Written by Kieron Gillen
Illustrated Carlos Pacheco
This November, history is made with Uncanny X-Men #1! From the superstar creative team of Kieron Gillen and Carlos Pacheco, Cyclops and those who have stayed with him on Utopia rise from the rubble of X-Men: Schism renewed & refocused. Cyclops has created the most powerful X-Men team ever gathered and called them the X-Tinction Team. Except when Mr. Sinister makes his diabolical return, is this new team up to stopping Sinister’s current style of extinction? Find out as a bold new era of mutantkind begins in Uncanny X-Men #1!
If you told me a year ago that I would be owning and writing a review for Uncanny X-Men #1, I would have called you a dirty, DIRTY liar and insulted your mother. However, this ended up playing out, just not quite in the way many imagined it would six months ago. Yet, here we are, on the precipice of a brand new era for Marvel’s flagship mutant book. I already compared it to the original 1963 X-Men debut yesterday, so how does is stand on its own?
Click on down to find out in this (mostly) Spoiler Free review!
Kieron Gillen’s run on Uncanny has thus far been one of the most fresh seen in quite some time. However, since he took over the book from Matt Fraction, he has been preoccupied mostly with expanding someone else’s stories (Joss Whedon/Matt Fraction) rather than start building his own. With this issue, I can honestly say he’s begun pulling elements from what he’s established in between the lines of his Breakworld arc and Fear Itself tie-in to start building an epic that uniquely his.
And it certainly is starting off with a bang. In this issue alone he’s pioneered mutant kind firing a warning shot off of humanity’s port bow, destroyed a billion year-old space God, literally upped the magnitude of a certain classic X-Threat and proved once and for all Dr. Nemesis’ thoughts on This is Spinal Tap. If this is how he STARTS an X-Men arc, we’re all in for endless treats moving forward.
However, it ultimately isn’t the big explosion-y moments that really make this book a winner. Rather, it is the more subtle character interactions that Kieron has proven himself so delightfully good at writing that really propels this narrative. It’s clear that despite his bravado, Cyclops is deeply scarred as a result of Schism and it is clear that his actions moving into this era are just as influenced by the events of that mini as they were beforehand. Sure some of the most powerful beings on the planet still stand by his side, thus validating his position somewhat. But its clear that Scott is deeply unnerved by the fact that some of his closest friends have abandoned him, and that appears to be a theme Gillen will be giving a lot of thought to. In a lot of ways, Emma is his one-woman support team and after certain events pertaining to her in this issue, one wonders how supportive she’ll end up being.
Cyclops is not the only flawed character on the stage here either, as the Juggerlossus plot line from the prior volume of the book is still alive and well and only looks to be picking up steam as one of the most gentle of gentle giants in the history of comics is taken over more and more by one of the most destructive demons this side of Mephisto. On top of this, you’ve got the likes of Magneto, Danger and Namor on this team, which stands to confirm that despite the fancy facilities and marketing schemes and street teams, this side of the X-Verse is still very much flawed.
On the art side, I am personally unclear on just how much time Carlos Pacheco will be spending on this book (rumor has it that long-running and notably controversial pencil pusher Greg Land will be returning to the book at some point), but if there is any justice in this world his run will be a long and storied one. While Pacheco is known for making pretty much any set of characters gorgeous, I feel his X-Men work is a cut above the rest. His style manages to skirt the line between hyper-realism and traditional comic style in such a way that it fits the nature of the book perfectly. Art that combines real world proportions and aesthetics with traditional super heroing seems like a perfect fit for a story based very much in modern day political drama featuring exploding robots and demons. The connections are apparent, and are presented here to maximum affect.
Ultimately though, the book’s greatest success is how neatly and succinctly it defines itself apart from the myriad of X-Books that are part of this relaunch. It’s obvious Marvel spent time making sure that at least the Cyclops and Wolverine sides of this coin exist distinctly apart from each other, and this issue confirms how well this was accomplished. This book has a very different voice and very different motivation than it’s hairier companion, Wolverine and the X-Men, and both combine to create an immensely well-crafted and compelling tapestry of mutant goodness.
Final Verdict: 9.5 — Buy
