Uncanny 00's

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   An Uncanny Decade?

It hasn’t been a good one, has it? I’ve decided to peruse the old backlog of Uncanny X-Men this past decade in honor of Gillen’s entrance to the fold and to gain a better perspective on the state of this book. I will break it up into runs and storylines. Considering how ill-advised Claremont’s Revolution was and how visibly transitional Lobdell’s Eve of Destruction arc was, I’m going to start with Joe Casey’s. At the end, I will encapsulate the run as a whole, the high points and low points, and rank his inclusion in the canon.

JOE CASEY

Well, it’s not great, is it? Some books get off on the wrong foot. That’s all Joey Casey’s first arc has. He starts off incredibly poorly-matched with Ian Churchill and over the course of a much overextended first arc is plagued with fill-in art that lends it a schizophrenic feel. Strangely though, the fill-in artists are a much better fit than Churchill. While diving into pet themes of Pop Rot, he awkwardly retreads Morlock themes and introduces Wolverine rather purposelessly. It’s a bad story that brings Chamber into the fold in a manner that doesn’t really make a strong case for his inclusion. Casey doesn’t have the voices down yet and it all reads rather stridently. The biggest problem is that we barely understand why the X-Men are there! Not good.

Then we move on to the X-Ranch with an issue that isn’t really terrible. Stacy-X never really worked with the rest of the book but the Casey issues present her rather confidently and with a presence. This first issue isn’t bad but it has similar tendencies that the first arc did, like Stacy calling Chamber “No Face” just to get all up in his grill. I like Casey’s focus on corporations in a world of superpowers and it’s getting its start here. and the Church of Humanity gets a proper introduction with the next issue. Big Ol’ Alienating Issue #400! Featuring a character we just met and already don’t really like, super abstract art, and an intentionally unclear plot. Reading it now feels like a novelty. I’m astonished that they really went full tilt in this direction. I like it for the strangeness of it, but it is a bit of a mess. And it features the first instance of Stacy-X’s survival tactic: making guys cum in their pants. She will use this again and it’s weird everytime. I mean, we just met her and it seems like that’s all she does. I blame Casey for failing to explain why the X-Men want to keep her around. She fits awkwardly in the realm of pet character and obligation. This issue is also of interest for a sadly aborted subplot involving the Supreme Pontiff’s plans for Nightcrawler which had to have been a lot more interesting than what Austen did with them. Considering that Casey sidestepped the Uncanny division of the X_Men into a pan-global corporate division, a Vatican presence was doubtlessly in the works. A shame that it didn’t go anywhere.

Then we have the infamous X-Corps storyline! Ah, this amazing story that prompted Marvel to freak out over the preview designs and likely led to Casey’s early departure. Well, first we have the silent issue which has to constitute one of the more incoherent issues in the book’s history. Reading it again, I have no idea what is happening at all. Just a mess. Then for over a third of a year, the X-Men bum around X-Corps headquarters as Banshee’s organization begins to fall apart. I always liked the idea of X-Corps and even now I have some affection for it even though it doesn’t work. The main problem with the story is that the X-Men don’t really do anything until the end where they prevent Paris from blowing up in a garishly myopic fashion. Remember the time Fever Pitch blew up the Eiffel Tower? Me neither. Anyway, it all goes south when Mystique prompts a rebellion from within that results in the incapacitation of Banshee, the death of Sunpyre, and Abyss awkwardly swallowing up Mystique very coincidentally. Chamber wanders around in a mind-daze for a few issues, and the X-Men just wait around to save the day. One gets the impression that nobody involved really ironed out the details of what was happening. You can really understand why Marvel gave Joe Casey the boot. This isn’t very good stuff. There is no reason to review the next issue in detail except it involves Nightcrawler teleporting Chamber basically across an entire country to an alp with an old friend. If Casey planned on explaining such a ridiculous feat later, well God love him.

Then we head over to three of the best issues of the decade which make me truly miss Casey as he went full swing in the right direction. Telford Porter (before he became X-Force’s tatted lackey) is into corporate drug-dealing and began dealing a Kick like drug of designer genes and the X-Men swing in to stop him using some pretty forward thinking tactics. It’s not that they just buy him out, but first they use Stacy to occupy him for weeks on end so that when he returns he has nothing. That’s the brilliant part: a creative use of mutant powers for long-term gain. Now, there are some very dull feints along the way like the possibility of Stacy aligning herself with Porter to re-open X-Ranch which is fairly see through, but all in all the final three issues point to an innovation we really haven’t seen since in the book. It’s a stylish read with strong art and a confident feel to it. A real shame that his run was understandably cut short.

BEST ISSUES

Uncanny X-Men Annual 2001

Uncanny X-Men 408

Uncanny X-Men 409

WORST ISSUES

Uncanny X-Men 396

Uncanny X-Men 401

Uncanny X-Men 407

RUN AS A WHOLE: C+

CHUCK AUSTEN!

Uncleanuncleanunclean! Haha, just kidding. But seriously, folks. On the whole, this run is less terrible that simply depressing. Not at first though. I remember at the time being rather entertained by the fledgling story “Hope”. Very entertained even. Reading it again, you can see where it all went wrong and also why it was perhaps a better idea for the book in the short-term. We had Morrison reinventing the wheel and Claremont playing in his sandbox, so perhaps a retro book was more in order. And that’s certainly how this reads. There is certainly a cavalier approach to continuity as Monet shows up, says three lines, one of them is a predictably catty example of Austen’s Women Hating Women ongoing dialogue, and is gone. Nobody seems to know that she can fly, perhaps not even Austen, which is strange. And then it’s business as usual with the Juggernaut. Now, there are a few pretty wonderful moments in this story, chief among them the realization that Juggernaut asked for help. Iceman has a valid point that he should have probably mentioned that first off, but it’s dealt with quite nicely. There is some good action as they sleuth about, and then it becomes rather confusing in the third issue. I’m not entirely sure what’s happening with Black Tom. To the best of my knowledge, she needs to calm down Tom so that he will release the people in time for Iceman to freeze Tom, which culminates in him turning into an all-consuming plant monster (remember when he had that shillelagh that could shoot fire or something?). It’s a bit awkward. We also have the introduction of Squidboy, which is a bit generically characterized. For example, there is no way this kid bought a gun. I don’t buy it. Where’d he get it anyway? Who in this town would sell a Squidboy a gun? But I like how Professor Xavier gets him to give it up while not making him feel bad.

And then there’s the amazing introduction of Nurse Annie who from the onset is a big bag of crazy. All her surrounding nurses keep talking about her as though she’s found another one. She’s like that one character in Arrested Development who can only love Buster if he’s catatonic. I know what Austen is going for here but he hits some bad missteps early on. The first is that she sees a newspaper featuring Havok saving those people. How would that paper still be around? Also, introducing this dynamic right off the bat is a bit jarring. Perhaps we should be eased into her relationship with him? As is, it just feels a bit too crazy pants. She’s a little stronger reacting to the X-Men as kind of a reintroduction to this team when they arrive back at the Mansion from the mission. Issue 413 might be my favorite issue of Austen’s run because it’s so Three’s Company and over-the-top. Stacy vs. Paige is actually rather funny, I must say. Completely base, but pretty funny. I’ll never understand why Xavier has such a difficult time bringing Alex out of his coma, but there’s lots of other things that work very well like the kids thinking Juggernaut is very cool. Not a bad start. Then we get a small leg of less successful entries. The introduction of Northstar to the team is pretty awkward. One gets the impression that Austen is preaching to the choir in a big way for his 21st century plea for 19th century tolerance. Chuck Austen’s plea for homosexual tolerance is as lily white as Philadelphia. This is a lame issue that makes no sense from a continuity perspective (how can Northstar’s father beat him if he’s an orphan?), from a powers perspective (why can Northstar help the blowing up kid and Angel can’t?), and…well, mainly from any perspective. It’s an issue of gay tokenism, and a bland one. We also get Stacy’s ear peeling off and demanding that nobody look at her. This will never come back. Perhaps Austen’s biggest flaw is his inability to organically set up subplots. We next move into full-blown mood swings. Nightcrawling raging at the pulpit. Archangel conducting business by cell phone. Or perhaps his biggest flaw is an ability to subtly forward his subplots within scenes. We have moments that make little to no sense, like Northstar’s silence indicating that he has a crush on Iceman. Even a perfectly strong moment like Iceman revealing that he is turning to ice is abruptly cut off. He nakedly reveals what is happening and cut right back to outside to him thanking Nurse Annie. Now, this is a moment that warrants investigation, one that warrants Nurse Annie asking how he feels, maybe touching his chest or something. I don’t know. It’s not terrible [yet], but just very bland.

There is something nice in the lead in to Dominant Species. Chuck Austen will now move into a very familiar pattern of a vignette that normally would not constitute an entire issue followed by an overlong story that will go nowhere. This issue has some lovely art although I do prefer Garney for Austen’s dialogue, and even if the de-mythologizing of Cain Marko into child abuse victim is a bit heavy-handed, I do like it. It’s not an incredibly compelling read but it has a good moment at the end where Cain tells Sammy that they’re going to live in a Mansion, just like his father. Then again, we also have moments that fall into Austen’s inability to set up. He wants to set up Stacy coming onto Nightcrawler but it’s not enough of a running bit to come across as successful. It’s hard to say exactly where Dominant Species goes horribly wrong. It’s all incredibly bad in different ways. It features mismatched art that makes people look like they’re being sucked into a black hole when they scream. It features a radically weird Polaris confronting Nurse Annie for no Earthy reason at all. It features no degree of plot specifically involving Maximus Lobo at all. At all! They’re corporate werewolves somehow involved with the Worthington co and they attack for no reason I can discern. They make mincemeat of Wolverine and then corner Archangel and Husk who stand their own long enough to escape, during which time Archangel learns about the secret of his blood. If I had to cite one issue as being the worst of this, I would say that issue #420 has the worst moment: that discovery. For the worst issue, probably #416, the first of Dominant Species featuring so many awkward introductions and reintroductions and pay-offs and set-ups. None of it works. The only gift that Chuck Austen has is a somewhat charming ability to create vaguely romantically erotic moments and befuddled verbal diarrhea. He’s quite good at these things, but there is a degree of overload that is already setting in.

It should be asked: is Chuck Austen a misogynist? No. He’s just not very talented. If he were more talented a writer, I think his tendencies would be quelled. But he’s not. I see what he’s going for here. He wants the soap opera approach and he has all the right ingredients, but he’s just not good enough. I think he would do a better job of this if he wasn’t handed Polaris. Now, putting my feelings about Polaris as a character aside, this is a falling down terrible characterization that he has done. Austen clearly doesn’t like Lorna. He likes Nurse Annie. So to validate one character, he invalidates another. We’ll dive into this more on an incident by incident basis, but just look at how Lorna proposes. Has a woman outside of a soap opera ever proposed to a man as Lorna does in #421? No, it’s never happened. Now, I want to isolate one moment in particular that I love from #421 that demonstrates what could have happened on a more consistent basis from Austen had he a little more talent. This is the moment where Alex meets Nurse Annie and she says it was her pleasure to care for him while he was comatose and starts to run the mouth in an embarrassing fashion. Now, this is pretty standard for Austen, if still charming. But then she promptly shuts her mouth and says “So, I heard you get married.” Lovely save and a very human moment. His characters like to run the mouth, say vaguely inappropriate things, and embarrass themselves. So do Bendis’ characters. The rest of the issue is a mixed bag of wonderful moments (Cain talking to Xavier), bad ones (Polaris’ proposal, the shot-reverse shot of Annie & Alex’s goodbye), and really bad ones (Alpha Flight’s introduction, Kurt’s decision to step down as leader of the X-Men when he really kinda hasn’t been all year). But I would argue this issue is half of a very good one. And half of a really bad one. The next issue #422 is mostly just a really bad one. The archeological excavation reveals ancient mutants similar in body type to Kurt, and this is promptly interrupted by the Church of Humanity nuts. Then we have a fight with Alpha Flight, one of those needless fights that erupts because we need some action. Austen doesn’t do a great job of setting this up. Some of his mild action ideas are entertaining like Iceman’s “coke can in the freezer” analogy and some of the Juggernaut moments are good, but they’re coupled with some absolutely horrifying romantic conversing between Paige and Jono. Ugh! I don’t think any kind of art could salvage it. This is a two-parter that is not a two-parter.

We’re now one year into Chuck Austen and what started as a pleasant redirection has shifted into what will become business as sadly usual.

And now is where it gets REALLY good. Dominant Species was pretty bad, but now it’s starting to get downright risible! Holy War. Ah, Holy War! Good ol’ $0.25-priced Holy War! It doesn’t take long for this to get horrible. Three pages in and we have dubiously planted Bible quotations, crucifixions, and perhaps the worst leadership of Nightcrawler’s career: before screaming out to the heavens for answers, he suggests maybe they don’t take the crucified X-Men down for fear of upsetting the police. And then Austen drops the bombshell: Nightcrawler never was ordained. Nobody remembers this happening. I find this impossible to believe because he’s had millions of conversations about it over the past half decade. I remember this because I found it all so annoying. Now, even if you can stomach this retcon, the issue is a mess. Lots of random posturing and screaming, huffing and puffing, with no forward direction. Then we get to Holy War pt 2 which is page-after-page horrible. There’s nothing worse than somebody making your own prejudices look bad, and that’s what Austen does. He has the Supreme Pontiff ranting and raving about sexual urges, there are Bible verses tossed back and forth, and then of course the raped nun! Ah, the raped nun. It’s just an ugly book. More fairly common occurrences in this book: Nightcrawler’s leadership undermined (this time by Havok complaining about why they split up), Jean Grey’s inability to detect the illusionary members of the Church of Humanity ahead of time, Jean Grey killing a guy, Polaris killing several people. Angry, evil, murdering women.

Sacred Vows is a little better. Philip Tan’s introduction to the X-Fold is better now than it will be. This is mostly an example of what Chuck Austen does very well. I mean, you could do worse than having this guy write a Bachelor Party, right? Tan does have one horrible moment where he unbelievably oversells Bobby’s dismay at the end of his conversation with Annie. I don’t buy for a minute that he somehow couldn’t know that Northstar is gay because, well, that’s all Northstar is. He’s a big gay Gay. And then of course there’s horrible Lorna Dane sleeping with Stripper Gambit and everything that she says about the nature of marriage. Just a horrible characterization. And yet the issue kinda works because it does play to Austen’s strengths which for now are Philip Tan’s. Everybody looks pretty good and it ends with a cliffhanger that at the time seemed somewhat interesting. One could do much worse than turn this uninteresting character into a vengeful, wedding-spurned bitch, right? Then it all turns. There is a flat-out awesome image of Lorna standing over a defeated Bobby, but this issue is a wash because Alex’s relationship with Annie doesn’t work. Alex doesn’t have a personality yet, and Annie’s is all over the place. Also, how could Lorna have taken down EVERYBODY at the party? Don’t buy that for a second. And how can Havok fly? And how can…? And how can…? Anyway, the issue is a long conversation that’s pretty goddamn dumb and it ends with a tree landing on Polaris. Which is kinda funny. But the issue is pretty bad. The next issue is a simple little story that probably could have been used to set up a later storyline if Austen were so inclined but no matter. It’s the infamous Angelo Torres issue. Now, I don’t really blame Austen for that. That’s the editors’ fault, not his. He’s got a lot to deal with in writing an issue every month, and there was some mention in the past of Angelo using that name. So, it’s not really his fault. It’s his editors’. This is a small plea for tolerance by saying that the intolerant could all be just as easily victims of intolerance themselves as much as beneficiaries of tolerance if the other shoe falls. There’s nothing wrong with it. It carries on the now amazing “Mutants Can’t Get Aids” idea (yup, but they sure do die of the Legacy Vi – um, well not anymore, I guess). The art is all right except that Archangel’s wings look f**king horrible. Totally inoffensive but could have been used for much more than these two minor stories.

…like setting up Nightcrawler a bit more for The Draco. Ah, The Draco! THE DRACO!!! Now, this is genuinely unclean. Outside of the fact that nobody can write a Germany that isn’t out of The White Ribbon, it’s not so bad. It features one of the less interesting characterizations of Mystique I’ve seen. I know that she’s younger, but there are no real clues to the woman she will become. We’re not brought into her struggle. It’s all very simplistic and a bit disappointing. But nowhere near as bad as what’s to come. The first issue of The Draco is not terrible. Philip Tan’s art is actually quite stunning. He gets the physicality of Nightcrawler down and some of Lorna’s facial expressions are dazzling. Austen manages to awkwardly set-up that Xavier has been looking for Nils Stieger (completely different in appearance than the last time we’ve seen him), he wedges in a little of Cain’s Out of Nowhere Frustration from losing Sammy, etc. This results in Cain and Chuck having a big ol’ screaming match that Philip Tan sells pretty well. Everything feels rushed but it’s not terrible. And it ends with a circle around the fire in the Isle de los Demonas. Then we get to issue #430 and my Landy, does it go downhill! This is one of the more incoherent issues ever produced. What happens? Sammy gets hit, Charles and Annie prepare to go into Lorna’s mind where they see her and Alex big ol’ doing it, Carter talks to Sammy and we learn that Carter is at the site, and then everything goes batsh*t. Everyone gets hit by arrows. That’s it. Nothing happens and it doesn’t make a lick of sense visually. All set-up. Or rather, prelude. The next issue is just as bad, although it has one fantastic moment where Sammy fights back saying “I don’t stop for nothin’. I’m the juggernaut!” Very strong moment about what children idolize and carry forward, but Jesus this kid’s story is depressing! It’s immediately followed by an even more depressing conversation between Juggernaut and Northstar where they toss catty barbs at each other that ends up being rather distastefully simplistic. The issue continues an incoherent melee, and we learn “the truth about Lorna” which is to say we witness what she witnessed on Genosha and how that made her shift her personality towards Magneto’s ideology. Tan conveys the operatic feel of this pretty well, but truth be told there’s no real way to make this make any literal sense. It’s just sensory overload. But even worse is issue #431. This comes very close to being “Not a Legitimate Story Bad”. We have basically an aborted battle scene followed by a dinner where Azazael sits around looking very proud indeed, calls himself Satan, the token human gets offed, and the X-Men fail to do anything. We are three issues into a story with enough material covered for maybe one. But because Austen keeps cross-cutting he can bide his time. We spend some time in Canada where Juggernaut crushes the sh*t out of Sammy’s father’s arm, and then Alpha Flight arrives and we get treated to the awesomeness of Sasquatch in Body Armor. There is less conveyed in this issue than any other issue I can think of. It continues into the next issue, which may or may not be worse. If it is worse, it’s only because Azazael reveals his mind-numblingly horrible plan. But it’s the little thing that annoy, like Austen’s inability to set up anything interesting about the Biblical Mutants that Nightcrawler was investigating. There’s no reason to care about them. They just come from nowhere. Had he set them up earlier, it might feel like it was all according to plan. But he didn’t. And this issue feels largely equivalent to one character we don’t care about raving about plans he couldn’t possibly carry out. And then Juggernaut almost kills Sammy’s mom.

I remember reading Uncanny X-Men #434 and feeling so disappointed that the artist had changed. It’s a jarring shift between artists for sure, but contrast Philip Tan’s operatic illustrations with Miyazawa’s and see what that does for Austen’s dialogue. Ye Gods, does it reek! There’s a lot to hate in this story, but the way that it ends is especially ruinous: with Nightcrawler telling Charles that he is all the father than he could ever need. Then why hasn’t Chuck Austen had them speak more than two lines to each other this entire run? Had he set up some form of bond between them earlier, this might be more affecting, but it isn’t. We’ll get to my thoughts on Austen’s run as a whole later, but is The Draco the worst story in X-Men History? Yes. Nothing else comes close. This level of ineptitude and the audacity of its length and total inability to tell one story all the way through isn’t just the worst of the decade but it set into motion a prerogative that would come into play later on with other writers: you don’t have to tell one good story well, just tell a buncha stories all right.

As far as idiot Chuck Austen stories go, Uncanny X-Men 435 isn’t that bad. Oh, sure, the redesign for The Rhino is horrid. Xavier’s photographic mutant lawyer is out of nowhere. And Juggernaut hooking up with She-Hulk is all kinds of wrong. But Ron Garney’s back and there some fun action in it, as well as a legitimately interesting twist ending. Perfectly acceptable early-ish Austen. It culminates with a somewhat dull issue, at least by Juggernaut vs. Juggernaut standards. Pretty early on he’s called a moron and he has to use his head to win this fight, which results in the enemy Juggernaut turning back into a kid, which I don’t entirely understand, especially considering all those times that Cain had his helmet removed and he didn’t turn back into a normal guy. It reads a little like homework for Juggernaut vs. Juggernaut.

Around this point, we get to She Lies with Angels, and I start to get depressed. Chuck Austen has now worked with Ron Garney, Sean Philips, Philip Tan, and now Salvatore Larroca, and Matt Fraction couldn’t get anyone besides Terry Dodson, Whilce Portacio, or Greg Land? Pathetic. Right off the bat, She Lies with Angels gets off to a bad start with the littlest Guthrie boy hitting puberty and lighting that Cabot on fire. ‘Cause that’s how puberty happens, folks! With a blast of blue fire from your eyes. Is there any consistency in Guthrie mutations at all? Did Momma Guthrie f**k the Mimic? Anyway, the first issue covers an incredibly small amount of material. Jeb can shoot lasers, the whole thing was kinda premeditated, Warren and Pagie almost come to terms with each other, although Warren has not been written with any individual personality trait since Casey left, and Josh is introduced and can sing, perhaps to one, lovely girl. To be continued. It looks great. It’s not setting up anything I care about, but it looks great. The next issue is more of the same, but to Austen’s inadvertent credit, he sets up the subplot of Josh’s wings being real AND Warren’s emotional uncertainty with Pagie such that we might wonder if there is some family relationship between W&P…which to be fair, I much would have preferred to what would have transpired. Kinda funny. Then we get an insanely forced Re-Meet Cute between Josh Gurthie and Julia Cabot. It goes on for pages on end, and then it’s revealed that they didn’t know each others’ last names. HUH?! In this small town with such a visibly violent rivalry between families? I would have an easier time with it if Austen didn’t set up a back-story between them where they saw each other naked. Austen has written worse stories but I’m not sure if he’s written a dynamic so immediately fraudulent, so immediately forced. And then it’s revealed that the whole thing was somehow set-up to make the Sheriff look good so that he could get a date from Lucinda. Now, one thing I like about this arc is that Lucinda Guthrie is drawn as a middle-aged woman and still an object of desire. Very strong choice. Nothing else to be said for this issue. It’s worse than the one before. Then comes #439, which might be Austen’s slimmest issue to date. What happens? Josh comes to Julia’s window. The X-Men prepare for battle. Paige talks to her Momma. And the Cabots find some suits of armor. Like, that’s it. This story is taking forever to go nowhere. But it is pretty. And even prettier is the infamous #440 where Warren and Paige bang it out in front of everyone. Now, this makes no sense. And the conversation beforehand discussing Warren’s rationale for pushing Paige away is incredibly forced. Let’s be honest: this is the X-Men, we don’t come here for conversations. And if we do, they should be rooted in dynamic personalities, not the wishy-washiness presented here. Neither Warren or Paige are compellingly written, so why should I care? I like the beat of Warren apologizing to Paige, the emotions presented when the Sheriff sees Lucinda and her black boyfriend together seems honest, but what really puts me off about this issue is that it’s a bunch of rednecks in suits of armor beating the sh*t out of their kids. And I don’t gather that Chuck Austen knows these people well enough to endure it. It looks beautiful though. Even when Warren and Paige are banging it out in front of everybody.

I’ll close up on Chuck Austen with Of Darkest Nights and [obviously] the last part of She Lies with Angels. Call it sacrilege, but I’m picking this last issue of She Lies with Angels as my third favorite of Austen’s run for two reasons: 1) it’s full of beautifully illustrated scenes of emotion and action, and 2) it features a hysterically phallic image of Nightcrawler pulling up one of the Cabot-bots blaster arms between his legs so as to fire out of harm’s way…but it looks like he’s shooting a giant load. It’s immediately followed by a hilarious caption where Kurt warns Paige about a blast coming her way, she acknowledges it by saying “Thanks”, and then promptly gets hit, flying into her family’s home. It’s like, what was that for? The issue is dumb. I don’t know how Julia managed to drown herself like she does. And it’s overdrawn melodrama. Not simply soap opera but full blown, endless melodrama, but the damn thing looks beautiful! I seem to be in the minority of not loving Of Darkest Nights. I’m reading it and all I can think of is that it’s an incredibly simplistic argument that goes on for two issues and it’s full of grandiose gestures like Wolverine single-handedly tearing down the statue of Magneto. I like this as a kind of deck-clearing exercise and it’s better than what was going on in the sister book, but it’s one issue of nothing really happening, and it all builds to an argument in the next issue where it appears that Lorna traps Charles in his own logic when it turns out she’s not trapping him. She really does believe it. Pietro and Wanda are proven utterly useless in the face of Lorna (which, I guess, is possible with all that was going on), but really what’s going on is a discussion of 9/11 politicking, that’s all. And it’s a very simplistic one. Lorna blames the tacit many New Yorkers for being complacent in the actions that leveled Genosha. This mindset would almost immediately reverse itself to the best of my knowledge because it would only mean turning Polaris into some form of Matriach of the Brotherhood, which nobody seemed to want to see happen. And for those who love whatever stand it was that Lorna was dubiously making, I ask you is it a good one? Was it one that stuck with her character? Did you want to see Chuck Austen develop her with that mindset? And again, what mindset was she revealing that was so deep? As with most of Chuck Austen’s thoughts on the world, it’s just mostly garbled, simplistic nonsense. Not a fan of those two.

So there it is. Chuck Austen’s thirty-three issue run on this book, just shy of three years. Add to it some eight or ten issues on the sister book and you’ve got damn near fifty issues of Chuck Austen X-Men. That’s insane. Joe Casey got a little over a year. Looking back made me feel simpler times. It’s been ages since Chuck Austen had his hands on the X-Men and I’ve gone through living in literally four different major cities during and since. Here’s how one measures the strength of a writer in a comic book, and I didn’t do this with Casey because his run was more cut short than completed. 1) Was Chuck Austen entertaining on a month by month basis? No, only the first issue of every story, mostly best-case scenario. The man could not write a story, which brings us to our second point. 2) Did Chuck Austen write memorable stories? Sadly yes, but that doesn’t comment on his inclusion in the mythos. Chuck Austen wrote the worst stories in the history of the book. “Dominant Species”, “Holy War”, “The Draco”, “She Lies with Angels”. These are horrible pieces of storywriting. 3) Did Chuck Austen make any lasting contributions to the mythos? No. Juggernaut is no longer reformed. Nobody mentions Azazael. Nurse Annie and Carter will never rear their heads again. Havok and Polaris are together. Iceman’s secondary mutation went away. Archangel’s healing blood is as over as his relationship with Paige to the best of my knowledge, or if it’s not then it’s been overshadowed by his Dark Angel transformations. And considering that Vanisher was suffering from syphilis, I think it’s maybe possible that mutants can get AIDS. Nothing. Years = nothing. And finally, 4) Did Chuck Austen leave the book is a better place than when he found it? Well, this is tricky because the Uncanny X-Men were not finishing in the top ten book sales when he took over, and I believe they were when he left. So he can dubiously claim to have rescued the book in terms of sales. Partial credit. In terms of quality, no. He wrote terrible stories and after an abortive stab at writing The Avengers would go from writing several books to none at all, his writing career a fart in the wind. Chuck Austen really is the worst writer on X-Men ever.

BEST ISSUES

Uncanny X-Men 413

Uncanny X-Men 425

Uncanny X-Men 441

WORST ISSUES (THIS WILL BE THE ONLY RUN WHERE I SUSPEND THE THREE EACH RULE, BECAUSE THESE SEVEN ARE POSSIBLY THE WORST ISSUES IN THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK)

Uncanny X-Men 423

Uncanny X-Men 424

Uncanny X-Men 430

Uncanny X-Men 431

Uncanny X-Men 432

Uncanny X-Men 433

Uncanny X-Men 434

RUN AS A WHOLE: D+