2008-06-26

Uncanny X-Men #499 (also, there's some spoilers)

So, yesterday was New Comics Day, and you may have noticed that I didn't post any reviews. That wasn't to say that there weren't issues worth reviewing. In fact, it was a very good week for comics. Specifically, it marks the day when I actually found myself excited to read the next issue of Uncanny X-Men.

It should come as no surprise that I am a big fan of Ed Brubaker's work. I've written post after post talking about how much I enjoy his work on Captain America and Daredevil. He's right up there on my top 5 list of favorite writers. But, I realized recently that I've not talked a whole lot about his current run on Uncanny X-Men. Mostly just because I've been really underwhelmed by the storyline.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say that it's been a bad storyline. Brubaker's plot on this book has been just as good as his work everywhere else. I especially liked the past few issues with the strange 1960's hallucination thing going on. My big problem with the whole thing was that, even though it was a cool story and had a bunch of mutants that are associated with the X-Men, it just hasn't felt like the X-Books I know and love. Something was missing.

That something is the whole team dynamic that has always run through the character's storylines and the battle scenes. With the X-Men split up as they have been, the book as felt less like "X-Men" and more like "Cyclops and Emma Frost do stuff, while Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler do stuff somewhere else". But, that all changes in this issue. And, to be honest, I couldn't be happier.

The X-Men are getting back together, there's a new HQ in San Francisco, what more could one ask for?

Oh, wait, you say that Matt Fraction is joining the writing team next issue? So it will be Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction writing a book together?

Oh fuckity-fuck yes.