If you thought that last issue was slow and uneventful, then there's a good chance that you won't really care for Uncanny X-Men #516 either. Of course, to correlate this issue being slow with being uneventful would be quite ignorant, as a major happening occured here: Magneto came back in full form after an extended absance to pledge his alligence to Cyclops. Even though that this issue can be considered a major turning point which personally intrigued me to no end, I couldn't help but think that there was something missing here.

I think the problem was not with the overall plot of this issue, but with the one on one character dialogs. For some reason, the dialogs didn't really seem too engaging, which is weird, since that's usually where Matt Fraction excells. This should have been a very emotional issue for Magneto, as you can see the parts where he's baring his soul to Professor Xavier and Cyclops. The dialog wasn't impactful as it should have been though, which is unfortunate since this had all the makings to be a real home run script. Additionally, we catch up with the captured Scalphunter, who is currently being held by these new lackluster villains. Luckily this was a smaller B-plot of this issue, as all that happens here is just set up for the conflict of the next issue. I can really care less if I see these villains ever again. I must say though, ever since that series of short X-Men anthology stories, I've become quite partial to Scalphunter. I like the motif behind his character, as he's a former thug/henchman who's questioning his former life and trying to strike out on his own and make a semi-normal life for himself. Hopefully more can be done with his character.

As for the much derided Greg Land art that everyone loves to rag on (including me), it actually looks a little improved here. The character's faces are still pretty static, but the inking and coloring this time around nicely compliment the pencils. If you compare the art of this issue to any of the Sisterhood arc issues, you will see that the characters look a little more shaded and the colors have a painted feel to them, which kind of makes them seem much less artificial than usual. Still not the best, but at least a smidge of an improvement.

Uncanny X-Men #516 had alot of potential to be a nice dialog heavy character piece which focused on probably the biggest X-Men character. While this issue certainly has me interested in the future of Magneto, I feel the script was lacking just enough to to make this issue a miss.