Review – Uncanny X-Men 544
How do you end a series that started in 1963; that for a generation or more defined the American superhero genre like no other, and that is the only one of the Silver Age Marvel series still being published in its original volume and numbering?
And do you do it differently if you know that you're relaunching it the following month?
I'm not sure what writer Kieron Gillen would have done with the version of Uncanny X-Men #544 in the first situation, because he finds himself squarely in the second, and the 'final' issue of Uncanny he's opted for probably wisely sets the stage for what's to come as much as it reflects on what came before. After all, doing a big elegiac wrap-up of an era that you just know is going to have a "See you next month!" promo stuck at the end is a fairly self-defeating exercise.
The set-up is that coming out of recent X-Men event series Schism, the X-Men are splitting along ideological lines. One side, the side coming back in Uncanny #1 next month, is the team led by Cyclops who believe that the survival of the species requires that every mutant be potentially regarded as a combatant, even the kids. So the kids who are staying, including most notably the new team led by Hope, are aware that they're putting themselves in the firing line along with the adults who are happy to put them there. The central role of youth-as-warrior in the entire history of the team is highlighted extremely well (and extremely subtly) by a reuse of the art from the very first page of issue #1 with new dialogue reflecting the changed situation since. That first issue went on to have Professor X send his teenage students into combat against Magneto. Cyclops is maybe not so far away from Professor X's example as is usually suggested.
This issue goes on to counterpoint the final departures from current headquarters Utopia with the scheming of one of the more interesting 'later generation' X-villains, Mr Sinister, whose long term manipulation of the team, and the Summers family in particular, is revisited, showing by his accurate predictions of their various behaviours exactly how big a threat he can (and inevitably will) be to the entire X-family.
In the course of twelve or so issues, Gillen has rapidly established himself as one of the better X-Men writers of recent years, and this issue, serving as the epilogue not only to almost fifty years of the series, but also to Schism, does the closure thing without making it maudlin, but also opens up storylines for the new start.
I'm not a huge fan of artist Greg Land's current porno-tracing style, though he's toned things down of late, and this final outing actually has some nice moments in it - the best I'll say for it is that it doesn't detract from Gillen's story.
The X-Men have had their ups and downs creatively over the decades, but they've been, and remain, one of the strongest concepts in superheroics, and an important part of my cultural landscape for most of my life. Though I've drifted from comics a couple of times, it's always the X-Men that have initially drawn me back. If they were ending 'properly' I'd obviously be sadder than I am - as it is I'll give Gillen and Land (but mostly Gillen) credit for a well-crafted, dignified close with a hint of the promise of the new beginning.
52 x 1 = 0
In the world of comics, the apparently biggest news of the year so far is that DC are cancelling their entire line in a few months, then relaunching fifty two new series with issue one the following month. The entire DC Universe is being recreated with a new history and everything. Excuse me while I yawn widely.
It has to be said that I lost pretty much all interest in DC Universe titles a while ago, even in the last hold-out, Gail Simone's Secret Six. Admittedly of the big two I was always way more a Marvel boy than a DC fan, but the last few years, DC seem actively to have been working to create a universe designed to exclude people who haven't read every single title for years, so self-referential and governed by a weird mix of nostalgia and externally-imposed (ie at the company-wide level) has it been.
So it's not surprising that I'm not the most excited person in the world by this announcement, but honestly, it's a little surprising to realise that the last few years' worth of creative decisions have killed off my interest in the entire DCU so totally that I can't dredge up enough interest, even in characters that I like when done well, to be considering buying even a single one of these new series. Not one.
And actually, in a way, it's just another such piece of pointless editorial/corporate imposition that really finally determined me not to be part of it. Fifty-two new series. Fifty-two? Seriously, fifty-two exactly? A number that has taken on a truly monumental (though pointless) importance in the world of DC the last few years, from the name of its year-long weekly series to the recreation of the DC multiverse with 52 universes in it. And that just happens to be the number of new series that were worthy of being born out of the ashes of the old DC? Seriously? So how many not-so-great pitches did you have to accept, or good ones got rejected, to make that exact number of relaunches? I'd be far more tempted to try a few of 35 or 61 new titles. As it is, birthing a new universe under the obvious auspices of the mandates that rendered the old one unreadable? Not touching that with a bargepole.
Switching To Trades
I've been reading comics for a very long time, whether British kiddy comics, US superhero stuff, or more mature imprints like Vertigo. I've twice lapsed in any extended manner - once in my teens when I couldn't afford to support the habit, and the second time in the late 90s when I just kind of lost interest for a while. I'm not even sure what it was that caused me to drift back into them, but since I did I've been buying US comics month in and month out, the bulk being Marvel titles, some Vertigo, and a solid minority of creator-owned material. Having The Mrs share a lot of my preferences in this stuff helps of course. I've written enough about them on this blog over the years that I have a posts category for them.
But, and it's interesting that this has been encroaching at the same time as the MMO malaise crept in, I've lost interest in a very large proportion of the things I've been following solidly for years. Titles and creators that used to excite me... don't. News sites and feeds I used to keep an eye on daily go unread for weeks at a time. And we've made a policy decision that those few titles which still interest us we're going to switch from monthly publishing to buying the collected editions of. Most of these titles are part of relatively established ongoing collection programmes, and it just means we wait a few months to read a story in one hit rather than issue by issue. In truth, a lot of the time things have been going unread until after the next issue comes along anyway. PLUS: the collections look far more presentable on a shelf.
So we're not giving up on them completely, but we are cutting back, and changing our approach to them. And even what I feel like I want to follow I'm not hugely enthused by.
Between this and the fading of MMO interest, I'm wondering if horribly belatedly I'm turning into a grown-up.