Uncanny X-Men #471, was probably the comic we were least looking forward to this week. The Revolution longs for the day when the X-Men will once again be a great read.
Creative Team
Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciller: Billy Tan
Inker: Sibal & Tan
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10.
Story Rating: 2 Night Girls out of 10
Total Rating: 4 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: The issue starts with Wolverine and Storm in Africa still tracking down whoever is killing mutants in the area. The find a dead body of another mutant and vow to continue their search.
We then cut to the Shi’Ar attacking Rachel at her psychiatrist’s office. She tries fleeing and the Shi’ar pursue. The rest of the X-Men join the fight and we have a big brawl. The Shi’Ar Command leader in the space ship orbiting earth decides to fire their main weapon and take out everyone, the Shi’Ar attack force and the X-Men. Collateral damage is acceptable as long as the Phoenix dies. Rachel foresees what is about to happen and combines her powers with Psylocke to create a shield that deflects the blast back to the Shi’Ar command ship blowing it up.
The issue ends with Rachel talking to Nightcrawler telling him that she wanted to kill all of the Shi’Ar, but decided that she would not kill and as her mother’s daughter she must find her destiny in a way that brings both of them honor.
Comments
The Good: The issue had plenty of action. That should appeal to some readers. We are really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. There just wasn’t much to this issue that impressed us at all.
The Bad: Billy Tan’s art is average. There is nothing about it that the Revolution particularly likes, but he isn’t terrible.
On the other hand, the story has been terrible. Chris Claremont was our childhood idol with his amazing work on his first run on the X-men. To be so totally and completely unimpressed with his stories on this run is heartbreaking to us. Claremont has managed to create a story that doesn’t even remotely intrigue us.
Claremont should be banned from using Rachel in any of his comics. The reason is that is obsess over Rachel in a manner that to enjoy the story you would have to be a die-hard Rachel fan with no desire to read about the X-Men in general.
This storyline was particularly disappointing. The only thing that happened was a bunch of lame Shi’Ar characters killed off the entire Grey family. Other than that, it was much to do about nothing. And the ending was just terrible. Rachel witnessed her entire family killed and then got blamed for their deaths by the only remaining living member of her family. But, in the end she decides that she isn’t going to kill any of the Shi’Ar and that everything is going to be ok. That isn’t even remotely realistic. If a person witnessed the slaughter of every living relative except one and then get blamed by that one person there is no way they would be able to cling to sanity. That person would either kill everyone who killed their family or kill themselves. That sappy dopey ending just didn’t work.
We here at the Revolution don’t hold out much hope that Uncanny X-Men is going to get much better any time soon. It would appear that the storyline with Wolverine and Storm in Africa is the next big story arc. Yippie. So far, that storyline seems to be about as boring as the one that just happened. We shall see.
The Revolution would definitely not recommend Uncanny X-Men to anyone other than the most die-hard X-Men fan. There are far too many better comics out there for the casual comic read to spend their hard earned money on than this title.