X-Men #35

X-Men #35
Writing: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Liam Sharp

What Went Down: We open on the classic Cyclops and Jean Grey make-out spread, with a feather falling in front of them for some reason. In case you didn’t know, Scott and Jean have spent the last ten years, from their perspectives, living and raising Scott’s son Nathan, who later becomes Cable, in the future in their own four issue mini-series. Now they’re back in their own time, in their own bodies, and wondering what became of Nathan.

Nick Fury is watching the two newlyweds and explains that they were discovered unconscious with no brain activity, and they have been unconscious for only two hours. Fury then explains that he needs their help with a disturbed mutant named Sunset Grace who has opened up a portal to a crazy dimension right above the beach of St. Barts. Apparently this portal could potentially swallow the entire planet. So there’s no time to get help from any other heroes, plus Grace asked specifically for Scott and Jean.

Despite the impending doom of the planet, Cyclops, Jean, and Fury take the time to hike to the SHIELD base camp. Jean gets sucked into the interdimensional fissure, so Cyclops gets all emotional and follows her. Inside the weird dimension Cyclops quickly finds Jean, who has found some missing unconscious SHIELD agents. Using their powers they send the agents back through the rift and search through the wacky dimension to find Sunset Grace.

Grace, who apparently met Charles Xavier in the past, is happy to meet two of Xavier’s students. She explains why she opened up this uncontrollable portal. When Jean and Scott’s minds were sent into the future, Grace sensed it, and it unlocked her long forgotten powers…somehow.

She then explains the origins of her powers, which she discovered when she was a teenager. As a thirteen-year-old she was able to go into her own personal dimension that she called NeverNever Land, and she could create whatever she wanted within. As she got older she married and forgot about her magic world powers. One night she was driving home with her husband and son. It was raining, they crashed, Grace flew out, and as the car was rolling off a cliff Grace accidentally used her powers to suck her family into her fantasy dimension.

She was never able to reopen it and became catatonic until Professor X helped her with his powers. Still, she was never able to reopen the portal until the day she met Scott and Jean. Jean draws a parallel between Grace losing her family and Scott and Jean having to leave Nathan in the future. Jean uses her powers to help Grace come to terms with the loss of her family, and Grace is able to use her powers to recreate her husband and son within the dimension. Cyclops and Jean are sent out of the dimension, the portal closes, and Scott and Jean ponder how Grace is now able to live in a perfect world with a family even if it isn’t necessarily real.

How It Was: This is another one-off story before the big crossover. Once again it’s low on action and kind of different from the norm. However this one also has the problem of being very dull as well. We’re dealing with a Scott and Jean story, so it is chock full of endless conversations through their psychic rapport where they tell each other how important they are to each other and encourage each other and tell each other not to despair. It really gets annoying to read after a while. Most of this issue is really just to catch up readers (like me) that didn’t bother to read The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix mini-series. I know that I’ve stated before that Cyclops is my favorite character, but stories with him and Jean Grey can sometimes border on tedium.

Also it doesn’t help that Sunset Grace isn’t very interesting as a character or a concept. As you can tell by all the exposition I had to write up in the synopsis, Grace is a very convoluted character that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. She can make a fantasy world, but the fake world might engulf the real world, but that never happened when she was younger, plus she’s sad about losing her family, and she knows Xavier. The ending in particular just comes out of nowhere and isn’t really fulfilling. Nick Fury also makes an underwhelming appearance as a story device to deliver all the exposition necessary to set up the plot of the story for the X-Men and to explain how their mini-series ties in with present continuity.

The real reason to buy this issue is the guest art by Liam Sharp, which is gorgeous. All of the backgrounds, from the beaches of St. Barts to the forest that the heroes hike through, look lush and detailed. The characters are nicely depicted and work very well. And most importantly the NeverNever Land world is the perfect mix of familiar with “that’s not quite right” to make for a very visually appealing environment. It kind of reminds me of a fantasy world from a video game like Mario or Sonic. Everything is very bright and cheerful, but definitely has a sense that it isn’t quite right either even if it sure is nice to look at. Of course Sharp also takes some liberties with Cyclops and Jean Grey’s costumes, as you can see from the cover, which don’t look quite right and never appear again. I guess that was just the best that SHIELD could supply them with at the time.

Honestly, this is a pretty boring issue. Unlike the Colossus issue, this story doesn’t really further or expand the character of Cyclops or Jean Grey in any substantial way. The conflict of the story never feels imperative, and it really just wraps itself up without any significant input from Scott or Jean. But it sure is pretty to look at.

D+

Uncanny X-Men #315

Uncanny X-Men #315
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Roger Cruz

What Went Down: We open up on an awesome, although incredibly different looking, splash of Avalon--the Acolytes’ space station base. Colossus is serving as the council for prisoner Neophyte, the Acolyte who turned on Fabian Cortez in Uncanny #300. The Acolytes want to sentence him to death for betraying them, but Colossus believes everyone should have the right to choose their destiny.

In another part of the base, Exodus is ranting to the comatose Magneto, showing that he is probably not all together there in the head. The Acolyte Scanner interrupts his rant, and Exodus threatens her for seeing the face of Magneto.

Amelia Voght is serving as the prosecutor for Neophyte’s trial. Even though she disagrees with the other Acolytes, she doesn’t trust that her decisions matter at all. Peter argues that Neophyte was really honoring Magneto in his own way, by stopping the torture of an innocent and exploring other ways of furthering mutantkind. Voght calls the boring Acolyte Milan to the stand. He uses his power to project thoughts visually (yawwnn) to show how the Acolytes first rescued Neophyte from an abandoned church before he joined the team. Some of the Acolytes start a fight when Xavier is mentioned, and Exodus uses his powers to separate them.

As the judge and jury of the trial, Exodus tells the Acolytes that he is going to discuss the evidence with Magneto. Once again, Magneto is sitting on a throne drooling, so Exodus is not exactly acting logical. Exodus returns and seems to be leaning towards executing Neophyte, but Colossus interrupts with a long diatribe. As Colossus’ words start to convince some of the Acolytes, including Voght, Exodus decides to just banish Neophyte as opposed to killing him. Exodus returns to Magneto’s room to rant some more to himself.

How It Was: This one comes straight out of left field, mostly because Lobdell doesn’t want to start a new story before two crossovers. It’s also an entire issue with no current X-Men members whatsoever. The narrow focus of just the Acolytes actually works in this issue’s favor. It is nice to see that Colossus is still the character we all know and love and joining the Acolytes hasn’t altered his personality greatly. This is a great issue for Peter; Voght and him really shine among a collection of one-dimensional Acolytes, including Neophyte. The idea that Colossus tries to incorporate Magneto’s philosophy into his own established worldview is a really interesting take on a hero turned villain. On the other hand, I feel like some of Peter’s observations about Magneto are somewhat skewed as he really gives the villain the benefit of the doubt in a lot of instances and exaggerates the villain’s tolerance for people and their intentions. There are also the beginnings of a political framework being introduced that unfortunately never really get expanded upon after this issue.

Exodus is just a really disappointing antagonist. The fact that his super villain team is just sitting around doing nothing in space shows how little there is to old crazy, powerful Exodus. He is even abusive to the other Acolytes, which creates an interesting tension where later the members feel trapped and want to rebel, but for now the Acolytes just look like morons for blindly following an even bigger moron.

In case you’re keeping track, Joe Mad is once again absent from his drawing duties, although to be fair, Kubert is also off this month to work on upcoming crossovers. Still, this is two months in a row, which isn’t a good sign.

This is actually a really interesting one-shot story that presents and analyzes the themes of the comic in an interesting way. Really it is an entire issue of characters just standing around and talking, but this issue has some great merits. This is the best-written Colossus that has appeared in a while; he’s not the broken and (rightfully) depressed sad sack. Here he is confident, righteous, and doing more than he has done in many, many issues. One to check out if you’re curious for something different than the usual.

B-

Uncanny X-Men Annual #18

Uncanny X-Men Annual #18
Writing: Glenn Herdling and Jeph Loeb
Art: Ian Churchill and Tim Sale

What Went Down: Another annual, whoopee—64 more pages to describe. This exciting issue starts out with some young boys gathered around a campfire. While passing around a skin mag, one of the boys is made fun of for reading what appears to be a New Mutants comic book. Anyways, the boys are then surprised by a hooded creature that turns out to be Caliban, the Morlock and former Horseman of the Apocalypse. The boys run away frightened, and Caliban steals all of their junk food. He needs all of this food because it turns out that he has kidnapped Jubilee and chained her up in the sewer. His plan is to get the X-Men to send Sabretooth down so that Caliban can kill him and take revenge for the Morlock Massacre.

Back at the mansion, the X-Men have discovered Caliban’s ransom note asking for Sabretooth in exchange for Jubilee. Stevie Hunter is there to feel sorry for not being around to stop him, as if it would have mattered or she was still relevant to the X-books. Xavier decides to ask Sabretooth for his assistance, but the villain refuses unless Jean Grey will give him the “glow.”

Back in the sewer, Jubilee tricks Caliban into unchaining her, and she escapes. Because it is dark and there are monster alligators in the sewers, Caliban catches up to and recaptures her. Over with the X-Men, Kitty Pryde has showed up in a special guest appearance from the pages of Excalibur because she has the closest relationship with Caliban. She’s still a little bitter about betraying Colossus’ confidence during the Fatal Attractions storyline, and she seems very sensitive about this plan as well. Jean gives Sabretooth the glow with her powers, but she doesn’t stop and overwhelms him with it. Kitty and Sabretooth, in his restraints, are then sent off to find Caliban.

Caliban re-restrains Jubilee and goes off to “save” Kitty from Sabretooth. Sabretooth starts off his partnership with Kitty by attacking her, but Kitty holds her own. We also learn that one of the panels on her costumes turns out to carry nunchucks, which she uses to beat the tar out of Creed. After threatening to solidify her arm in his brain, Sabretooth agrees to play ball.

Caliban manages to shut the gates and flood the area where the heroes are. Kitty refuses to save just herself, and instead saves Creed as well. But in a radical twist, they are both attacked by a giant sewer squid. No, really. Caliban shows up to save Kitty from the squid, and Jubilee tries to convince Sabretooth to save them all, which he does.

After Sabretooth kills the squid, Kitty uses her powers to free Jubilee from her restraints; Sabretooth takes the opportunity to exploit Pryde’s powers and get himself free as well. Once free he attacks Caliban, but Jubilee and Kitty manage to get the restraints back on. Caliban refuses to accept help from the X-Men, and the narration at the end describes his state as the passing of the Horseman and the birth of the Hound, whatever that means.

What Else Went Down: Bishop is in the middle of an adventure with his former XSE partners Malcolm and Randall. They are um… escaping from somewhere while getting shot at from the air by… someone. Malcolm falls off a platform, but Bishop manages to pull him up. Malcolm thanks him, and then we find out that the whole story was a Danger Room sequence. As Bishop  leaves the Danger Room, Jubilee asks him if he wants to go rollerblading. Bishop refuses at first, but then reconsiders after her disappointed reaction. He asks if they can go walking instead, and Jubilee seems very happy.

How It Was: Another year’s worth of stories, another giant annual. The real question is why this story is in Uncanny when it stars one character from Excalibur, and two characters that normally appear in the other X-Men book. Oh well.

Looking at the story, it’s very average…kind of mehhh. There are some good moments; I like the animosity and tension between Kitty and Sabretooth, and Jubilee gets some really good humor in. I’ve never heard of Glenn Herdling, but he does write a really cool Kitty Pryde—with nunchucks. It’s awesome to see that Kitty has progressed from a scared new girl like Jubilee to a badass who can hand Sabretooth his behind with total confidence.

Unfortunately other than the fighting between Creed and Pryde, the only other action in this issue involves the X-Men fighting a giant squid, which is very silly. There are some okay scenes in the beginning with Sabretooth, but they only really establish that Creed is a jerk, which we already know. Caliban is one-dimensional and while his motivation is understandable, his execution leaves a little to be desired as far as being an interesting or fearsome villain. And this may be a nitpick, but I still can’t understand why Stevie Hunter is still appearing in these books. I have no idea what purpose or relevance she has to the team at this point, since she was originally Kitty Pryde’s dancing instructor when Kitty was a child. There’s certainly an opportunity to make her relevant, but her and Kitty never interact with each other at all.

Churchill’s art is really dark and edgy, which is appropriate since most of it takes place in a sewer; plus it’s a Sabretooth story. Churchill shows up years later as the regular artist in the 2000s, so this is a pretty good precursor to that brief run.

As for the back up strip, there is not really anything to it at all. We never even see whom the XSE are supposed to be fighting during their mission, and we really don’t get anything from their interactions that we didn’t get from their first appearance in Uncanny. There’s nothing really substantial at all; if you hadn’t figured out that Bishop was trying to get over his feelings about the future and adjust to the present, then you really haven’t been paying attention. The only thing notable about this story is that its creative team is the same one behind the very successful Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: Dark Victory stories, and they worked together on the show Heroes.

Really, this is a forgettable one-off story that, while consistent, isn’t really anything to write home about. There are some cool moments for Kitty Pryde fans though. The back up story isn’t even worth mentioning again, it’s so inconsequential.

C

Happy Thanksgiving

In an effort to celebrate the season, and procrastinate when I should be doing school work, I'd like to present some very special reviews.  They're special because I didn't think I'd get to them this week.  So surprise, here they are, and I hope everyone is having a relaxing day.