Uncanny X-Men #475-#477: "The Rise and Fall of the Shi'Ar Empire:" Parts 1-3

I wasn't planning on reviewing "The Rise and Fall of the Shi'Ar Empire," but I'm finding reviewing is like a drug!  I decided to read this arc partly because I was interested in the Vulcan character after reading the "X-Men:  Deadly Genesis" TPB a few years ago.  But, mostly, it's because of the current storyline in "X-Men Legacy," where Rogue and company go into space to retrieve Havok, Marvel Girl, and Polaris, and because the events in "Rise and Fall" play a part in "War of Kings," which I'm approaching as I make my way through the "Nova" series.  In other words, I'm mostly reading it as background.  But, after the awesome first issue, I find myself sucked into the world Brubaker creates, so I definitely want to talk about it.  I'm going to be a little easier on myself, though, going with the paragraph review rather than a full-on page review with summaries, goods, bads, etc.  Enough shop talk, though.  Onto the reviewing!

Uncanny X-Men #475:  As an issue setting the stage for an ambitious 12-issue arc, this one should be taught as the urtext at Comic Book Writer University.  At first it appears that the Professor, who has lost his powers as a result of the events of "House of M" and his respect as a result of the revelations of "X-Men:  Deadly Genesis," is gathering a small team just to rescue Polaris, an initial stab at addressing past mistakes.  (I'm not exactly sure what happened to Lorna, but, with Lorna, it's always something.  This time, it appears it was Apocalypse.  Last time, it was Magneto, and Malice before him.  Whatever.  It would be nice for her actually not to be a mess for once.  But, I digress.)  We see him recruiting several of the team members, and only his conversation with Rachel implies that something more than rescuing Lorna is at hand.  The story of retrieving Lorna, in and of itself, is an exciting one.  Brubaker puts together an inspired team, with Warpath taking on the role usually reserved for Colossus, an addition that adds a new element to the interactions between the characters.  (Moreover, Tan beautifully captures Warpath's kinetic fighting style, thriving in his depiction of close-quarters combat in the streets of Cairo.)  But, Brubaker kicks it up a notch when he reveals the twist, that the Professor was leading the team to rescue Lorna not for Lorna in and of herself but to add her to the team going into space to retrieve Vulcan.  This twist is brilliant not just because of the awesomeness of the X-Men rocketing into space once more, but also because it seriously underlines how much of a bastard Charles Xavier is.  He seemed fine with Lorna wandering the streets of Cairo until he needed her.  I mean, both Havok and Xavier mention that she should've expected them to rescue her, but, seriously, why did they wait until they needed her to do it?  For me, this behavior gives added weight to the impact of the revelations in "X-Men:  Deadly Genesis."  Brubaker creates a sense throughout the book that Xavier is going behind Scott's back to put together this team and bring them on yet another crazy mission.  Xavier may be talking about redemption, but he's not exactly doing anything different.  I don't know how Brubaker manages to do all that in one issue, but it's why the man's good at his job.

Uncanny X-Men #476:  Brubaker does a great job building on the situations he set into motion in the first issue of this arc.  As I mentioned before, Warpath is a great addition to the team.  If it had been Colossus, the character dynamics would've derived from a well-oiled team fighting the enemy yet again.  Instead, Brubaker creates tension, since Warpath hasn't been completely integrated into the X-Men way of thinking.  He argues with Havok and he brushes off Xavier's attempt to chastise him for killing.  Moreover, the conversation between Scott, Xavier, and Alex clarifies the question I had from the first issue, if Xavier had sought Scott's approval before leaving (and, though I didn't mention it, why Alex had forgiven Xavier enough to agree to go with him).  As he does currently in "Captain America," Brubaker is a master of characterization, and he really excels when he's carrying relationships from issue to issue.  By creating the sense that Xavier was sneaking behind Scott's back in the first issue (and waiting until this issue to show the conversation they had about the mission), Brubaker is slowly playing out the shift of power from Xavier to Scott.  Having cleared the decks of those issues, Brubaker now hurls us into the matter at hand, the X-Men in space.  Awesome.

Uncanny X-Men #477:  One of the nice things about a 12-issue arc is that you're not exactly in a rush.  Brubaker pauses the X-Men's story here, leaving them drifting in space, in order to focus on Vulcan and what he's been doing since the end of "X-Men:  Deadly Genesis."  As implied at the end of last issue, we see that Vulcan doesn't just possess a Havok-like level of power, but also a Cyclops-like command of tactics.  After learning about the Shi'Ar stargates and capturing a ship to access them, Vulcan goes about destroying the gates as he makes his way to the Shi'Ar throneworld.  However, he leaves one gate intact, so that the X-Men can make a jump from Earth...and then find themselves with no gates left to lead them further.  Brilliant.  The rest of the issue fleshes out Vulcan as a character, giving us a better sense of just how tortured Vulcan is than we got form "X-Men:  Deadly Genesis."  Brubaker explains how the trauma of Marvel Girl showing Corsair's memories of Vulcan's "death" to him is really what drives him over the edge, an edge on which he had already been standing when he awoke and realized that he and his teammates had been left for dead by Xavier after their failed attempt to rescue the X-Men on Krakoa.  It's hard to view Vulcan as a sympathetic character, but Brubaker actually brings us close to it with this issue, an excellent character study of a seriously troubled character.

Final Thoughts:  We're a quarter of the way through the arc at this point, and Brubaker has set the stage for a really exciting story.  If I didn't know Brubaker from his "Captain America" run, I'd be a little skeptical that amazing things were going to happen, given that, after three issues, Vulcan is only now approaching the Shi'Ar Empire and the X-Men are drifting in space.  But, I know Brubaker is taking his time, building the story, creating small sub-plots that will all come together at the end.  As such, it's been fun to watch him ply his craft here, creating a fully-realized world with real-life characters.  I can't wait to see where it goes.