Uncanny X-Men #347
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Joe Madureira
What Went Down:
On a weird alien planet, Gambit gets a rude surprise by being whacked in
the face with a giant lizard tail. He is
being attacked by Grovel—a giant shape-shifting lizard thing, and his partner
Spat—a woman who is cursed to age in reverse after taking a mystic blast for
Gambit. Both of them are bounty hunters,
and both have been assigned to bring Gambit in for his mysterious crimes that
are yet to be revealed. Gambit then helpfully
recaps the previous events in this story because it’s been two friggin’ months
since it progressed at all.
In a weird sequence that looks like they’re coming through a
portal, Beast and Trish Tilby crash land on the planet in a broken section of
the ship. They wonder where the X-Men
are, but are interrupted by Beast feeling sick and slumping over.
In the sewers of Manhattan, Marrow is trying not to cry
while she sits with the injured Calisto, who is bandaged with leaves for some
odd reason. Calisto tells Sarah that she
needs more in her life than rage, and asks her to remember when she was younger
and had hope; she recalls seeing Angel stuck to a wall during the Morlock
Massacre. Calisto asks Marrow to help
the X-Men because they will be needed to save all mutants. Marrow agrees, but she can’t promise she
won’t kill anyone.
Back on the alien planet, Joseph and Rogue wake up next to
each other. Rogue tries to fly up in the
air, but hits something solid and assumes it is a forcefield. Joseph uses his powers and reveals that the
alien world is an illusion and that they are really inside a cave. Joseph discovers the cause of these
illusions—a mutant named Landscape with the power to make people see landscapes…no
really.
Gambit laughs at his captors and asks if the world was
Landscape’s work. Gambit tries to charm
Spat, but she has been previously hurt by him, and brings up that Gambit’s
mistakes have cost others their lives.
In South Carolina, at the town where Rogue met Joseph, the
mutant named Maggott is continuing his search for Joseph. Some rednecks confront him because they don’t
appreciate strangers asking about mutants.
Maggott’s pet slugs eat one of the bully’s trucks, and this scares them
all away.
At the cave, Rogue is carrying Landscape, and he won’t stop
whining. They run into Gambit and his
captors. Just as Gambit frees himself,
the heroes are confronted by Nanny—the former robot servant of Magneto, and an
army of cybernetically augmented animals—including bats, gorillas, and what
looks like maybe an octopus?
How It Was:
Well after two months away, we return to the X-Men lost in space. This story is obviously setting up the X-Men
learning about Gambit’s mystery relationship with Mr. Sinister which has been
hinted at for about two or three years now.
That’s a perfectly acceptable direction to go. Unfortunately we can’t get to that right
away. Instead we have to deal with a
bunch of boring, and frankly out of place, characters from Gambit’s history, as
well as the “exciting” return of Nanny.
Plus the X-Men are separated, so we know it’s going to be a couple of
issues before they can reunite and further the plot some more.
I can’t say enough how uninterested I am in Spat, Grovel,
and Landscape. It seems like a major
misstep to take a story that is supposed to emphasize Gambit’s tragic and very
serious past, and create these absurd, cartoony characters to put in this story
leading up to it. I have no idea what a
little girl with a spear and a weird lizard thing are doing in this story. And while we’re on it, Grovel looks nothing
like the reflection of the zebra thing that Madureira drew in the water last
issue. It’s obvious that this story has
been thrown together rather quickly.
That’s about it.
There’s no real characterization other than for Gambit, which is kind of
interesting. I like how he goes back and
forth between crippling guilt and wanting to forgive himself, between putting
his past behind him and facing consequences for his actions. It’s a really good arc for a tortured character
like Gambit, but of course this is also less effective since most of this soul
searching is taking place with Spat and Grovel in the background. Maggott’s also still wandering around, which
would be interesting if it went anywhere, but it doesn’t; Maggott doesn’t
really get interesting until Joe Kelly starts to write him, so right now he’s
still just a generic mystery figure.
Outside of that, nothing’s really going on, and the two-issue wait
definitely hasn’t helped the pace. Even
the illusion of the world they’re on, which the narration describes as very
alien, looks like a normal jungle that might be the setting for any super hero
story. I am quite ready for these X-Men
to get out of those costumes and back to some actual X-Men stories.
D+
