UNCANNY X-MEN #527
What did the
iFanboy
community think?
Pulls
Art by Whilce Portacio & Leonard Kirk
Cover by Terry Dodson
Size: 32 pages
Price: 3.99
Everyone has one. That one ex-girlfriend/ex-boyfriend who you know is bad for you. Maybe (s)he’s a drinker who always insults your friends. Maybe (s)he is super sweet to you and everyone you know, (s)he totally gave you the clap that time, and you’re pretty sure (s)he got it from your little brother. Or maybe there’s just no sexual chemistry for you, no matter how much you want there to be. So you keep giving h(im)(er) another chance. Maybe this time (s)he won’t cheat on you. Surely, your relationship is important enough that (s)he will eventually stop writing bad checks from your joint account, or saying racist things whenever you’re on the subway together. It can work. Right? You’ve invested so much time it HAS to work.
Except, sadly, it’s not going to work. There will be moments where everything seems like it’s getting better. (S)he smiles more. H(is)(er) kisses stop tasting like Malamute farts. Even your friends reluctantly admit that (s)he is a lot easier to be around. And that’s when (s)he’ll return to being a convoy of douchetrucks.
What I’m trying to say is, Matt Fraction’s X-Men run, we’re breaking up. I mean it this time. You have lots of really noble, interesting ideas. The science squad, Magneto becoming more…dare I say, human, the five lights. They’re all interesting ideas. But you have absolutely no sense of the characters you’re writing. It’s almost as if you’ve never read the X-Men before. You have these ideas that you want to express, and you’re not going to let a little thing like character stand in the way of your plots. Tony Stark has never talked the way he does when you put words in his mouth, even when he’s tanked. Colossus has never been this much of a pussy when talking to Emma. Why should he? He’s been with her pretty much non-stop since he was rescued during Astonishing. And Emma Frost’s bipolarity in this issue makes as much sense as the crazed Professor X you used back at the beginning of Manifest Destiny. These characters should file a restraining order against your keyboard.
I am not picking up another issue of this title until Fraction’s run is over.
Portacio’s art is better than the recent Land/Dodson art. But that’s all the positive I can think to say about it.
Art: 2 - Average
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I haven’t hit the store yet, but I am hoping that this issue is pretty bad. Now that Second Coming is over it would be really nice if I could drop the X-books for a while. Like you said, I really used to love the X-Men and I really want to again but those feelings mostly just seem to lead to wasting time and money better spent elsewhere.
I know how it feels, guys. I dropped this several months back. On the one hand, I loved Fraction’s big ideas and his general plotline for the X-Men. But his characterizations were so wonky. Basically every other issue would feature characterizations so horrible that it’d almost make me drop the book…but then the next issue would be decent enough. It’s hard for me to believe that this is the same writer who did Casanova. It’s like the word "X-Men" is a trigger that causes his brain to turn off or something.
The breaking point for me was when he had Xavier suddenly scream mindblast Magneto for no reason. Also, for a while all of his X-Men were acting like rich narcissistic sex-obsessed models, whilst giving lipservice to how oppressed they were. It was weird. I heard an interview once where Fraction said that "his Beast" was the one Dave Cockrum drew…except Beast was never on the team when Cockrum drew the book. He also said that Emma Frost "was never really a true badguy"…except, yeah, she actually was. In Astonishing, Whedon actually had Kitty tell Emma: "When I first met you, I thought you were the definition of evil." Fraction doesn’t really know these characters that well.
Just drop it like a hot potato. The art is confusing and horrible. The panel with the blackbird in front of the mansion. Just look at that for a couple of minutes and watch reality unravel before your eyes.!
Excellent review, I agree with the sentiment entirely.
I found Fraction’s issues of Second Coming to be the weakest for pretty much your exact reasons, good ideas with bad scripting. I was on the fence whether to continue after this turd but your review push me over. I’m done too. Now I need to check to see if I’ve got the clap.
@kryptogrowl: Get tested immediately, and frequently. And make sure to stay away from Invincible Iron Man until Tony gets his results back.
@BoldCoffee: Thanks.
@ResurrectionFan: Yea. how awful is it that the artwork in this issue is some of the best Uncanny has seen in the past couple of years?
I droped Invincible Iron Man after #26. Did I do the right thing? Anyway goodbye Uncanny X-men.
@krad00: I think you did the right thing.