Uncanny X-Men #475


Writer: Ed Brubaker
Pencils: Billy Tan
Inker: Danny Miki
Colors: Frank D’Armata


Spinning out of the devastating events in
X-Men: Deadly Genesis, a now powerless Professor X gathers together a team of X-Men to journey into space and stop the rogue mutant named Vulcan from tearing the Shi’ar Empire apart.

Gah, X-Men… why do you continue to plague me!? Haven’t I made it abundantly clear in some of my previous reviews that I can’t stand you guys? Hold on… what? This is Ed Brubaker’s first issue? The same Ed Brubaker who renewed my interest in both Captain America and Daredevil? Well, maybe this won’t be so bad.

And honestly it wasn’t that bad. But it wasn’t that great either, a far cry from Brubaker’s usual excellence on the other Marvel books he currently writes. If you’re expecting that this issue will be the perfect time to jump on the X-Men bandwagon I’m afraid you’ll be sorely disappointed. This first issue picks up directly on threads from the
X-Men: Deadly Genesis series (which itself was pretty good until it kind of petered out in the last few issues) and if you’re to have any hope of understanding what’s going on in this issue you’ll have to read that book. Even then the book constantly refers back to even more events from previous issues of both Uncanny and regular X-Men. This is the biggest drawback to just about any X-book, that even with the debut of a new creative team it is so mired in its own continuity that it is virtually impenetrable to new readers.

Along with Ed Brubaker this issue also marks the debut of Billy Tan as the book’s new artist. While the art is certainly not awful, in fact it’s some of the best I’ve seen from Tan, it’s definitely not my cup of tea. Mainly I was distracted by how awkward and flat some of the characters appeared. Plus Frank D’Armata’s coloring, while spectacular on books like Captain America, Daredevil and New Avengers, just doesn’t really go with Tan’s style. Everything ends up looking like it’s made of wet plastic.

Like I said earlier, it wasn’t all bad. I really did enjoy the inclusion of Warpath, always one of my favorite X-Men. The blend of action and drama was pretty top-notch and the promise of a relatively self-contained space adventure was intriguing. None of these things, however, overcame my continued lack of interest in the X-Men in general and my disappointment at how inaccessible this book was for new readers.
 

Special thanks go out to Jeremy Shorr, owner of Titan Comics for allowing us to use his advance preview books for review purposes.
 

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