Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Uncanny X-Men (2018) #1 Review


Rating: 7 out of 8
Writers: Kelly Thompson, Matthew Rosenberg, Ed Brisson
Artists: Mahamud Asrar, Mark Bagley + more

Reviewer Note: This review was written shortly after the issue released. I’ve read each Uncanny since then.
Uncanny X-Men #1 Review

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You often want to help people, don’t you? It might not always seem worth it; maybe they’re ungrateful, or you realize they wouldn’t do the same. I’d say the X-Men often feel similarly, especially as their ethos is to protect those who fear and hate them. How often can you go on knowing a lot of the people you’re helping and saving are afraid of you, or hate you so much they’d rather see you dead?

The conflict over this is touched on with the younger X-Men, particularly between Armor, a teen who can create a pink, non-metallic armour around herself, and Glob, a fellow who’s got a partial skeleton inside a pink glob. The two teens’ uncertainty revolves around an earlier conflict with a group of Mutant criminals, who had sought to destroy a facility creating a vaccine that would be used to prevent anyone becoming Mutants.

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There was a similar story in the film X-Men 3 and in the comics not so many years ago, but it was about ‘curing’ Mutants of being Mutants. Key to the ongoing story is a Senator named Ashton Allen, who Multiple Man gets involved with in a major way. My question as to what Jamie/MM was doing is why – and another question I won’t mention so to avoid spoiling the story. There’s a very exciting cliff-hanger to the main story, one which really excites and intrigues me, especially due to one character and what’s happened to them.

A welcome addition to the issue is the humour provided from people like Iceman and Glob, who gets a nice few good jokes in thanks to a guy named Forearm. Something else I really welcomed was the English feeling I got at times when Psylocke spoke. Interestingly, she has ties to two different comic worlds, being a Mutant and Captain Britain’s sister.

Alongside the main story, there’re three more, set before it. The first centres around the time travelling Lucas Bishop, who’s seemingly in search of Dark Beast, an evil alternate reality Beast from a reality that no longer exists. Bishop comes across a rather interesting fellow during this search, though it’s not entirely fruitful. While the green skinned Oya and Armour are on a sewers mission, they unfortunately do come across Dark Beast and I’m not entirely sure what he meant by what he said to them.

In a story between Bishop’s and the young X-Men’s, there’s one focusing on Jean Grey. While waiting for Storm, she comes across an older woman, who has some very sobering things to say. I get the feeling from later in the issue that this woman will prove important in some way, but I’m not sure how. Some of the more welcome parts of these stories was the inclusion of a rarely character with Dark Beast, while Armor and Oya feeling like the more experienced X-Men are sending them on less important missions. I find this aspect interesting, that younger X-Men feel disregarded by the veterans.

Interestingly, those veterans, like Jean or Storm, might have felt the same way at their age. I’m curious will this be a major part of future Uncanny issues? One of the best aspects of the new series is that it’ll be weekly for the next 9 weeks or so, something which is very welcome when you’re really getting into a story. Overall, a very good first issue, with a mix of art styles and a refreshingly large roster of X-Men. I look forward to seeing what happens next week and seeing just how many more characters become involved.

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