THIS REVIEW WILL NECESSARILY CONTAIN SPOILERS FROM UNCANNY X-MEN #29
The Good
Last issue ended with the time-hopping Eva Bell in the past to try and contact Professor X and warn him that his methods for dealing with the ultra-powerful Matthew Malloy are doomed to failure. Professor X is, understandably, perturbed for any number of reasons, but this isn’t actually what the issue focuses solely on, which was my concern at last issue’s end. The time is split about evenly between Bell trying to convince Xavier and people’s reactions, in the present, to the death of Scott Summers (as well as Magik) and this is where the book truly shines. Brian Bendis manages to give things a sense of weight and consequence, even though it almost certainly won’t last, and focuses especially on the reactions of Maria Hill, and S.H.I.E.L.D. at large along with Emma Frost and it’s here that the issue shines: characterizations. As often happens with Bendis-written books, the quality sinks or swims by how well written the characters are and these are some interesting, excellent characters. Frost in particular reacts in some unexpected, but totally in-character, ways considering her rather complicated relationship with the deceased and Eva acquits herself well against Professor X, who himself is written with a bit more edge than he often portrayed. It took awhile to realize that the 90s cartoon Xavier that many grew up with as their main example of the character was not actually terribly representative of the character’s comic incarnation, as he’s always had a real darkness to him since the very first issue of X-MEN and Bendis seems to take a particular glee in bringing that out of him.
Chris Bachalo is on pencils and, as always, does some amazingly dynamic thing with a static medium. Panels hum and shift almost seemingly as the reader’s eye traces across them and the illusion of movement is powerful, making this relatively calm issue crackle with energy, though credit must also be given to the veritable legion of inkers with Tim Townsend, Mark Irwin, Jaime Mendoza, Victor Olazaba and Al Vey all getting in on the act. Though it’s never clear who does pages, or panels, are done by whom, so they’re doing something right and bringing a sense of impact and solidness to Bachalo’s wild, kinetic pencils. Bachalo also handles colors alongside Antonio Fabela and they look great. Crisp, clean and just a little bit dark but with an overall sense of bombast and fantastic energy.
The Bad
Time travel. I can’t believe it’s still time travel. The notion of splinter timelines has been entirely thrown out the window, making characters like Cable and Bishop’s presence in comics questionable at best, but soaring RIGHT past that quiet retcon is the fact that the trope’s mere presence in this story means that the stakes are automatically at their lowest point. It’s impossible to screw up whatever’s going on because there’s an infinite number of do-overs. The characters having to carry the issue is a double-edged sword because, while they pull it off, it means the plot can aspire to be little more than serviceable. Which this one is.
The Verdict
Time travel is one of the least effective tropes in fiction because it requires so much mental gymnastics, or writing stuff off as “it works because it does,” and it becomes ESPECIALLY problematic in mainstream superhero books where it’s been too often use as a magic wand to fix a seemingly unfixable situation. That this issue still holds up is a testament to how passionately the characters are written and how beautiful the visuals are. It’s unclear where this story is going, but as long as these characters (and a creative team of this quality) are leading the way, it should be worth the journey.
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