Uncanny X-Men #5: All right, so, I didn't mind this issue. (It's certainly better than the Sinister ones.) Although it felt fairly similar to the Fantastic Four/X-Men arc in "X-Men" #16-#19, I thought Gillen did a good job of building some initital suspense as the X-Men began to explore the Savage Land-esque world. I do, however, have some comments:
First, both "Uncanny X-Men" and "Wolverine and the X-Men" this month deal with something that happened in "Uncanny X-Force." It appears that Marvel is now considering "Uncanny X-Force" a core book. (Do we really need five core books? Seriously.) "Wolverine and the X-Men" #4 dealt with the introduction of plot elements related to "Uncanny X-Force" pretty well, though I still don't have a great idea what happened. (From other blogs, I know it seems somehow related to the "Age of Apocalypse," but I have no idea how.) In this issue, we get a little bit more information, learning that Warren was possessed by Apocalypse and that Betsy had to mind-wipe him before he jump-started evolution. (We didn't hear anything about Kid Apocalypse, though, so I'm not entirely sure how Apocalypse got rebooted, so to speak.) Given that these issues run with intro pages, I feel like we could've gotten a little more information about the "Uncanny X-Force" events than we got. Instead, the intro page tells us who the characters are, as if we're new readers. If someone is such a new reader that he needs to have Cyclops' powers explained to him, than he's certainly not going to understand what's happening. Why waste the intro page on him when regular readers could've gotten a summary of what exactly happened in "Uncanny X-Force?" If those events are important enough to affect the plots of the two main core titles (I love that we now have "main core" and "other core") then they're important enough to mention in more than passing.
Second, I'm confused, to be honest, why Scott would be pissed to discover that X-Force was still operational. Mangeto makes it seem like Scott would hunt down X-Force, but that seems unrealistic (particularly gvien that he created them). I mean, given that Beast, Iceman, and Shadowcat know and didn't storm from Logan's side, why would Scott (of all people) be angry? Is it because someone is doing something outside his control? Or, more specifically, is it because Betsy is still participating in X-Force, despite the fact that it's Logan team? This threat of Scott discovering the existence of X-Force just seemed overstated to me, since it seems to be the worst-kept secret in the Marvel Universe.
Third, I'm not sure Gillen is really thriving depicting a team with nine members. The Cyclops/Storm and Magneto/Psylocke mini-teams were amusing and revealing, but the Colossus/Magik and Hope/Namor mini-teams just totally felt like filler. I feel like Gillen would do much better if he jettisoned one of these two mini-teams to be able to focus on a little more character development. As it is, the characters in this series so far have been little more than caricatures of who we all expect them to be. Gillen did a great job telling character-driven stories on this series before "X-Men: Schism," and I feel like we need to lose a few folks for him to be able to return to form.
Fourth, I'm really over Land's maniacal grins. Storm looks like she's going to kill Cyclops and eat his brains.
I'm still willing to give Gillen time to get his footing, but I have to repeat that I'm really not fond of this team at this point. Storm is essentially the only moral balance that the team has, meaning the interpersonal conflicts that we do have seem more the type that the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants would have and not that the X-Men would have. (I mean, when you have Magneto lecturing you about morality, you probably have to think twice about your actions.) I think this team would really benefit from the addition of someone like Storm to make it a little less...I don't know...testosterone-y.
X-Men Legacy #261: This issue makes this series yet again feel like the series that I thought "Wolverine and the X-Men" was going to be. We again see Rogue refusing to bring children into the battle, going so far as using her powers to borrow Kid Gladiator's powers rather than asking him to join the fight against Exodus. I have to admit that I don't really remember what went down the last time we saw Exodus. In fact, I seem to remember being generally confused by him when he last appeared in the comics, because, if I remember correctly, it wasn't until years after his debut that we really got any information about him. But, this issue does a good job of re-introducing him, even if it's vague on some of the details (like when exactly Professor X convinced him mutant harmony was in everyone's best interest). The best part is the end, with Logan and Rogue realizing they've inadvertently sent Exodus to kill Scott, showing that maybe the ties haven't been cut as much as we thought.
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