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X-Men #500
Posted 28 Aug 2008
Writer: Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction
Artist: Greg Land
Artist: Terry Dodson
Publisher: Marvel
2.50 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Matthew Wead Jones
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I made my trip down to the comic shop on the wrong week this month
so I ended up late for issue #500 of Uncanny X-Men. I was
excited to see what it was that Mr. Brubaker might have in store since
it was obvious that for the last couple issues the lack of
storytelling was just a stall for the big bucks that come with a
500th issue. There’s nothing really wrong with wanting to be able to
start new on a turning point issue, but at the expense to the regular
buyer being three bucks a pop, it’s my personal belief that each story
should be worth that much.
On opening the book, I was unimpressed.
I’m not sure what it was that grabbed me as such first. The
writing, I knew going into it, was to be few and far between, but it’s
the art that kind of took be back. Although Greg Land draws a gorgeous
portrait of Emma Frost (who I swear changed between Heather Locklear
and Carmen Electra throughout the story) his use of thin, parallel,
side-to-side panels was unexciting at best.
“For a 500th issue, more should
have happened.”
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From the beginning of the story I saw the problems: an entire two
page spread where the X-Men are the main focus, yet a construction
worker in the foreground with absolutely no importance or implement of
storytelling occupies an entire right side of the page. Then to top it
off, Beast comes out of nowhere! You mean to tell me that in that
entire giant panel, there was nowhere Beast could have been standing,
waiting to jump into the conversation? Here's an idea: have
him talking to the construction worker!! Maybe if that had
happened I would be more forgiving about Angel's funky shoulders
and the undynamic scene of Emma, Beast, and Angel staggered side by
side yelling with inappropriate ferocity that is fundamentally
“Wolverine,” and no visual build up of intensity.
That's a whole chapter of How to Draw Comics the Marvel
Way.
But what frustrated me the most about the art, more than all the
large blue spaces that seemed to surround Magneto's tiny head in
just about every panel he was featured, and the way one panel carried
one piece of story (and not the simultaneous action that makes a comic
good), was in the simple scene where Angel says that he loves the view
from the HQ. We don't get to see the view, instead we see the
window that the view is seen from. Is it a poetic metaphor for the
theme of intolerance and discrimination or the laziness of an artist
who is far too good to make a mistake like that? I haven't a
clue. Now let's move on to the writing before we move on to the
praise.
I keep reading Uncanny even though every time I do I curse
it. Ed Brubaker is very good at what he does when he tells Captain
America or Daredevil stories, but this X-Men stuff is not his
niche. His ability to stretch ten pages of story into twenty-two,
perfectly illustrates why his “Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar
Empire” was twelve issues long, and Mike Carey (who is rocking
X-Men Legacy) used six issues to tell the
“Supernovas” story, and still told more story. I felt in
this issue I finally got a good story for a twenty-two page book,
only this was a thirty-seven page book. I don't mean to bash
Mr. Brubaker, I do admire his work, just not on this team book. As for
Matt Fraction, I know his name, but I'm not quite so familiar with
his work. I never did get the chance to read Immortal Iron
Fist. It's much easier to recognize the difference in art
styles than writing styles, so I don't know who to complain about
when it comes to what I think are the two greatest mistakes ever made
in X-Men characterization.
First! Whoever authorized Cyclops to say, “suck it”
as a comeback to Magneto's insult deserves to be sat on by Chris
Claremont.
Second! Whoever had Storm, an African goddess, begin a
sentence with “actually” when there was NO NEED for that
word (a huge pet peeve of mine when coming from a gum chewing teenage
girl, much less an African GODDESS!) deserves to be strangled
by the ghost of Dave Cockrum.
To end on a good note though: Terry Dodson. Mr. Dodson saved this
issue (if not because Emma looked the same for all his scenes). The
art was good, consistent, clean, and with perfect intensity and
climax. Those pages were what kept me going through those
thirty-seven pages. I cannot thank Marvel enough for hiring this
man to this story. There were good Greg Land parts, yes. He's a
professional and has a firm grasp on what he does, but Terry Dodson,
to me, seemed to better understand the feel of an X-Book. The
writing did have its peaks here and there with the dialogue and real
life portrayal of ignorant homo sapiens, but I found that as a 500th
issue, more should have happened.
—CCdC—
Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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