It's the exciting start of a new age for the X-Men, reformed after the traumatic events of Messiah Complex, the city of S.F. welcomes our favorite mutants with open arms.  Marvel pulls out all the stops, puting the Brubaker/Fraction writing team together, coupled with the amazing talents of Terry Dodson and (*cough*) Greg Land (*cough*).  I wanted this title to knock me flat on my back and get me excited about the X-Men.  I felt that Marvel had a good thing going with Messiah Complex and had been treading water since then waiting for issue #500 to roll around.  Now it's here and I'm less than impressed. 

First let's talk about the good.  Brubaker and Fraction are definately in for the long haul and they start laying the groundwork for a much longer term story.  While I wasn't thrilled with a bunch of the dialogue, the plotting and set-up for the future was a step in the right direction.  The S.F. is great, this is no longer Xavier's School, but a mutant embassy and S.F. just feels right when matched with that concept.  Blob as a skinny actor, a sentinal art display, a giant X-Men party all good ideas, I just felt they didn't have enough 'force behind them.  Even the BIG fight of the issue featuring Magento and Sentinals didn't seem to have a sense of urgency.

Gratned a bunch of the urgency might have been lost because of Greg Land's art.  I liked Land back in his Crossgen days, on Ultimate FF and even on Ultimate Power.  I know lots of people have complained about his art and I never understood why.  Uncanny #500 was like having my eyes opened.  First, did anyone else noticed that any long range shot of a person seemed to be missing their ENTIRE FACE!!!  No eyes, no nose, no mouth - not even a single lines suggesting a single facial feature, just a light or dark color depending on which character was being drawn!  It also seems hard to take a scene dicussing freedom of art and mutant rights seriously when everyone has a giant smile smacked in the middle of their face.

I'm hoping we get more of Dodson going foward, rather than having a cast of static and smiling X-Men for the next year.

All in all, there is hope for the future, Brubaker and Faction have been doing great things at Marvel, I just hope they get there sooner rather than later with their X-Men run.