By: Kieron Gillen (writer), Terry Dodson (pencils), Rachel Dodson (inks), Justin Ponsor (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)
The Story: The conclusion of the deposed Powerlord Kruun’s attempt to get revenge against the X-Men.
What’s Good: This was a fun and quickly paced issue. As I’ll get into below, I think it had some flaws in execution, but the flow of the issue was pretty strong.
The high point is that we have Kitty back. Yea! She’s such an important part of the X-Men and family of comic X-titles really suffered for her absence (first while she was in the space bullet and then when she came back but was stuck being insubstantial). It’s also nice to see that she and Peter maybe have a chance to be together now. If you’re remember, one of the cruel twists of the Whedon Astonishing X-Men run was that just as Peter returned from the dead and they began their relationship, Kitty got stuck in the space bullet and was gone. Of course, I’m sure they’ll be stuck on opposite sides of the upcoming Schism storyline just to show how serious the Schism situation is. [NOTE to X-writers: That would be a pretty lazy story choice unless there is a really good reason for it.]
It is also pretty cool that San Francisco is continuing to get played up as the most welcoming city in the U.S.A. I thought it made a LOT of sense when the mutants relocated to SF around issue #495 or so and it has been fun to see the mutants close relationship with the mayor. So, pretty cool that SF is going to give a home to the Breakworld aliens.
I’m a big fan of the Dodsons’ art and while this wasn’t their strongest issue (they don’t do a great Wolverine; that heavy inked line around him saps his energy), it’s still pretty hot. Most of the issue revolves around Kitty Pryde and they draw a great Kitty. I especially like all the panels where Kitty is phasing through an object. It is tricky to get the depth right in panels like this and they nail it. As we know, Uncanny is “coming to an end” in a few issues, so if this is the last issue we get from the Dodson’s, they’ll be missed and I’ll keep an eye out for what they do in the future.
What’s Not So Good: The use of and the explanation of “the Cure” in this story arc is a little annoying. As Kruun has gone around the last few issues and injected various mutants with the Cure, the “Oh no! Now they’ll have no powers!” angle has lurked in the background. But, us cynical readers just knew this was false because there was no way that so many X-Men would be depowered in a random story arc in Uncanny that has received NO marketing hype. Maybe one could be depowered, but not lots of them. So, then to have a kinda deus ex explanation of the Cure only being a weakened, temporary form was kinda weak. So, everything is back where it started, huh?
I also got really lost during the whole reincarnation bit of this issue. I could kinda get and understand that some characters were sacrificing their life-force to bring others back, but I didn’t really understand it very well and wasn’t interested enough in the concept to try to figure it out.
It also would have been nice to see the Magneto story arc circle back. One of the story elements in this arc (and Whedon’s work) was the odd nature of the Breakworld metal. We’ve seen Magneto having intense interest in this metal and The Cure shouldn’t have done anything to him because I don’t think he’s really a mutant anymore (he got his powers back via the High Evolutionary). I just thought there was an opportunity for a story beat where Magneto swoops in to save the day and does something cool with the weird metal. Oh well….
Conclusion: I’m glad to have Kitty back, but this wasn’t the strongest ending to a story arc that began so powerfully. Not bad, but not great either.
Grade: C
-Dean Stell
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