Uncanny X-Men #2 – Review

By: Kieron Gillen (writer), Carlos Pacheco, Jorge Molina & Rodney Buchemi (pencils), Cam Smith, Roger Bonet, Walden Wong & Molina (inks), Frank D’Armata, Rachelle Rosenberg, Jim Charalampidis & Molina (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White & Sebastian Girner (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: Mr. Sinister has created an army of clones of himself.

Five Things: 

1. Enjoyable Mr. Sinister story. – I’m not usually a fan of recycled villains in superhero comics because they become as predictable as the heroes, but this is a pretty nifty Mr. Sinister story.  The idea that he’s been chasing perfection for over a century and now finally thinks he has things in place to act is pretty cool.  It reminds me of something someone said about cottage cheese once: the first time someone made cottage cheese someone opened up the vat and said, “It’s ready.  Let’s eat it.”  How did they know that the goopy white stuff was ready to eat?  That’s kinda what Sinister has done here: He thinks he’s perfect and he’s ready to clone himself and control the planet.

2. A little talky. – Man….there is a lot of Mr. Sinister talking to hear his own voice in this issue.  Gillen manages to power through it in this issue just by being a gifted wordsmith, but there will be fans that groan any time they see such big word balloons.  The trouble with lots of words is that it sometimes slows the tempo of the comic down more than it should by making us linger too much on panels that should be fleeting.

3. Art manages to be okay in spite of a huge cast. – There’s no art in this issue that is “bad”, but anytime you have 3 pencillers, 4 inkers and 4 colorists the issue will look like a bit of a mess.  On a positive note, the storytelling remains intact and all the pages are professional.  I don’t want to bang on the art too much, but it just kinda bums me out that we’re already running into this problem on issue #2 AND that comes on the heels of a pretty average first issue.  Damn it, Uncanny is supposed to be a flagship book!  The art shouldn’t have to be workman-like and professional.  It should be awesome and with the exception of Terry Dodson, this title hasn’t had “awesome” in a long time.