Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men has seen better days. I think Uncanny X-Men #470 continues that trend.
Creative Team:
Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciller: Billy Tan
Inker: Jon Sibal
Rating: 2 Night Girls out of 5.
Synopsis: The issue starts with Wolverine visiting Storm in Africa. Storm is looking to avenge the death of a mutant who used to protect a small village from a roving band of guerillas from the bordering country.
Then we go back to the X-Men’s mansion where it is the Rachel Summers story! She blah blah blahs about being a rebel, who she is and how she is going to slip off-grounds without ONE knowing about it. She does it with the help of Forge’s image inducer. We then have Val and Bishop engage in witty repartee about playing each other in chess. We then shift back to Rachel (shocker!) who is visiting Kitty Pryde’s shrink.
Back at the Xavier Institute, we have an actual Cannonball sighting!! Jeez, he is actually part of the team. He races a Sentinel but gets no speaking lines. Sorry, Cannonball, but only Rachel gets dialogue!
Then we go back to Rachel (surprise!) and she is still talking to the shrink about what has happened to her. We then go to Bishop visiting District X. Then we shift to Val asking Nightcrawler where Rachel would be since she has discovered the image inducer.
We zip back to District X where the Shi’ar soldiers break free and Bishop is there to give them a fight. Just when things look grim, the Sentinels along with Nightcrawler appear to help the fight. The Shi’ar warriors then teleport away. Where do they go? To Rachel, of course! They crash in on Rachel while she is telling her Shrink that she wants the Shi’ar dead.
Comments: Honestly, Uncanny X-Men has not been good for a long time. I really only collect it out of a feeling of commitment since I have every issue going back to X-Men #10 from the 1960s. I think that Chris Claremont is proving that you really can never go home again.
For me, Claremont’s original run on X-Men was the best in their entire history. Claremont was incredible. Now? I don’t know. It seems ever since Claremont came back to Marvel to write Excalibur, that his writing has really gone downhill. He seems obsessed with writing only about Rachel and no other character. They might as well rename the comic Rachel and the Uncanny X-Men. You wouldn’t even know that Storm, Cyclops, Wolverine, Beast, Psylocke or Cannonball were even on the team. All you get is a ton of Rachel shoved down our throats and a little bit of Bishop and Nightcrawler sprinkled in between.
Claremont just seems to have gone off on a complete tangent since he has returned to Marvel and it has lasted for years. I have found very little interesting in Claremont’s storyline in Uncanny X-Men. I think it may be time for a new writer and some more focused and different storylines. This title badly needs a new direction and I am definitely not talking about this new direction it has taken since the over-hyped and generally unimpressive House of M ended.
The art is average. Tan is serviceable, however, there is nothing particularly original or interesting about his art. It is sad to say, but Marvel’s supposed flagship title is clearly selling of name alone and not because of the actual content.
