Uncanny X-Men # 511
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Greg Land, Jay Leisten, Terry Dodson, and Rachel Dodson
Cover by Greg Land
“We’re the X-Men, Emma, and we’re PISSED OFF!”
This line from Scott Summers pretty much sums up the theme of this issue. Scott, Logan, Northstar, and Colossus hop into the Blackbird to try to intercept his ex-wife Madelyne Pryor and her Sisterhood (consisting of Spiral, Deathstrike, the Mastermind Sisters, and Chimera) before they reach the gravesite of Jean Grey. In the previous issue, Madelyne had stolen a lock of Jean’s hair from Wolverine’s quarters (creepy) and hopes to use her newfound powers as the so-called “Red Queen” to take possession of Jean’s body. Meanwhile at the X-Men’s new San Fran headquarters, Emma Frost, Dazzler, Storm, and Karma do battle with the rest of Maddie’s gang , which includes a mind-controlled Psylocke.
Surprisingly (spoiler alert…I guess), this issue does not wind up with Jean’s resurrection, so Marvel is at least letting that dead horse recover for a while. What this issue does offer, however, is a lot of clumsy dialogue, gratuitous butt shots, and hilariously exaggerated facial expressions.
Founding Pop! Star Jason Kerouac has already (and very eloquently) described Greg Land’s “art style” in this BLAARGH! column, and this issue provides more of the same from Land. As always, his art works well for pinups but does very little in the realm of storytelling. His drawings have little to no sense of movement, the faces of his characters are inconsistent from page to page, and well, we all know about the faces and poses. The art would (mostly) be forgiven if not for the sheer inanity of the dialogue. Matt Fraction can do really good work, but it’s hard to defend writing such as what is found on page 17, which is comprised only of one-word sentences:
Cyclops: Maddie.
Wolverine: Deathstrike.
Deathstrike: Logan.
Colossus: Duck!
Domino: Done.
Spiral: Die!
Northstar: No.
I’m not really sure what Fraction was going for here, but on the page, it reads very awkwardly. Anyway, this issue marks a transition between arcs and a passing of the torch from Land and Leisten to the much more talented artist team of Terry and Rachel Dodson. The Dodsons illustrate the final two pages and set up the next arc, which judging from the issue desciptions on Marvel.com have something to do with Beast and the origins of the Hellfire Club. All in all, this was not a good issue of Uncanny X-Men to say the least, but at least the art looks to improve with Land leaving the title, hopefully for a good long while.
Rating – 2 out of 5 Photoshopped porn pics
First off, thanks for the shout out Ben-ha-meen. Secondly, yes. To everything you just said. Land’s abysmal “art” coupled with the plot and dialog Fraction seems to have sleepwalked through just creates a terrible experience. I think Land’s art only serves to cripple Fraction’s writing further, in fact.
The scenes with Betsy fighting Kwannon and “returning”… with the right artist, those could have been some heartfelt and exciting moments. Instead… they were just awkward and uninspired. Conversely, look at the pages with Beast, Scott, and Emma. The Dodson magic MAKES those pages pop, and makes that confrontation epic. Imagine if they’d left that scene to Land. It would’ve been a giant cat sitting on the bed talking to Scott and Emma, who both would’ve been grinning ridiculously, and Emma either would’ve been arching her back or would’ve had her hands on her hips. Ugh.
As an aside… this is the second time that a return has been teased, only to have the ACTUAL returning cast member be Betsy. Back in the Kubert days of adjectiveless, a purple cape on the cover and a shocked reaction from the team, paired with the teaser of “Look who’s back” (or something to that effect) led fans to believe the Master of Magnetism had risen from the grave. Instead, we got Revanche. At the time, I didn’t know Betsy’s history, and this issue made me want to killy baby sheep. Of course, since then, I’ve learned not to trust these duplicitous bastards, so 511 only made me want to claw my eyes out so I’d never have to look at Land’s work again.
This issue had so many problems, but now i completely lost faith in Fraction. This lazy writing makes me sick. i don’t mind the tease because I was positive that somehow Jean won’t be revived. The way it was done, though, was totally lame. Anyway, here’s a rundown of the issue:
- Despite everything I think about Greg Land, the first half of the issue was drawn in a nice way and the tracing wasn’t visible much. It still consisted on stiff characters that look like they pose for a photoshoot than moving or participating in a fight. It seems to me that unlike many of the fans attacking Land for his misdeeds, I have much a bigger problem with his style. If you manage to ignore his sins and forgive him, his art is still stiff and many times consists on unfinished material. Compare the faces Land seems to work hard on (the supposedly traced ones) to Shan and Dazzler’s faces in that infamous panel standing behind Emma.
- Speaking of Shan, Fraction introduces her with the tagline “Underestimated and ignored a lot”. The rest of the story completely ignores her and she merely acts as a background character. Don’t expect the spotlight Alison got here and the return of Betsy to make them any bigger characters in this series than their Vietnamese friend. Northstar basically got the same treatment here.
- And the introduction boxes? Enough with that! That stupid gimmick stopped being funny 10 issues ago.
- Page 1: Scott’s inner dialogue makes no sense. Page 3: Emma is most likely standing and communicating with Scott. Next panel, Emma and X-gals run. Second to next panel, Emma seems to stop and talk to Scott, since she can do both actions at the same time. Page 6: The infamous panel. ‘Nuff said. Page 7: What is that damn red light? And how did Domino made it there so fast from Japan? Don’t expect to see her in the future either. Gosh, her hair looks awful. You know, Chimera’s monsters remind me of the way Land sometimes draw Beast. Weird… Pages 13-14: Parental advisory, anyone? Pages 15-16: The one-word exchange pages. Damn you, Cyclops, you had to break the streak?! Page 18: If it wasn’t Jean’s body, who was it? And how come the lock of hair directed the Sisterhood to that grave, then? Pages 19-20: Betsy finally fulfills her dream to become a wrestler and puts Kwannon into submission. Nothing in that panel makes sense anatomically. Nothing like ending Betsy’s big fight with her posing for a pin-up shot. Damn, she looks directly at me! Page 21: Blah blah blah blah we tricked you since Marvel is not ready to bring Jean back yet without a big event. Page 22: Domino seems to shoot right behind Spiral’s head, but she doesn’t get hurt. Oh, well. Page 23: Emma is so badass in her diamond form, kicking the hell out of blond Mastermind, no way her teammates will be able to get her away! Page 24: But… but… how did Emma is suddenly in her human form and Mastermind escaped??! She had to give Scott the good/bad news about Betsy’s return. “Our cast just grew again”. Who’s going to break it to Shan and Northstar that they’ll lose more face time? You know, with that quote and the description of Shan earlier, I think Fraction sneaked criticism of his editors. That devious… Pages 25-26: Change of art styles! Can’t say much about that but being thankful for the Dodsons. The switch to next story arc and Hank leading Emma and Scott into a future friction and an opportunity to deal with their problems. “I’m going to my mom with the kids and when I’m back, you better clean this mess.”
I think I had a lot more to bitch about, but that’s enough. Oh, and I can’t believe I actually read good reviews of this issue. While I can ignore the art and focus on the story, they were both equally terrible this time.
I didn’t want to mix it with the other comment, but I had a theory popping in my head during writing about the last two pages. I don’t know if it’s the effects of reading yesterday about Morrison’s last story arc (i hated it, BTW) and the end where future Jean changed everything so that terrible future won’t come to be; but this friction between Hank and Emma & Scott, and him criticizing them, could easily lead to him becoming nuts and evil in the future. I don’t know if that’s what Fraction has in mind, but I won’t be surprised if he takes Hank on this road of being sick of all the secrets and evil going on under the surface, and the burden of trying to save mutantkind. If Scott and Emma’s actions will break the X-Men/mutantkind – it’ll more than hurt him, I think.
Only problem… Beast wasn’t evil. Sublime was controlling him.
This was actually the first X-title I’ve picked up in at least four years. I was a fan of Psylocke when I was younger and had heard of her coming back, so I figured “eh, why not grab an issue to check up on how things are going.” Man, what a horrible time to decide to try and get back into X-Men.
I don’t know how long they’ve been doing that little pop-up short character summary whenever a character makes his/her issue-first-appearance, but it would get annoying fast after a couple issues.
That page with the constant one-word discussions was weird to read. Psylocke’s dialogue when fighting Kwarno was generic and boring. With few exceptions (last two pages), the dialogue was just horrible in general. Maybe I expected too much since it was the reason I got the issue, but it was just so horribly disappointing.
Like I said, guess it was a bad issue to come back to, heh.
@Z-ROE: The little summaries started with issue #500. And yes, it got boring after two issues.
As we all know, anything in this industry – especially at Marvel – can be retconned.
By US! BOOSH!
I know this is late, but I have to share my thoughts as posted elsewhere, extended a bit:
This was supposed to be the conclusion to the Sisterhood arc. So, you’re expecting something that will turn the Marvel Mutants on their ear — the return of Maddy, the return of Jean, the return of Betsy in her Anglo body…only NONE OF THAT CRAP HAPPENED. It was a huge let down. Let me repeat: NOTHING IMPORTANT HAPPENED. There was no change to any status quo, the characters were completely OUT of character, there was no resolution to the uncomfortable truth that Logan had been keeping a lock of Jean’s hair all these years…it just freaking ended.
And Dazzler would never use a LASER on a former teammate. She’s capable of concussive photon blasts that would have been just as sufficient. And oh my gosh, am I tired of Fraction writing Dazzler as an older Brittney Spears. She was the leader of an otherdimensional rebellion, a temporary herald of Galactus, a movie star, and an X-Man. She’s more than just an aging pop star. I seriously have problems with her being all ‘hey, Bets, remember when we were X-Men together before you went all Japanese?’ It was just awful.
And I agree with Tomer that Shan was just abused in this issue. And, oddly, I found myself wondering why the hell she was even there, since over in New Mutants she’s locked down in Legion’s mind and her body is unconscious. Again, Fraction doesn’t take the time to find out what’s going on concurrently in other X-titles, because he doesn’t care…so long as he can make some clever quip at their expense.
It was just crap. It was a weak ending to what could and should have been an awesome story arc. Fraction has no love or connection to these characters and their history, and it shows.
Hopefully the issue that comes out today will be much improved.