By: Kieron Gillen (writer), Greg Land (pencils), Jay Leisten (inks), Justin Ponsor (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)
The Story: The end is here! Uncanny X-Men ends its long run of continuous, mostly monthly publication since Giant Size X-Men #1. Of course, this is just before there is a new #1 next month, but I digress. Things end with the team splitting up and a familiar old villain rearing his head.
Five Things:
1. It’s kinda sad to see this end. I’ve just ignored all the hoopla over other long running titles getting renumbered recently, but this series was the one I really loved since I was a kid. So, it is sad to know we’ll have a new #1 issue next month. There’s a lot of history and tradition in the preceding 543 issues and most of it was pretty good. But, I guess the real reason it makes me sad is that renumbering is the publisher’s way of telling you “it isn’t working and we don’t know what else to do to increase readership other than renumbering.” Hopefully it’ll work out for Marvel.
2. Mr. Sinister is going to feature prominently as a villain. This really isn’t a good thing. There is a generation of fans who grew up with Sinister, but he’s a tedious villain. Creating a new villain for each arc would be much preferable. Old villains are boring because we kinda know what to expect AND we know that they’re as safe from permanent death as the heroes.
3. Gillen writes really well. Gillen does write really well and that goes a long way to making a comic enjoyable to read. There are some writers out there who have decent ideas, but just don’t string words together all that well. Or they can only write in “witty banter mode”. Gillen can actually crank up a word balloon that is longer than a sentence fragment and not have today’s impatient comic reader getting itchy. This is a really useful skill because sometimes you can’t tell the whole story with 5 word sentences OR there might be an artist on the book with significant limitations.
4. Greg Land… Ugh! What a fricking shame that a title like Uncanny X-Men (that has been graced with art from guys like Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, John Romita, Jr., Jim Lee and Joe Mad) has a guy like Greg Land turning off the lights for the final time! This is even a pretty good issue for Land mostly because it doesn’t feature many scenes with women, so we can’t notice how their faces all look the same and how there are only 3 basic expressions that have to work for all circumstances. Maybe Gillen is learning how to work around Land’s shortcomings? So, in a male dominated issue we now notice that Iceman and Cyclops have the same face and smile and that Mr. Sinister looks basically like Land’s Wolverine, Sebastian Shaw and Scalphunter. Land is much better if all the characters are wearing masks.
5. More of a lead-in than an ending. This was probably the biggest disappointment. This issue really feels like a lead-in to the new #1 issue rather than a proper send off for a series that has sold a TON of issues for Marvel. The closest we get to a send off is a double-pager featuring a lot of scenes from the past that is ruined because it has Dark Phoenix front as center and you can’t help but notice that she looks exactly like Emma Frost or Psylocke or Dazzler or …
Conclusion: This series deserved a better send off. It’s really frustrating to have to complain about Land’s art month-after-month, but when that is the chief problem with the book month-after-month, that’s what a reviewer does. The good writing can’t save a pedestrian concept and the art is really problematic (again).
Grade: D
-Dean Stell
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Conclusion