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[Starlord]

I wish

with both some lesbian and man on man porn thrown in for good measure.

[Starlord]

Newsflash, Punchy. We all post on a internet comic book forum. We're all fanboys whether we admit it or not.

I may be a fanboy, but first and formost I am a bottom boy!

[eltopo]

I think the plan here is to "fix" kitty quickly, then say goodbye to breakworld

I hope you're right

[Rockman]

If liking the run automatically makes me a fanboy, rather than just having an opinion, then hating it also makes you a fanboy.

I think you're a Fraction fanboy because you often compliment the guys work on various titles.

[Zero]

Uncanny X-Men #535

I never got why the X-Men spend so much time in space. Just like Spidey's occasional forays onto cosmic territory it never really seemed like their place but since it was a holdover from Claremont and his Shi'ar shenanigans I usually just shrug and move past it. I did really enjoy Joss Whedon's Breakworld arc and Kieron Gillen's brief but excellent SWORD series though, so I had pretty high hopes for this one.

Firstly though the art. The Dodsons are great. It's fairly cheesecakey on the women side but the action and facial expressions are just the right level of cartoonishness for the humour that crops up on every page here. They're an excellent fit for Gillen and it's a crying shame they'll be splitting art duties for arguably my least favourite artist at Marvel. Their work here is just what the story calls for and I really would love them to stay on for the whole run.

So Kieron Gillen slips into the role of Uncanny X-Men writer just like Matt Fraction did after sharing co-writing duties with the outgoing writer. Unlike Fraction though Gillen has a lot of balls in the air already to juggle since Fraction left all his plot threads dangling so we still have Kitty's helmet, we still have Magneto and Namor on the team and tragically for this story Beast is still off the team. Having Abigail Brand without her furry love interest is most disappointing but her disdain for the X-Men (and theirs for her) has a similar spark. It's not all bad though, the dialogue is fun and the plot is intriguing enough to get people back onto the book, it just feels like a huge shame when any writer inherits this much baggage before getting their crack at one of Marvel's biggest titles.

The issue is a good one, but more of a break from the previous stories will be needed before the series can really soar again.

7

[BlueStreak]

I liked S.W.O.R.D. 2.0 featuring the X-Men. It's nice to see a book like this get a second chance. I look forward to the inevitable reuniting of Lockheed and Kitty, the return of horsefaced Beast and all that other S.W.O.R.D. stuff.

Compared to the steaming load of crap that was Fraction's run, this book looks like the next Watchmen. However, when examined independently of that craptastic run, it's remarkably average and is only notable because Gillen is able to throw around Whedonesque one-liners that seems to please the die-hard X-fans. (Haha, that Namor sure is a horny one! I appreciate that humor! Hey, GIllen referenced Scott Summers' struggles to express his emotions! That means that he gets the character!). The strongest thing that Gillen has going for him is that he's rifting off of Whedon, whose run on Astonishing featured some of the finest X-writing in decades.

To summarize: Gillen's average story is above average for Uncanny.

6.5

PS: Suck it, Snow!

[GLX]

Well Land drew a large portion of it, so maybe it was.

Mostly though it was garbage of the worst calibre on par with Chuck Austen's run for pure awfulness.

When was the last time you read an X-Men comic by Austen?

[Rockman]

When was the last time you read an X-Men comic by Austen?

the last time he wrote the book.

[Victorian Squid]

Thank you, John Snow, I'll be reading this this afternoon!

[******]

Thank you, John Snow, I'll be reading this this afternoon!

You're welcome.

It of course popped up in the usual places Monday afternoon.

[Victorian Squid]

UXM #535

I admit to not knowing or getting the comic book-mechanics of Kitty's space-suit and permanent intangibility, but would she really have the mass and weight in the suit for Colossus to throw her as a "fastball special"? While I'm wondering, who is the snarky giant space dildo Agent Brand lives with on her purple space station?

Between this issue and the current X-Force book, the mutanty Marvel comics are almost showing signs of being slightly readable again, although I think it's too soon to do back-flips over Uncanny just yet. It's definitely a refreshing change from the Fraction issues which were far too Austen-esque, in particular the dialogue and pacing show major improvement here. Hopefully after a full story arc or two, plot can be added to the list of list of things Kieron Gillen is doing better with the flagship X-Men book in the future. Meanwhile I still kind of hate the Utopia island and the unresolved problem of the lack of mutants (yes I know there are a handful of icky new ones somewhere).

In fact, the last run I was a dedicated reader of was the Whedon run so heavily referenced in Uncanny #535, so it's familiar territory. I didn't care for Whedon's long-delayed resolution to the Breakworld story either, so I'm open to going back to it and resolving it on a different note. It's always nice to see Scott Summers written as a confident and humorous leader but Gillen feels a little less comfortable writing Emma Frost, who complains about her wardrobe but otherwise stands around looking sleepy for most of the rest of the issue. Maybe Cyclops shouldn't be so confident--the X-Men grouped here represent an amazingly powerful array of mutant talents, if there is a reason why Emma couldn't detect the thoughts of the Breakworld refugees before boarding I'd like it to be told to me in-story. Likewise, couldn't the master of metal and magnetism perhaps help craft a better way of boarding the alien ship than a big crash?

The art here is mediocre, relying far too often on graduated computer tints in the background instead of any detail, a couple panels look unfinished with an odd choice of stark white background behind the figures. A couple pages look washed out, like the dark tones on the figures in the foreground were intentionally faded for some reason, but then the next pages are thick with black shadows. It's very inconsistent and I think I know why. A better colorist could make this look good, but instead Justin Ponsor's digital inks make things look flat and sort of like a cheap TV cartoon where an animation studio in Korea or somewhere is doing things on the cheap to save money. Or like an entry-level graphic design job.

I guess it's probably to much to ask that the colorist will be replaced before the next issue, but I do hope this is the beginning of a better era for the Uncanny X-Men if Gillen stays on the writing end for a bit.

Not convinced to buy monthly yet.

6.5

[Victorian Squid]

You're welcome.

It of course popped up in the usual places Monday afternoon.

Well, I think we both knew that would happen. I waited, I prefer the comic to the other anyway for readin'. Plus I couldn't reliably trash the coloring otherwise.

I'll send you something as a thank you.