Friday, July 16, 2010

The Heroic Age: Uncanny X-Men #1

Heroic Age: Uncanny X-Men #1: Writer: Matt Fraction. Art: A bunch of guys.

Review: This comic is actually a collection of three stories that take place post- X-Men Second Coming. What was Second Coming all about? Not only don't I know, I don't care. Since Christopher Yost was the driving force behind it I'm sure a bunch of X-characters were senselessly killed/maimed, but I digress. I'll take this story by story to try to keep this review somewhat orderly. Beast winds up running into Molly Hayes of Runaways fame, and she begins to question him about what exactly extinction means. Beast goes all scientific on her, and she winds up asking if it was true that mutants like her were on their way to extinction. Beast talks to her like a scientist, and says yes, muties are a thing of the past, which nearly drives Molly to tears. Eventually Beast softens his words and tells Molly to live life to its fullest, that way if there are no more muties, at least the ones who did exist would be looked back on fondly... Next up we get Hope Summers getting a check-up at the Baxter Building by Mr. Fantastic. After she checks out fine, Reed asks the girl if she has any family so he could check for any potential genetic diseases. Hope responds that she doesn't know who her real family was(since they were all slaughtered up in Alaska), which leads her to want to learn of her parentage. The final story follows Cyclops as he runs around killing innocent dinosaurs in the Savage Land. While Scott is “clearing his head” or as I'd say, going on a dinosaur killing rampage, Steve Rogers comes along and tells Scott that he'd like to honor him with a Presidential Medal of Freedom for his bravery during the Second Coming stuff. Scott decides to receive the medal, and Rogers hopes this signals a new age of understanding between humans and mutants. We end this issue with Scott meeting up with Hope at the X-Men's base. Scott begins to order her around, and she complains that she wants to find her family. Scott thinks for a moment, tosses his Medal into the sea, and tells Hope that she's free to do whatever she wanted, and that he'd send a team of X-Men to Alaska with her...

What I Thought: Umm, okay... The Beast and Hope stories weren't that bad, but the Cyclops one was kind of all over the place. I didn't get why Scott was hunting dinosaurs at the Savage Land(I guess that's now the X-Men's personal gaming resort?), and I sure as hell couldn't figure out what the symbolism was behind him throwing away the Medal... Something about him not wanting to have to deal with expectations anymore... I just didn't get it. If nothing else it seemed insanely disrespectful, considering Cap pulled a bunch of strings to get Cyclops the Medal and the positive press that went with it. And then you wonder why I hate Cyclops...

Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.Sure, that makes about as much sense as anything else that's happened in the X-books for the past 5 years...

8 comments:

  1. "You've reached Scott's answering machine, please leave a message after the beep."

    *BEEP*

    "Hey Scott, it's Steve Rogers. Sorry to bug you while you're out killing the cast of the Land Before Time, but I was hoping you could come back to the White House for a picture of you,me, and the president with your medal. It's just that he was so excited to give you that medal, and then had that emergency U.N. meeting and missed the ceremony. It will only take five minutes, I promise. Just make sure to wear a tux, and don't forget that medal! We'll do the rest. Thanks a lot man, I know I can count on you, since you're such a class act."

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  2. HA!!! Thank you Kello, you've made my night! Everything about that was perfect! Now I can go to sleep happy!

    Man is Cyclops a jerk...

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  3. The X-Men really need to stop going to the Savage Land. The place has become a total joke, to the point that I don't even want to read stories that take place there anymore. Same with Murderworld and the Mojoverse.

    Oh and from what I hear, Second Coming did indeed involve some significant maimings/killings of established X-characters, at least one of which is very upsetting to me.

    Also, Scott Summers is a douchebag.

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  4. "The X-Men really need to stop going to the Savage Land." Agreed! There's really not much more that can be done there... It was weird(and perhaps a bit disturbing)to see Scott just heading there to blow off steam and kill dinosaurs... And if I never saw Arcade and/or Mojo in a Marvel Comic again, I'd be VERY happy!

    Sadly I can't say I'm surprised... I know Cable died, since Scott and Hope kept mentioning that in this comic, but like I said, when Yost is involved, expect the body count to be high, since that's all he can do. Out of curiosity, which characters do you know where maimed/killed in Second Coming? I stopped reading all things X during that storyline, so I'm kind of interested in finding out before I hop back into the X-comics.

    "Also, Scott Summers is a douchebag." Once again, agreed! :P

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  5. From what I heard, Nightcrawler met a fairly grisly (and stupid) demise. And I didn't even know about Cable. Man, everything about that storyline just sounds horrendous.

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  6. Wow, why kill Kurt off?!? That seems SO unnecessary... But that's the main reason I won't pick up and read anything spearheaded by that nimrod Yost... I learned my lesson back when he destroyed New X-Men. Huh, Kurt being dead really sucks...

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  7. Why's Hope blonde? I thought she was, you know, a redhead...

    Savage Land sucks. Simple as... Scott is a douche. Agreed.

    So they killed Ariel, Nightcrawler, Vanisher and Cable. Too many teleporters X-Men?
    And stop killing characters...

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  8. Hope is a redhead, although it's tough to tell in the pic I posted... I guess since it was dark the lighting made her hair color look different... Or something!

    Agreed and agreed!

    And agreed some more! The sooner they get Yost the HELL away from the X-Universe, the better! I mean goddamn, if he keeps writing X-stories all you'll have left in the X-universe in 5 years time will be Wolverine and X-23!!!

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