Uncanny X-Men #5 – Review

By: Kieron Gillen, (writer); Greg Land (penciler); Jay Leisten (inker); Justin Ponsor, Laura Martin and Guru eFX (colors)

The Story: The Montana State Tourism Board gets a new attraction to boast about.

The Review: Oddly, in the wake of the Schism, Uncanny X-Men has become what you might call the traditional X-Men Book, while Wolverine and the X-Men has been the one breaking new ground. I expected the reverse, because while Cyclops is trying to preserve the remains of mutantkind from an island of San Francisco, Wolverine is re-opening the very school where the X-Men began. But author Jason Aaron has made Logan’s book completely fresh by putting the emphasis on the running of an actual school; under Xavier, the school always was more of a headquarters than a learning center. Meanwhile, Kieron Gillen has used Uncanny to tell science-fiction stories about a group of super-powered individuals fighting monsters and supervillains in a world that fears and hates them, all in the hopes that their benevolence will garner goodwill. You know, the standard X-Men storyline. So when Uncanny X-Men is successful, the success is derived not from innovation, but rather from the excellence of the execution. Sadly, the execution of Uncanny X-Men #5 is uneven, and as such just doesn’t get as interesting as it should.

This series opens with our heroes preparing to investigate a town in Montana that has mysteriously turned into a completely alien landscape. Readers of Uncanny X-Force will remember this as Tabula Rasa, a small town Montana Archangel destroyed and then accelerated in time so that a hundred million years worth of evolution could pass within it in a matter of minutes. And here I have to applaud Gillen’s ability to smoothly integrate continuity. Sure, this helps tidy up some dangling plot threads from another title, but it’s a completely natural fit for his work. He manages to use another author’s ideas in a way that actually enriches them while still providing a solid, self-contained story.

X-Men Schism #5 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (writer), Adam Kubert (penciler), Mark Roslan (inks), Jason Keith (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: The final issue where we see how the X-Men split up and why.

What’s Good: It’s always nice to jiggle the status quo.  The X-Men have spent the last ~3 years living in San Francisco with a big “Welcome” sign hanging outside for any mutant who wanted to join them.  That was fun and enjoyable, but now we’re going to get something new and that’s a good thing.  As long as the status quo is constantly shifting under the character’s feet, the writers and artists always have new things that can help to inspire them.  There are all kinds of cool possibilities from the X-Men splitting into two groups.  In some ways, it can be a small microcosm of the superhero Civil War and in others, it’ll just be fun to see how the two groups respond differently to external events.  Like, what happens now if a mutant baby is born: Do both sides send a team?  Do they consult each other first?  Do they fight?  Movement forward in the story is almost always a positive.

The other neat thing in this issue was that the young mutants made good and helped to take down the super-Sentinel.  Even though the story of the teenage hero taking down a Big Bad who seemed to tough for them is not new, it’s always one of those things that make me smile.  Always…

X-Men: Schism #4 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (writer), Alan Davis (pencils), Mark Farmer (inks), Jason Keith (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: The Cyclops/Wolverine split finally comes to the forefront and the ultimate danger to the mutants is revealed.

What’s good: Anytime an event has had as much build-up as Schism, it’s nice to finally get to the destination.  Seriously, Marvel started teasing this with promotional images of Cyclops’ visor sliced up into Wolverine-sized pieces back in January and in the last month, we’ve gotten images of how the mutants will pick sides in the months to come…..so, it was nice to finally see what they’re fighting about.

I kinda liked the central conflict: Cyclops thinks that every mutant needs to be a warrior whereas Wolverine wants to do the dirty work so that the younger mutants can have a normal life.  This has potential to be the updated version of the classic struggle between Xavier and Magneto.  And, I really hope that future creators continue the momentum in that direction.  To do so, they’ll have to (a) keep Xavier and Magneto on the sidelines and not thrust them back into primary roles and (b) continue with Cyclops’ transformation away from the guy who used to lecture Wolverine on how “X-Men don’t kill!”.  For me, that type of longer term plot development is precisely what I want out of my super-hero books, so let’s hope Marvel sticks with it.

Alan Davis is one of those pencilers who I wish could do a monthly book.  I thought he started out a little rough in this issue, but by about the 5th page, he was just nailing the scenes.  The great thing about Davis is that he’s so gifted that he doesn’t have to resort to tricks to have a visually impressive page.  Sometimes I love just watching a master like Davis draw a normal page with plain, old rectangular panels because it is so pretty.  I also rarely praise double-page spreads, but the image of Cyclops shooting that Sentinel across the Bay was great.  It was visually impressive and a climactic enough moment in the story to justify a double-pager.

X-Men: Schism #2 – Review

by Jason Aaron (writer), Frank Cho (art), Jason Keith (colors), and Jared K. Fletcher (letters)

The Story: The X-Men race to deal with the global rash of out-of-control sentinels, Cyclops and Wolverine butt heads over Quire, and Kade Kilgore makes plans.

What’s Good: Like many kids who grew up in the late 80s to early 90s, I was an avid X-fan growing up.  That said, I’ve felt increasingly alienated by the last few years of X-Men stories to the point where I only cursorily followed what was going on in the X-verse.  The various creators, many of them quite talented, just weren’t telling the kinds of X-Men stories that I wanted to read.

And so, the first issue of Schism was a revelation as, out of nowhere, Aaron began telling a story that I was interested in.  With this second issue, we get more of the same.

In many ways, with Schism, Aaron appears to realize that a lot of what worked in the past for the X-Men didn’t need fixing and so, we’re getting a story that really brings back the basics of what makes for a compelling X-Men comic.  Namely, we’re getting Sentinels and anti-mutant hysteria.  More importantly, we’re not getting outlandish or bizarre reactions from the X-Men to all this either.  Instead, the mutants are heading out, kicking robot ass, and suffering the slings and arrows of those who hate and fear them all the same.  It’s not re-inventing the wheel on Aaron’s part, but there’s no mistaking that this works.  It’s a central conflict that makes for a relatable and enjoyable comic that pulled me in.

There’s solid character work as well.  An early scene between Wolverine and Idie of Generation Hope is tragic, haunting stuff that his the mark of an excellent writer.  It’s a scene that really punches you in the gut, and Wolverine’s reaction (and how he carries himself, as a result, through the rest of the issue) is a testament to his heart and empathy, beneath all the gristle.