Uncanny X-men #1
Happy Thursday, everyone! Hope the week has been treating you right! Today, I’ll be reviewing one of the comic books I was able to pick up from my local comic store. In 2019, I aim to focus my reading on three series of inspiration: Uncanny X-men, Miles Morales: Spider-man, and Black Panther. In anticipation for the new shift in direction across these series, I wanted to take a look at where they are now. X-men has always been my favorite comic book series, and it is one of the main reasons I’ve found Metamorphs so fun to write. With the Uncanny X-men, they will soon be wrapping up their X-men: Disassembled arc before coming back strong in the new year. As for today’s review, here are my thoughts:
Cover– Leinil Francis Yu and Edgar Delgado make a classic X-men cover with this issue. Nothing too fancy, just the team doing their classic hero poses the way I’ve always remembered them. One thing about the cover is that it incorporates a lot of characters, almost too many, which leads to one of the major issues of this arc. It feels crowded from the get go, although I must say they did a great job, particularly with the details on Bishop, Jubilee, and Nightcrawler.
Artwork– Mahmud Asrar does well here with his work. While at times I wish there were better details within the panels, he makes a generally colorful and animated scene with each image. It isn’t my favorite style, but it is nevertheless still pleasing to the eye. The action sequences are very well done and give the reader a sense of danger within the panels. His full page/double page images are wonderful.
Story– Wow, this is bad. I’ve read a few more issues past this and it doesn’t get much better. Especially for those trying to get back into it, the story is terribly confusing. There’s waaaay too much going on with too little explanations of any consequence. The X-men definitely need to pare down their numbers as it’s difficult to follow or care about any of them. None of the characters are given time to shine, and the plot-line feels like a massive mess. The dialogue between characters also seem borderline corny and uninspired. I’m hoping this all leads to a complete wipe of the team and return to the original, smaller lineup, but honestly, I’ll wait until January for the relaunch as this doesn’t even feel worth following.
Overall- (4/10) This was a rough way to get back into X-men, and I’m hoping the new launch in January gets them back on stable footing. Uncanny X-men is way too good of a storied series to be putting out product like this. Fingers crossed, the new year will be good to them.