The Good

Ever since Battle of the Atom redrew the rosters of the X-titles, it’s been all about character development on Uncanny X-Men, and I say keep it comin’. I mentioned before but this title was in real danger of being one of the least defined in the lineup since it has the most new characters combined with the fact that it was still fairly new when Battle occured, but these last two issues have been amazing at getting to know both the newbies and the...oldbies. Yeah, oldbies. That’s the ticket...Brian Bendis focuses on the old guard this issue, revealing to us the conversation that took place when Kitty Pryde first arrived (and that conversation becomes very heated very quickly with an absolutely amazing moment) as well as Modern Scott interacting with Young Jean, another scene that packs some serious emotional punch. We also get to delight in some very funny interactions of the students adapting to their new home and, as always, it’s a witty good time. Of especial note is Emma Frost accusing Kitty and Magik of somehow engineering Jean’s return just to get back at her for some slight she can’t even remember the time nor place of. It’s a really funny scene with a really funny stinger at the end of it.

Marco Rudy handles linework on the title fresh off his work on Marvel Knights: Spider-Man and WOW! I remember him coming up before (most notably, for me, in the pages of Swamp Thing), but I always forget just how crazy-detailed his layouts are. It’s like J.H. Williams III and Lee Bermejo combined their styles and out sprang Rudy. The book has bizarre panel layouts that make it amazing to read, in spite of a complete lack of any real action and that seems intentional. If you’re going to make an issue that’s THIS dialog heavy, you’d better have Bendis teamed up with a visually interesting artist. We’ve also got Val Staples on colors and it’s a good thing because with VISUALS like these, you NEED a versatile colorist (this is becoming the weirdest version of “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie…” ever). Staples’ colors are understated and even naturalistic, but certain panels are supersaturated with, making them somehow both grounded and unreal. The mood is perfectly achieved in every instance of it.

The Bad

As stellar as the art is, there are occasional faces that just look...off. Sometimes they’re overly lined, sometimes the skull structure has altered, and sometimes they just look plain “not right.”

The Verdict

What a great, beautiful, tragic entry into this series. I’m always happy when a book can effectively build character, and this was an important one to build as Cyclops is still fairly new to his role both as leader and as professor, and it’s good to see that he’s still paying his penance, internally at the very least, but that he won’t let anyone else drag themselves down to his level. People had concerns over Scott’s new outlook, but he’s still the same person he always was, just a better version of that person.

A filler issue gets 5 stars? And Bendis is writing Emma so out of character. It's unbelievable.

How is ANXM so much better than Uncanny? I don't get it.

I did not like the art in this one, and I feel like every other issue of this book has been a filler issue. Really teetering on the edge of my pull list these days.

That rare moment when I fully agree with Corey.

I was blown away by the art in particular.

My only gripe with this issue was Emma that was.......not really her at all.

Uncanny has been my favorite X book for a while now. Yep the art looks amazing.

I liked this issue but I can't imagine Kitty could really co-sign on any of Scott's bull. I'm sick of his character getting away with everything. Even if you take the death of Charles Xavier out of the equation, he still protected the Phoenix Force by betraying allies (the Avengers) and launching a crusade that could've cost the lives of many heroes. He's such a tacticionist, he never shuts up about it, yet his "master plan" every time is just to go ape-s##t on the enemy. Anyone remember how well that worked out during HoM? His mismanagement and arrogance has had colossal ramifications even without the influence of dark cosmic powers. So to hear him rationalize to Kitty and have Kitty remotely accept it is kind of a hard pill to swallow.

Scott would be a much better character if he were just the new Magneto and OWNED it. He basically already is, hearing him turn to sentimental mush in front of Kitty was just more woe-is-me crap. All the events leading up to his possession by the Phoenix force were set into place because of HIM and he had many, many chances to go back on it while he was beating up Avengers, you know, his friends.

@hexthis: Spoken like a true Avengers and Wolverine fan.

Good issue, but I wasn't a big fan of the art. Felt really jarring to me...

Sums it up perfectly. The art was not my cup of tea and maybe it threw me off from enjoying the story, but it all felt a bit flat. I greatly enjoyed the panel layouts so that is a plus.

This art was garbage and this issue was garbage. Massive misstep in a usually good-great book.

As much as I'm loving this "Getting to Know the Characters" filler issues (and I really am), I'm very much looking forward to getting an actual story arc and finding out who that bubble-head guy is.

Can we talk about how Whedon's Astonishing X-Men apparently only happened within the last year in the timeline? It's an offhand remark but if it's accurate then I don't know how to interpret timelines in comics anymore, because that's insane

@cobra88king8: What? No, that's physically impossible. Where does she say that?

@raggedscarecrow: here.

@cobra88king8:

Well when the X-men were celebrating 35 years only 9 years had past in the Marvel Universe. Comic time moves very slowly

Sweet.

@hexthis: Someone still can't accept that Cyclops was right all along. And if you knew anything about Cyclops you would know that everyone in AoX was out of character.

I enjoyed the conversations, and I appreciated the experimental approach to the art, but the problem was that the experiments weren't visually resolved. They were more like plans for what to do, not the actual finished product. And I don't mean because they looked sketchy. Sketchy is fine if done right. They just weren't "there" yet.

@cobra88king8 said:

@raggedscarecrow: here.

Kitty went missing in space in Whedon's run, but she was away for a while and it was only relatively recently that she returned (in comic time anyways - during the end of Fraction's run I think, just before Fear Itself). So I'm thinking that it's more of a 'just last year you were still in space' kind of statement rather than a 'you first went into space last year' one. Does still mean that a ton of stuff has still happened in a year / year and a half time frame - Fear Itself, Schism, AvX, Infinity, etc.

@daycrawler said:

@cobra88king8 said:

@raggedscarecrow: here.

Kitty went missing in space in Whedon's run, but she was away for a while and it was only relatively recently that she returned (in comic time anyways - during the end of Fraction's run I think, just before Fear Itself). So I'm thinking that it's more of a 'just last year you were still in space' kind of statement rather than a 'you first went into space last year' one. Does still mean that a ton of stuff has still happened in a year / year and a half time frame - Fear Itself, Schism, AvX, Infinity, etc.

That makes the most sense, given the circumstances. But still, if Fear Itself, Schism, AvX, Infinity, and Battle of the Atom all happened within a year/year-and-a-half period how is the world still standing?

@raggedscarecrow said:

@daycrawler said:

@cobra88king8 said:

@raggedscarecrow: here.

Kitty went missing in space in Whedon's run, but she was away for a while and it was only relatively recently that she returned (in comic time anyways - during the end of Fraction's run I think, just before Fear Itself). So I'm thinking that it's more of a 'just last year you were still in space' kind of statement rather than a 'you first went into space last year' one. Does still mean that a ton of stuff has still happened in a year / year and a half time frame - Fear Itself, Schism, AvX, Infinity, etc.

That makes the most sense, given the circumstances. But still, if Fear Itself, Schism, AvX, Infinity, and Battle of the Atom all happened within a year/year-and-a-half period how is the world still standing?

Yeah, good point. NYC would be getting trashed every other day under this timeline. To be honest, as long as the continuity fits together (more or less) I kind of just ignore the compressed timescales. I'd fear for my sanity otherwise.

This was clumsy. That wasn't Kitty, that wasn't Frost, and Bendis has only gotten Illyana right a couple of times in this whole run. Forcing characters out of, well, character is cheap and lazy. Uncanny really seems the red headed stepchild of Bendis's current books, rushed and unloved. 3 stars.

@hexthis:

Spoken like a true Scarlet Witch fan.

The only way to deal with Marvel's shifting timeline is to pretend it's not there, and writer's make themselves look silly whenever they ignore this. A couple years ago Spider-Man referenced fighting the Juggernaut "a few months ago": he was talking about a fight printed in 1982...

I hated the art and found the story underwhelming. I feel like there are quite a few good story-lines in this book, but instead this issue is wasted on exploring how how Kitty felt about Cyclops killing the Professor. I read quite a few of the X-books and I am sick of issues exploring how people feel about this. I can't wait for the Professor to come back just so people can stop talking about him dying and giving Scott crap about it. This was a wasted issue.

@cobra88king8 said:

@raggedscarecrow: here.

Maybe the things happened in January ___3 and the present time is December ___4 so there could be 2 years gap....

Oh my god, Marco Rudy is one of the best of the best in the industry.

Horrible art!!

I really liked the rendering of the art but found the constantly red swirls and stuff to be akin to a migraine. And it was impossible to follow with guided view on digital. As for the story, yes indeed, can we move on please, we've heard all sides on the 'Scott killed Charles' bit.

Well this made me fill better. I thought i was the only one being brain hurt due to the time line probs.