comics, Reviews Tagged: | Archange, Charles Xavier, Greg Land, Guru eFX, Hope Summers, Jason Aaron, Jay Leisten, Justin Ponsor, Kieron Gill, Laura Martin, Magneto, Montana, Namor, Psylocke, Schism, Tabula Rasa, Uncanny X-Force, Uncanny X-Men #5, Uncanny X-Men #5 review, Wolverine, X-Men