Just so you know, THIS is the cover for #504. Marvel screwed up. Isn’t it pretty?
Okay. So, Uncanny X-Men is a brand new animal here. Ever since the end of Divided We Stand, the X-Men reformed with a giant roster in the Marin Headlands. And the person in charge of the X-Franchise is now Matt Fraction, with help from Warren Ellis, Marc Guggenheim, Peter David, and others. The first arc, SFX, Fraction co-wrote with previous Uncanny X-Men writer and his collaborator Ed Brubaker. You know, the team that brought us the Immortal Iron Fist. So it would be amazing, right? Unfortunately, no. The first arc was characterized by a lack of proper characterization, the same sort of sex-craziness that’s sweeping the X-Books recently, too many buzz words (ie. banal), and bad art. Yeah, Greg Land’s art is pretty terrible.
Now, with this arc, Brubaker has left the building, and Fraction is all on his own. And suddenly, the quality went way up. Seriously, I can’t explain why. But all of a sudden, things are a lot more interesting. Emma Frost’s examination of Scott’s mind is really cool, and the hotel metaphor was very well chosen. Of course, I just enjoy seeing Emma Frost looking like a 1920’s era flapper girl. It suits her, somehow. A ton of people find Colossus’ to the tattoo parlor to be really out of character. I actually don’t. He’s someone who lost both of the two most important people in the world to him, Shadowcat and Magik, and he’s grieving. A lot. That’s a kind of coping mechanism. I don’t really like the idea of another tattoo-themed character in the X-Books, but whatever. And Dr. Nemesis is pretty dang funny. I’m not really sure where things are going, but wherever they go is better than where they were last arc.
Even better than the writing improvements is the art. I generally believe that Marvel has better artists than DC. The only exceptions to that are Terry and Rachel Dodson, Ivan Reis, and Ethan van Sciver. So Marvel stole the Dodsons back. And the art in this issue is absolutely gorgeous. The Dodsons really draw classy-looking women, as opposed to the general trend of making women in comics look like whores. Well-endowed women to be sure. But very classy. At any rate, this arc did not suddenly give the X-Men new direction. But it was a step in the right path. It was the first X-Book issue that has actually begun to sell me on the new status quo.
Plot: 8.3 Dialogue: 9.0 Art: 9.4 Overall: 8.7
