Uncanny X-Men vol 6 – “The Revolution”
And here we are at last. The X-books returned to regular continuity this week with their latest relaunch, in the form of Extraordinary X-Men #1. But they also shipped the much-delayed Uncanny X-Men #600, the final issue of Brian Bendis’ run, which was presumably held back to avoid treading on Secret Wars or something.
In theory, at least, this delay does the final volume no favours. Bendis has always had a fondness for the device of consecutive issues all building up to the same event from different directions. Issue #32-35, which round out this volume, are all self-contained issues focusing on different characters, some of which serve as an epilogue of sorts to his run. And issues #33 to #35 explicitly end with “To be continued in Uncanny X-Men #600″.
So the delay in actually shipping issue #600 would be quite a problem – if there was any real connection between the individual stories and issue #600. In practice, the connection boils down to “it’s where the characters show up next”. In fact, issue #34 ends with “To be continued in Uncanny X-Men #600″, even though its final scene is a subplot that actually leads into issue #35. Somebody took their eye off the ball there.
Bendis has long had a tendency to succumb to sprawl. He tends to be at his best when dealing with smaller casts and shorter stories. And indeed, the individual issues have a lot going for them. Issue #33 reunites Kitty and Illyana and completes a reasonably successful exercise of thawing Illyana’s character to bring her a little closer to the classic portrayal. And it has some very good art from Kris Anka, who does a lot with minimal linework, and gets a lot out of things like Kitty remaining unflappably intangible in the middle of chaos.
Issue #34 sees Dazzler taking down Mystique, which actually is a useful capstone on a lengthy Bendis subplot. And issue #35 sees Scott’s former students trying to go it alone as superheroes when he closes down his team, only to wind up slinking back to the X-Men and conceding that they’re out of their depth. This could easily be read as a backdoor pilot for a spin-off book, and issue #600 does in fact refer to them in passing as “new mutants”, but it doesn’t look as though that’s going anywhere in the short term. It’s a cute little issue, with Goldballs becoming a brief media fad before the anti-mutant backlash sets in.
But then we get to issue #600, which is a different proposition, since it’s notionally about wrapping up the overall Bendis run. And that’s kind of hard to do, since viewed as a whole, the run doesn’t have a great deal of shape to it. The norm in recent years has been for each writer to treat their run as self-contained, but much of what Bendis has done seems to hark back to an earlier tradition where you set some plates spinning and then leave them for the next writer to pick up. There is not the slightest pretence, for example, of wrapping up the status of the time-travelling teenage X-Men. Other characters finally confront the Beast over his reckless behaviour over the course of the Bendis run, but there’s no particular resolution attached. And the loose end of whether modern Iceman is gay too is tied up (he is).
Those threads, though – and they’re the ones that take up most of issue #600 – are about All-New X-Men. With hindsight, there was no overall story to All-New X-Men, merely some ideas set out there to wander wherever they may. A case can be made that this is the way things always used to be done in the last century, and that some of the problems here stem from audience expectations of an actual resolution (based on modern genre conventions) being out of line with the more open-ended tradition that Bendis was intending to work in. Of course, how much the incoming creators will actually be building on any of this is debatable – the All-New characters will still be around, but Beast is being shipped off to Uncanny Inhumans.
We’ll talk further about the Inhumans in a future post – it’s going to be a while before we reach the next TPB collection, but a round-up of the first issues of the relaunch seems like it might be worthwhile in the meantime. In the meantime, what about Uncanny X-Men itself, the book which issue #600 is supposed to be capping? Here, Bendis’ big idea seems to be conveyed through a combination of one major scene in issue #600, and the Scott/Alex (and Scott/Emma) conversations in issue #32.
The elevator pitch for Bendis’ Uncanny was Scott’s mutant revolution. The problems with that concept were glaringly obvious from the word go: beyond some extremely vague and general rhetoric, there was no explanation of what a “mutant revolution” actually was. The pay-off, it turns out, is that Scott didn’t really know either. He had vague ideas of making intimidating noises so that people would take mutantkind seriously… and that was about it. And this doesn’t work at all. For one thing, it’s what he was already doing on Utopia in the previous run, except with a less informative label attached. And for another, it was always glaringly obvious that the mutant revolution was vague to the point of meaninglessness. So the only twist is that what looked to be bad writing is repositioned as all the characters being a bit dim, having apparently devoted months of their lives to this “revolution” without ever stopping to ask Scott what it was.
Somewhere in here, there’s an interesting idea about a group of characters hanging together thanks to a vaguely defined, one-size-fits-all agenda that tells everyone what they want to hear. But to work, that would have needed a story where the cracks slowly become apparent over time, and where there was some apparent reason why nobody was speaking up to ask the extremely obvious “what exactly are we trying to achieve here” question. Instead, we have a story where nobody seems to even turn their minds to the purpose of their team until Scott finally admits he doesn’t know what it is. This makes everyone look thick.
Then, issue #600 tries to round off this plot thread by having Scott gather “every mutant in the world” on the steps of the Capitol in Washington DC and proclaiming that the “mutant revolution” is to get everyone together and have them not fight. This scene makes no sense on a number of levels. Even if we assume that we’re not meant to take Scott’s claim absolutely literally – what about the mutants who are in jail, for example? – it’s still not apparent how he gathered all these people, or how he did so without the X-Men finding out sooner, or why nobody said no, or why the contingent of stroppy supervillains are apparently willing to just stand around and go “yeah, dude, peace and love”. And you kind of have to assume that he’s supposed to have gathered a significant number of those types of characters, because if he hasn’t, the scene is completely meaningless even on its own terms, surely?
This is a singularly bizarre and unearned sequence, and since it’s meant to be finishing off the main theme of Bendis’ Uncanny, that’s a big problem. (As for the other big idea of his Uncanny, that was the bit about characters losing control of their powers, and everyone seems to have just forgotten about that entirely, except for Cullen Bunn over in Magneto.) Again, there’s something in here trying to get out – a story where Scott starts a “revolution” without actually knowing what it is, and works out what he really wants as he goes along, then has to corral his existing movement into that new vision. A less bloated version of the Washington DC scene could have worked as Scott finally coming up with a coherent agenda as the culmination of his arc. The story as published is a good few drafts away from that, though.
As for having Scott describe Washington DC as “the heart of everything democratic and good” – seriously? Nobody believes that. Certainly not the guy who’s spent the last few years pushing for a separatist mutant nation and fighting Sentinels that were paid for three blocks down the road.
This final volume of Bendis’ Uncanny X-Men winds up as a fitting summary of his run. There are good bits. There are good issues, in fact. But they come when it steers clear of the big picture. On the larger scale, it’s a mess, where even the better ideas are hopelessly underdeveloped.
much of what Bendis has done seems to hark back to an earlier tradition where you set some plates spinning and then leave them for the next writer to pick up
I think that’s a hugely generous view. I get the feeling that Bendis has a short attention span and just loses interest in his subplots. That seems to be what happened to his Avengers stuff, anyway.
Ding dong, the Bendis era is dead. I can give the X-books a chance again, now that the single most inexplicably celebrated, absolutely incompetent storyteller in comics is done batting them around.
And please, no one rush to the defense of his “Mamet-like” dialogue. Dialogue is the only thing Bendis is worse at than telling a coherent story.
So let me get this straight. We were supposed to take a mutant revolution seriously because freakin’ Cyclops decided he wanted to shout loudly, despite the fact that characters like Marrow, Mystique, and, especially, Magneto had been leading ACTUAL revolutions for the past 35 years?
Am I missing something here?
I think comparing Bendis’ dialogue to David Mamet’s is very insulting to David Mamet. I’ve watched Homicide and House of Games recently and those are streets ahead of even the Bendis stuff I DO like.
Slightly off-topic, but since this is the post for the end of the Bendis run….
The O5 are just going to stick around indefinitely? How can this be? The obvious explanation is they’re from a divergent timeline, but Marvel can’t have that, because then they wouldn’t “matter.” Instead the older versions of the “same characters” have no memories of their own earlier time-displaced adventures, and risk blinking out of existence if anything should happen to their younger selves. Surely the teens have to go back at some point, and get some sort of mind-wipe or memory alteration, or else how do their older selves have the lives we’ve seen over the last decades? Even then, with the amount of time they’re spending in their future, it seems the mere physical aging of their bodies would introduce some paradox upon their return to the departure time, and this problem only grows larger the longer they stay. Perhaps there will be a “magical” solution.
It boggles my mind that Marvel considers this a stable premise for ongoing storylines. Have any satisfactory explanations been given? Other than, you know, “time is an organism.”
Bendis is the Liefield of our era. Every time I read complaints about the stunted dialogue and characters development, what I hear in my mind is “he can’t draw feet”.
When did the Beast get so petulant, childish, and borderline sociopathic? It’s as though he was written to be as loathsomely irresponsible as possible in issue 600, in order to make Cyclops’ side look better by comparison.
Bendis’ Alias, Daredevil and the first 25 issues or so of Ultimate Spider-Man were fantastic. He’s not a hack, he just can’t write team books.
Terrible. Paul has been inexplicably charitable toward this run.
Wasn’t the powers on the fritz thing revealed to be caused by Dark Beast, who was then revealed to be the mystery character that appeared on a variant cover of new avengers 1. You know when we were told this was all part of a long boiling story by Bendis.
Lots of sarcasm there guys. Lots.
I don’t think Bendis actually told the story that was supposed to be told in Uncanny X-Men #600. Mainly because he didn’t seem to tell any story in this issue that was delayed for six entire months.
How did Cyclops become Phoenix in Secret Wars? I thought that was going to be the big plot in Uncanny #600, and we just had to wait to finally read that story.
Instead, there’s no context for that in Secret Wars, and the “Cyclops as Phoenix” thing in Secret Wars lasted all of one page, so I assume it wasn’t something Hickman was planning to develop.
Also, in Extraordinary X-Men #1, there’s vague hints about the situation for mutants in the world being so dire “because of what Cyclops did”. I’m guessing Lemire was working off the idea that Bendis was supposed to go somewhere in Uncanny #600. Instead, we don’t get any inkling of exactly what Scott did that was so bad.
So, I’m guessing EXM is starting off on a premise that the readers never even got to see because Bendis didn’t bother with an actual plot for Uncanny #600.
This was just a horrible issue in so many ways.
Bendis wrote two series that we can think of that are good?
ugh
Bendis did so much big picture stuff to the X-Men, you can’t exactly sweep him under the rug after his departure.
Many writers just ignored Chuck Austen.
I don’t read X-Men books anymore. The original five are seriously sticking around? And they’re the REAL versions? Nobody thinks this is dumb? Nobody can pull Bendis aside “uh Brian, come over here, need to talk to you for a minute.” Who encourages this stuff?
Does Bendis have a worse run than Austen? I never thought it possible that anyone would sink to that level, but here we are…
Bendis wrote two series that we can think of that are good?
I remember liking Alias when it came out but I’m a little afraid to read it again, just in case it’s not as good as I recall.
Bendis said explicitly he wasn’t going to set-up Hickman’s plotline for SECRET WARS. There’s a large amount of unaccounted-for time in the “9 months later” jump leading up to SECRET WARS – assumedly, after Beast leaves the team in the final panels of #600, he gets swept right up with the Illuminati in TIME RUNS OUT, and Cyclops returns to Canada to live in the fortress alone for a while, watch MARTIN reruns on UHF, and eventually have some sort of adventure where he finds a Phoenix egg in time to be in New York by SECRET WARS #1.
It’s not that Bendis forgot to set up the events of EXTRAORDINARY. It’s that the eight-month gap between SW and EXTRAORDINARY is supposed to contain a lot of stuff, including Cyclops somehow reversing his course from having sort of regained his sanity to doing somehting crazy . . . again. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but there’s basically 17 months *in story* on either end of SECRET WARS where anything could happen, and we will likely never know, because who in 2015 wants to write endless flashbacks? I’m sure when they actually reveal what Cyclops did, it’ll make about as much sense as they revealed what Harvey Bullock had been up to in the year after INFINITE CRISIS.
I kind of think I might done done with comics for a while. How delayed has secret wars been? Shouldn’t hell and high water have been moved to get that series finished before the reboot that doesn’t seem like a reboot? I was very confused during extraordinary 1. What did cyclops do? I wasn’t reading the bendis drivel (and I did try…) Is it a story to be told? I guess so, since it didn’t happen in uncanny 600. Where will it be told? Secret Wars? An x-over down the line?
X-haven? Terrigen mists? Marvel REALLY have a hard on for the fucking inhumans, don’t they.
There’s a couple of titles in the relaunch I want to try out, but they’re getting an issue to grab me or I may be done for a while. Take a break for a few years, find out what runs have been the work of brilliance and pick up the collections.
And in contrast, there were more comics I wanted than I could afford at the time of Marvel NOW! I was excited going into secret wars. The wheels really fell off this one.
It is astonishing how badly they’ve bungled this whole thing. I had no enthusiasm for Secret Wars, and dragging it out for an additional 3 months for delays really isn’t helping. I’ve been buying a lot less stuff, as I left a lot of the SW tie-ins on the shelf, and that’s carried over to the relaunches.
I’m sure some of these relaunched series might be interesting (Hercules, Vision, etc.), but I just can’t muster any enthusiasm to spend $4 a month on them.
Tim O’Neil
Oops, sorry about the previous post – new computer. Anyway – @Tim O’Neil – somewhere in the 3 months until Secret Wars, Cyclops has to set up an entire nation for mutants! Nation X was part of the Avengers run-up to Secret Wars.
Disappointing, but not surprising. Bendis’ X-run was rather weak and, considering the set-up for Extraordinary X-Men, forgotten about quite quickly. Generally it’s annoying how he can get away with re-writing characters to suit himself, but that’s what happens when you enjoy a position of privilege at the Company.
@kelvingreen: Don’t be scared. ALIAS holds up pretty well. I’ve reread it in the past year, and it’s got the same strengths and flaws it always did. I still miss it a little bit.
I have nothing to say about Bendis on the X-Men except: It’s too bad none of it made any sense. I was looking forward to the displaced-in-time-O5 storyline wrapping up.
@kelvingreen
How you’d feel about Alias today is honestly up in the air.
Personally, I started seeing cracks in Bendis’ writing during his Daredevil run. His bad plotting, interchangeable dialogue, and the rest. Issues that only became more obvious as Bendis received higher profile work.
Going back to the beginning of Alias afterwards… Well, the series is still okay. Thing is, you are now more likely to catch Bendis’ shortcomings and issues, because they were always present.
For me, Powers is much worse. I didn’t read Powers until *much* later. I had heard praise for Powers for years, but had years of first hand knowledge of just how bad a writer Bendis could be. With that background, I found Powers to be rather mediocre series. I never caught all the way up on it, because it got both more predictable and worse as I kept reading.
A few people have touched on this, but it’s been a running theme. Paul’s generosity towards this garbage knows no bounds. With all due respect, here’s my take:
The X-books are utter crap and have been for years. Paul is a smart guy, and like the rest of us he has a soft spot for the X-Men because they used to be the best. But at this point he’s devoted a significant portion of his life to reviewing this specific line of comics, so it’s difficult to accept that he pours more thought and energy into the material he reviews than everyone who creates it. It’s a bitter pill to swallow.
My suggestion is to take this opportunity to re-brand this the Ex-Axis. Just review stuff that’s worthy of your time and energy. The X-Men ain’t it anymore.
It’s really not Bendis’ fault that the Original Five story-line wasn’t resolved. Considering that Marvel is launching All-New X-Men to feature the Original Five, it was probably editorial which wanted to keep that plot unresolved.
It doesn’t help Bendis’ run, but it probably wasn’t his decision.
There’s no need to resolve the O5 plot since it’s been long apparent it’s not a “plot”, just a means to publish an ongoing in-continuity comic starring them.
When it stops selling (or Marvel comes up with something they like better) they will probably be returned to where they were taken.
Is it not so that the modern convention of self-contained stories was born out of necessity, as new writers tend to utterly disregard everything that came before?
At the end of Hickman’s Avengers/at the start of Secret Wars, time has long since been broken and the multiverse is completely destroyed. Although the end of Secret Wars has yet to come out, we can probably assume that the 616 Earth has been freshly remade with the O5 in it, which would explain why they can permanently exist in the present. I’m not trying to argue in favor of Bendis’ X-Men, but I think that makes sense.
Also, in response to the person who noted that Bendis never established how Cyclops became the Phoenix- Jonathan Hickman did that, also in late issues of Avengers/New Avengers and at the start of Secret Wars. Bendis was supposed to catch up that continuity and deal with it as well, but he never did.
Dazzler makes a fair point about Paul’s generosity toward the X-books. That said, I’ve got pretty mainstream tastes in comics, and the indie book reviews in the podcast largely bore the pants off of me, so I selfishly enjoy that Paul reviews stuff that I’ve read. (I’m a fellow X-completist – it’s a sickness.)
I enjoy the x-reviews because, like Paul, I’ve dedicated more than two decades to the franchise, i grew up with the characters and want to keep current, but unlike Paul, i can’t bear to read them right now
For the record, I keep up with the books largely through these reviews. I started collecting X-Men religiously in 1994 (and bought basically everything with an X on it), I stopped loving them in 1999, and I stopped buying them regularly in 2003. I’ve bought a handful of runs here and there since then. I know how addictive comics are and how hard it is to drop a series you’re so invested in, but it’s crazy how bad the books have become.
At some point, it becomes crazy to me that people still follow these books. The characters, which was once the finest collection of characters in comics and the backbone of the series, are barely recognizable. The themes are barely recognizable anymore, and the series hasn’t been genuinely good in a very, very long time. It’s clear the editors don’t care, and the books haven’t gotten the TLC they deserve since even before movie rights were an issue. These books are unworthy of this sort of attention. Life is too short.
Yet here you still are, complaining about them and their reviews. Maybe take your own advice?
@Donnacha DeLong – Yeah, I am beginning to suspect we’ll never actually see Nation X, as it doesn’t appear to be a story anyone will have time / inclination to tell. Like I say, maybe he gets some “Nation X” stationary made between HOGAN’S HEROES reruns, but doesn’t get around to sending them out.
I think there’s something interesting about the fact that everyone expected Bendis to do all this lead-in to Hickman’s story when he never planned to, and always *said* he had no intention of doing so, and that Hickman’s story was entirely separate from his run. People looking back will see his failure to set up any of what followed as a weakness, even though he never intended to do any of that. I’m not saying it’s unfair that his run will be judged by that standard, since it’s already terrible and honestly what does more terrible matter at this point, but it’s interesting that no one involved in the X-books saw that the discrepancy would be a big deal for, well, everyone reading them.
@Tim – Your point is valid, except that Bendis’s story was thematically similar to Hickman’s, ended around the same time, involved characters who show up in Secret Wars, and never gets resolved at all.
So yeah, in my view, that’s enough to consider it a failure, and that’s not even taking into account the glacial pacing and out-of-character portrayals
@JGC: Assuming your comment was directed at me, my habit of following this site consumes about 20 minutes a week out of my life. I read these reviews out of habit, much like most of you and probably much like Paul writes them.
Secret Wars happened to provide a golden opportunity for all of us to move on, and I thought I’d point it out.
I’m not trying to bash Paul or his choices, but it’s been clear for a while that the material is beneath him. I generally like his writing and analysis– charitableness aside– and I think it would be great to read reviews of stuff that’s worthy of the attention and maybe even actually buying.
@Dazzler for a lot of people, following a favorite superhero franchise is like following a favorite sports franchise. You follow your favorite team, the one you’ve been rooting for since childhood, and you keep going to the games and buying the merch because it’s all part of the experience. Even when your team loses, and loses for years or decades on end, you still follow them because hey, you still want to keep up with your team and stay connected to your fellow fans. Plus, bitching about it is all part of the fun!
Unfortunately, this is the internet, so a lot of fans have no perspective and act like a crappy comic is an actual crime and that the people behind them are horrible people as a result. Even those who do have some equinimity with it just being a comic or just a game don’t always come across as such, given the lack of affect within text online.
Extraordinary X-Men #1 was one of the most depressing comic books I have ever read. It seems like Marvel is trying to kill the X-Men line at this point.
Seriously, “mutants are more hated than ever!”? That should just be a stock quote used every year in X-Men books. “2017. Mutants are more hated than ever!”
Jeff Lemire is an extremely talented writer, so I get the feeling there’s a lot of editorial restraint holding him back, as X-Men cannot be too popular anymore.
They just got rid of FF, but the X-Men franchise is worth more, so I think they’re going to kill it off and make as much money as they can on the way out.
I don’t see X-Men ever being a priority again, until the movie stuff gets worked out.
@jpw – I don’t understand your reply – do you think I’m defending Bendis’ run?
That Bendis didn’t want to write a lead-in for Hickman’s Avengers/Secret Wars stuff, I can understand.
That no editor working on a line with several placeholder ongoings like ‘Amazing X-Men’ thought to maybe find some place for some writer to write that lead-in, I do not understand.
As mishandled as the x-line was in the past few years, and perhaps still will be, I’m glad that post-SW it’s trimmed down to five titles. And even more glad that there finally will again be a ‘main’ title. The problem for the past few years was, for me, that everyone seemed to be writing tie-ins and spin-offs, and no one was writing a core X-Men book. I don’t know if Lemire’s Extraordinary X-Men will be good – I hope it will turn out to be good, I didn’t hate the first issue, so that’s already something – but at very least I know it’s supposed to be ‘the X-Men book’.
@ChrisV “They just got rid of FF, but the X-Men franchise is worth more, so I think they’re going to kill it off and make as much money as they can on the way out.”
Call me an optimist, but I’m fairly positive about the new set-up. They are recreating some of the conditions that benefited Claremont’s run. Mutants are in trouble again, which give the X-Men the opportunity to do things as a team, disconnected from the broader MU. At the same time, some X-Men are in the mainstream (like Beast, Angel and Iceman were in the 70s): Rogue in Uncanny Avengers, Sunspot leading an Avengers team (and Cannonball in reserve, presumably in space), Kitty is with the Guardians and Beast is with Uncanny Inhumans. The three team books have distinct identities: Extraordinary is the main X-Men, All-New is New Mutants and Uncanny is X-Force. I’m willing to wait and see how it pans out.
From Bendis’ epilogue to Uncanny X-Men #600, we get this wonderful sentence:
“And finally…it is over.”
No greater words has he ever written.
I did not expect Cyclops to spearhead the Million Mutant March, but since this was Bendis I was not too surprised. I had long given up on Uncanny (and even ANX) balancing external and internal conflicts. Bendis does not do external threats to a team very well. I did not expect the team fighting a ‘big bad’ while working through their issues in Uncanny #600.
@Carl: “The O5 are just going to stick around indefinitely? How can this be?”
They’re a “turn-key” device to reboot the franchise if/when Marvel gets the X-Men film rights back from Fox. Once that happens, they’ll send the O5 back in time and use that event as an excuse to rewrite/streamline X-Men history into a new version.
In the meantime, it gives the writers the ability to play with baggage-free versions of the O5 and put them into new relationships and situations that wouldn’t be as workable with the adult versions.
On a related note, I haven’t hung around enough forums to see if anyone else has picked up on it, but what Marvel’s been doing with the X-Men franchise the past few years bears a suspicious similarity to what DC did with Legion of Super-Heroes in the early 90s (Giffen/Bierbaum run)–increasingly dystopian world, characters and relationships deteriorating, more innocent and idealistic teenage versions of core characters showing up, etc. All of it was ultimately wiped away with Zero Hour, and DC rebooted the franchise from scratch.
If there’s one result I’d like to see come out of the Bendis run, it’s for Gold Balls to do a team up with Butterball and Speedball and call themselves the Ballers, because all I really want out of life is the realization of lazy puns.
They can fight Thunderball and Oddball.
“That no editor working on a line with several placeholder ongoings like ‘Amazing X-Men’ thought to maybe find some place for some writer to write that lead-in, I do not understand.”
A million times this. It’s completely unacceptable, from a story-telling POV. And absurd, from a marketing POV.
As for what this run HAS provided, it’s easily one of the worst runs in X history. The fact that people are genuinely considering whether or not it’s as bad as Austen says it all.
3 main themes: The O5, the revolution, and the newest mutants. The O5 stick around, just because. And are generally out of character and/or just annoying. The revolution is literally non-existent, AND ALWAYS APPEARED TO BE. The new kids ‘arc’ comes to the conclusion that they’re not very good and are kind of an afterthought to the regulars’ bickering. There was never even a real antagonist – just months and months of Mystique wanting to make money, contrary to how she’s always previously had an actual interest in mutant issues.
Absolutely dreadful, and well worthy of some of Paul’s vintage X axis derision.
@FUBAR007: Good point! I hadn’t thought about the parallels between the current X-Men books and the 5-Year Later Legion. Probably because I really like the 5YL Legion and the current X-Men books seem boring beyond belief. But the comparison totally still stands.
@everyone: By the way, what’s up with the O5 Angel’s wings? Why are they all mechanical and fiery now? And won’t that pose a big problem when he has to go back in time/to his own universe/whatever?
It might be better had X-Men ever been “shiny and happy” for more than a few months, like the Legion used to be.
It was totally different and new for the Legion (even if dystopian ret-cons were all the rage at 1980s DC). Meanwhile, X-Men have usually been miserable. It has more impact when “no more mutants” as the status quo just changed a few years ago, and now it’s back again.
I’m glad other long-time X-fans are hopeful about the relaunch.
To me, when Claremont was doing this, it felt believable. Now, it just feels like forced misery.
I know this isn’t the EXM review, but even the Colossus back-story ret-con…when did that happen? No mutant can ever have had a positive childhood now?
*It has more impact when it’s not the usual direction for the book. “No more mutants” as the status quo….
-Sorry. Somehow those two sentences got jammed together in my post.
I’ll add that I’m still confused about the Phoenix Cyclops thing. I don’t understand how it was meant to be Hickman’s plan when he got rid of the idea in one page of Secret Wars. It read like an idea that was forced on him and he wasn’t interested in. That gave me the idea that Uncanny #600 was meant to build to Cyclops becoming Phoenix.
Nah, Phoenix-Cyclops was just so Hickman could showcase how powerful God-Doom was, apparently no other purpose and good riddance.
I don’t really think this silly side-plot needed any build-up in the X-books, Hickmann having Cyclops find a Phoenix Egg during TRO in his Avengers books was enough.
Does anyone really care about that abortion of a story-line? Even Goldballs was more compelling. 🙂
I guess it’s always possible Hickman will rebirth the Phoenix for the finale of Secret Wars. It will lack proper build-up (imo), but so do many other things in Secret Wars, far too much has happened off-panel.