In the past, the Uncanny X-Men was always at the top of my reading stack. Followers of the Revolution know those days are long gone. At best the Fraction issues have occasional okay stories. Most of the time they are poorly done. Let us see where Uncanny X-Men #510 falls.
Creative Team
Writer: Matt Fraction
Pencils: Greg Land
Inks: Jay Leisten
Story Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 6.5 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: Last issue ended with Madelyne Pryor and her Sisterhood invading the X-Men’s headquarters. This issue begins with X-23 joining forces with Armor and attempting an escape. The older X-Men were taken out in the first wave of the attack. Now the Sisterhood is hunting down the younger X-Men. As X-23 and Pixie are being attacked, Pixie appears and transports them to safety.
Lady Deathstrike has impaled Wolverine on her claws. Madelyne has Psylocke attack him next.
Emma breaks free of the Sisterhood’s trap and frees the other X-Men. She is mad that the Sisterhood would attack their own kind.
Wolverine and Psylocke are slashing away at each other. Madelyne has Lady Deathstrike assist her. As the fight is going on, Madelyne breaks into Wolverine’s room and picks up a little box. Wolverine beats his two opponents and catches up to Madelyne. He tells her not to touch his stuff.
The Stepford Cuckoos are taking lessons from Elixir, a Zen-pacifist healer. Pixie appears and takes them to the X-Men. They determine that the Sisterhood broke in with Empath’s help. He is a prisoner in the X-Men’s brig. Pixie goes to deal with him.
Madelyne is notified that Empath has been taken out. She does not care. They have what they came for. Wolverine catches Psylocke but the rest escape.
Scott wants to know what they took from Wolverine. Wolverine answers that it was a lock of Jean’s hair.
The Good: The art was once again the best thing in this series. At times the art is fantastic. Various shots of the energy creatures were very good. I also liked the picture of the Phoenix creature. Land seems to do will with the special effects. He also seems very good at drawing close-ups of Wolverine’s face.
I did like that Wolverine kept a lock of Jean’s hair. I assume it is safe to say that Madelyne will use this to grow a new body or resurrect Jean’s body.
The story was a step up from the previous issue. At least it contained less filler.
The Bad: Where to begin? Let’s see. Fraction seems to be obsessed with making all of the women in this title trashy characters. If the women are not in sleazy outfits then they have to be talking trash. Can Fraction write an issue without the trash talk?
The Stepford Cuckoos are now into Trantic sex magic? Only in Fraction’s fantasies. Come on, let’s see some character development and not of these characters only be obsessed with sex.
Land’s art had some weaknesses as some of the panels from Wolverine’s fight tended to get sketchy.
Overall: Another disappointing issue. It did contain less wasted scenes and focused on the battle. I wonder if reprints of the old X-Men books would sell better than this?
1 thought on “Uncanny X-Men #510 Review”
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Well, yeah, Wolverine’s closeups were great. But Land creeped me the hell out with the Stepford Cuckoos’ (horny?) faces when they were with Elixir, whom I think was oh so terribly portrayed.
BTW, how come after they were attacked inside their nigh-impenetrable fortress, Elixir keeps staring and grinning at the Cuckoos? You’d think that he should be at least a bit shocked. Well, probably he was thinking of resuming the “Yogic practices” (man, that was lame). That, or it’s Land’s inability to keep himself from drawing creepy smiles.
Other than that, I pretty much liked it. It showed that the Sisterhood didn’t spend that much time planning their attack for nothing. They came and they took what they wanted pretty easily, taking out a few X-men and having only one casualty. They established themselves as a real threat.
And what’s with Jean Grey helping Emma? Was it Emma’s subconscious, was it the Phoenix Force manifesting as a vision of Jean, or something else? That certainly got me intrigued.
Keep up the good work, guys!
Saludos de Argentina