UNCANNY X-MEN #514
Review by: akamuu
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Size: pages
Price: 3.99
And, for the first time in my comic reading life, I’m dropping Uncanny X-Men. I don’t know if Quesada has Matt Fraction’s parents chained up somewhere, and is forcing him to write this ridiculous Utopia story, but it is far too over-the-top in all the wrong ways for me. Trite, supposedly bad-ass, dialog, characters behaving in ways that no other writer has ever deemed correct. I’ve really dug most of Fraction’s comics, but I just can’t support this trainwreck of an X-story. I’m out.
Story: 1 - Poor
Art: 3 - Good
Art: 3 - Good
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I havn’t been enjoying this much either, but i’d hate to drop it halfway through. Really sucks though, huh? Maybe i’ll heed your advice.
I’m hoping that it’s going to lead into something amazing. Fraction isn’t traditionally a bad writer. But there’s too many potholes in the journey for me.
I’ll probably flip through the remaining issues just to get a feel for what’s happening.
I was really enjoying the previous sisterhood arc, hopefully it picks back up after Utopia. Magneto returning can’t hurt
@Cutty: I wish writers were able to write good X-men stories without Magneto. Yes, he’s their first foe, and an important villain, but there’s such a rich cache of X-villains that most writers can’t seem to make work. It’s rather annoying.
I, too, liked the Sisterhood arc, and look forward to the end of Utopia, which turned out to be more of a Dystopia.
@akamuu – couldn’t agree more, but its always fun when he shows up every few years. when done right, its usually pretty epic.
this comic has had steam at a few different points since Messiah Complex, but then throws in these worthless arcs which are either been-there-done-that (Utopia) or just not very entertaining like Colossus vs. the tattoo guy
And enough with the fucking science team! Did we not spend 4 months being bored to death by the Endangered Species backups???
I actually think this has been Fraction’s best X-story yet. His others were pretty lame and had no sense of urgency. If I were to say anything negative about this, I’d say it has too many plot elements for its own good.
@culty: I think I’m in the minority of people who enjoyed The Endangered Species backups, and thought they were better than some of the main stories they followed. And I don’t mind the science team, but I don’t look forward to their adventures, either. They could easily have their own series. I mean X-Science? The world does need more X-Books.
@comicBOOKchris: what is it about the story that you’re enjoying? I’m not being snarky, I’m curious.
The thing I like most about this arc in general is that the threat against Cyclops and his team of X-Men finally seems exciting, which was an element missing from the previous arcs with the Sisterhood, the tattooed russian guy and whatever else there was. They all had a very filler sense to them, as you know the X-Men would prevail and not even think about it the next week. In this arc, there’s a sense that shit is really hitting the fan for Cyke and you’re not sure if and how he’s going to get out of it.
And that leads to another reason I like this arc (and actually, why I dislike some of Bendis’ New Avengers stuff). I like that there is actual planning and teamwork elements present in this book, and its not just all everyone in a free for all final fight. I like in the fights when you see the teammates working together and setting each other up for the kills, and that is what Fraction is kind of teasing with in this particular issue. The plan to take down the Avengers before the final fight also seems interesting, and it’s refreshing to see that not everything is going to be solved in double paged fight scenes.
Also, Quesada doesn’t have Fraction’s parents held captive somewhere. He just ate his father and is threatining to eat his mother if he doesn’t obey his every whim.
Well-said, Comicbookchris! I like this story because you can see the teams actually have a strategy. And I love the way it’s pulling in elements of the larger Marvel U in a meaningful way, which is long overdue for the X-books, IMHO. And it’s not in an annoying way that interrupts an ongoing story; this feels like the natural culmination of the groudwork Fraction’s been laying since his run started. I’ve got some quibbles with it — the storytelling seems to conceal a lot of information solely for the sake of suspense; neither Cyclops nor Emma nor Norman’s POV is really showing us what they’re up to, and what we are seeing doesn’t correspond with a particular character’s viewpoint; I think it would be stronger if there was more sense of that, but then that’s a larger problem I have with a lot of comics storytelling. Aside from that and some art issues (though it’s better than Land!) I like what’s going on here.
I’m not really getting a sense of why people don’t like it, and negative reviews like "over-the-top", "contrived" and "boring" don’t help me understand because I don’t know why people feel that way; opinions are personal, of course, in this case I just don’t get the negativity.
It seems like I’m in between on this. I can’t get past the fact that the whole longest night of mayhem is still going on after 5 or so issues. I also couldn’t care less whether Dakken and Bullseye get along or not. However, the torture of Beast is kind of interesting, and it is exciting to see whether Scott can pull together his leadership skills enough to beat a team that seems to outclass his own.