Dex's Comic Awareness

Uncanny X-Men #464
written by Chris Claremont
pencils & cover by Chris Bachalo

Wow. What a difference an artist can make. I love this comic now. Yes I'm biased. I am a HUGE fan of Chris Bachalo and am more than thrilled to see him join on as the regular artist.

Now I don't know if this is a result of Bachalo's jumping on or not but it really seemed like Claremont shied away from using too many captions and explanations in his writing this issue. Which is the way I want it but it is ironic that he does it when he gets an artist known for having confusing panels from time to time.

Pretty much the fact that TJ, Nocturne, even exists is a scandal for the House of M because she is the daughter of Wanda and Kurt. An illegitimate daughter in this world. But what I don't know is how they found out about her in the first place? Oh I know Prof X knew but how did this Magneto, who seems to not know that he's to blame for all this know? And when did Psylocke begin to fly? Isn't that a new trick for her people? What gives?

But out of ALL the side stories this one is easily the best simply because what the heroes are doing actually matters. They are trying to keep the whole dimension they live in from being destroyed by Roma. Now that's a goal that needs to be worked towards people. Hulk fighting AIM is not.

Rating - Good

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Uncanny X-Men #463
written by Chris Claremont
pencils & cover by Alan Davis

Another adventure with Chris Claremont, another crappy issue. It's not that he doesn't do a good job of what he aims to do. It's just that I don't like what he's aiming for. He always tends to write a campy, cheesy story with redundant dialogue that borders on treating the reader like a retard. His characters are all full of tongue in cheek comments and little asides and it all feels like a bad sitcom. I'm telling you this up front so that you can take my review of his work, and subsequent reviews as long as he stays on Uncanny X-Men, with a grain of salt. Like I said, he does a great job of writing the type of X-book that he sets out to write and I must admit that I like the fact that the X-books are not just carbon copies of each other. On to the issue.

Last issue we had Captain Britain and company trying to stop the destruction of reality as they knew it. It was a nice concept to have the protagonists actually trying to stop the whole incident but it was full of meaningless characters from alternate realities we'll never see again. And CC has a habit of throwing in characters that you'd have to have been reading X-Men for a long time to know. It's so odd that he doesn't explain these people more but every issue we seem to get treated with the same breakdowns of the main character's powers instead. I think Rachel made the analogy that Psylocke can move mountains while she is better for the small stuff about four times in this issue. Alright CC, I freaking get the clue.

Well, the plot swirls around the idea of the characters only having 48 hours to fix everything or the whole plane of existence our world is in will be destroyed. At least this tie-in has a purpose; just too bad our characters don't know it. They are mind wiped like everyone else, even Rachel. Only Captain Britain's dream begins them on the path to fixing it. They hear about some disturbance in England and they go to check it out. They show up to a battle between Juggernaut and a group headed by Calisto. That Elephant guy is in the group, Tusk I think it is, and I actually like his character. That is for a one-dimensional bad guy, he isn't so bad.

And this fight scene is also pretty good. The act of dropping Blob onto Juggs to knock him out was pretty nice. The campy lines afterwards almost ruined it but...it was still good. Definitely one of his better layouts for sure. We have the obligatory comment from Banshee where he explains exactly what his power is and what it's doing to Juggs. Whatever.

I don't know about anyone else but the idea of Calisto having the same exact tentacle arms seems pretty stupid to me. I always thought it was a bad move to begin with, but to have every character in the exact same outfit as they are always in is boring. Now to CC's credit, Psylocke gets a nice outfit that's pretty cool.

Psylocke and Rachel head off to find Nocturne who Rachel can sense. But for some reason you can't sense the guy that's twenty yards behind her while she can sense a person that's mile away and that's she doesn't know she's ever met? They find Nocturne, end of comic.

A couple of funny panel work in this issue. Nothing bad per se but stuff that, if taken out of context, would seem to mean something else entirely. The seen where Captain Britain asks Ross to lift her skirt to show her tattoo is followed up by the panel of her crying in what looks like humiliation. I laughed because it looked like she was being sexually harassed. Oh come on, stop looking at me like that. I laughed because I KNOW Captain Britain would never do that. You'd laugh too. Davis' art fits the style of the book well, which is to say I don't really like it either. But it is clear to follow and every now and then he'll make a dazzling panel.

I'm going to give it a good but only because I recognize what CC is trying to do. This issue has a decent fight scene and a fairly easy to follow plot that doesn't get bogged down in tangents, like he normally does. If you like this kind of thing than by all means, buy this issue.

Rating - Good