Uncanny X-Men #501 - "SFX2: All Tomorrow's Parties" (Writers: Matt
Fraction and Ed Brubaker, Penciler: Greg Land,
Inker: Jay Leisten, Colorist: Justin Ponsor)
(jump to last issue)
There's a new group called the Hellfire Cult bashing mutants, including Pixie. This naturally makes the X-Men a little upset, especially after they've been having such fun in San Francisco.
I suppose this is my Pick of the Week if only due to the lack of competition. For what it's worth, it's enjoyable, particularly when it sticks to character interactions, aside from a few off notes (and I don't think either of the writers have really 'got' Pixie yet... that Land draws her like a porn star doesn't help). The main plot is interesting but hasn't hooked me yet, although some of the people involved do intrigue me.
My biggest problem is that is kind of feels... like it doesn't really work, post-Decimation. The X-Men are all happy now thanks to one mutant birth, but that still leaves only about 200 mutants left in the world, and even assuming they're all in one place, that means, in one day, the Hellfire Cult has bashed almost 4% of all mutants in existence, without anybody noticing aside from Pixie. If they count depowered mutants that may be okay, but one has to wonder how they're tracking them down. If it's not depowered, the X-Men are doing a pisspoor job of protecting their species, or the Hellfire Cult is extremely large and/or lucky. Maybe these issues will be resolved later in the story, but right now it just feels a little silly. I'm all for ignoring Decimation, but I'd like them to go all out on it and just have there be lots of mutants again.
Review: 3.25 stars
With the intervention of the mysterious Graymalkin, the Young
X-Men and New X-Men are on to Pierce's deception. Now they must
track him down to rescue Dani and Blindfold. However, there's
still Blindfold's dire prophecy to worry about.
We finally get to the point hinted at the beginning of the first
issue, and of course by now it's lost all the impact. With so
many 'disposable' characters, it's unlikely that either they
would prevent the death or that it would be anybody who matters.
And before that, we have to deal with more characters acting
dumb or mysterious hints about mysterious characters.
And of course there's Ink. Ink continues to annoy me the more I
think about him. In fact, before I picked up this issue, I had
already decided that I would probably drop the book unless either
Ink died (or otherwise left for good) or it looked like the
original New Mutants would be playing an ongoing role in the
book. Well, unfortunately he didn't die. There is some hint
that the New Mutants may play some role but we don't know what
it'll be, and, really, from their portrayal here I'm not sure I
want them to. I'm tentatively dropping the book, but I'll at
least flip through the next issue at the store and give them a
chance to win a little more time.
Review: 2.75 Stars
Well, that's it for this week folks. Next week, according to the
shipping list, there's just one book. That's Runaways (Vol 3) #1.
See you next time...
Peter Dimitriadis
Discuss these reviews in the forum
Jump to last review (Captain Britain and MI13 #4, Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers #2)
-
Young X-Men #5 - "Fall of the Mutants" (Writer: Mark Guggenheim,
Artist: Yanick Paquette, Inker: Ray Snyder,
Colorist: Rob Schwager)
(jump to last issue)
-
Warning: include() [function.include]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /home/number6/public_html/reviews.php on line 22
Warning: include(http://www.unreachablestar.net/tclose.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/number6/public_html/reviews.php on line 22
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'http://www.unreachablestar.net/tclose.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear') in /home/number6/public_html/reviews.php on line 22
Warning: include() [function.include]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /home/number6/public_html/reviews.php on line 23
Warning: include(http://www.unreachablestar.net/footer.htm) [function.include]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/number6/public_html/reviews.php on line 23
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'http://www.unreachablestar.net/footer.htm' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear') in /home/number6/public_html/reviews.php on line 23