This week as the 411 review staff was sitting around our rather large (nonexistent) round table, we decided to talk about Chuck Austen and Kia Asamiya’s newest issue of Uncanny X-Men. I have to warn you ahead of time though…if you thought last week’s Daredevil discussion was a little lopsided, this one is all over the place.
Uncanny X-Men #419
Written by: Chuck Austen
Art by: Kia Asamiya
Colors: JD Smith
Letters: Paul Tutronee
Assistant Editors: Mike Raicht and Nove Ren Suma
Editor: Mike Marts
Editor in Chief: Joe Quesada
President: Bill Jemas
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Dave Graham:
Austen’s current storyline has left me a little cold, although the dialogue is still well done. The first element of the story revolves around Polaris, Nurse Ghazikhanian, and Havok’s coma. This storyline hasn’t really engaged me, and here does little to improve on this. Husk is an interesting character, and her insecurities allow for some appealing moments in the woods. The Nightcrawler sequence is interesting, letting us into Kurt’s psyche and his current troubles. Kia Asamiya’s art continues to impress, giving an interesting look to the characters. Overall, an issue that sums some things up but does nothing to advance the overall story.
6.0
Jesse Baker:
Good News: Havok is out of coma at long last
Bad News: Husk is still alive, which hurts Chuck Austen’s credibility given his big rant about death a month ago.
The Ugly: Kia Asamiya’s art. I never thought I would say this, but I miss Sean Phillips’s artwork. At least Ron Garney’s coming back soon for a multi-part arc soon.
8.0
Kevin Rapp:
Austen has nothing of true substance in his Uncanny run. The characterization is spotty and sometimes comes out of nowhere. None of his ideas are new or exciting. The stories are dull. If this is the new breakout talent that Marvel is going to be putting on more books, then it’s a good thing that I won’t need to be spending money on those titles. The fact is he can’t even steal ideas from Morrison very well. I’d take Casey’s run, it had good, fresh ideas with poor execution, over this…whatever this is. The bottom line is, it’s not good.
2.0
Daron Kappauff, hey that’s me:
As much as I’ve loved Austen’s run on this series, this has to have been the slowest issue yet. That’s not to say it takes a long time to read, it’s just that this issue only moves the story along a very tiny bit. The fact Husk is apparently not dead has a lot of people up in arms, but it didn’t affect me at all. What did affect me though was the art. Usually I like Kia’s art, but something about this issue seemed to be rushed. I don’t know if it was the inks but a lot of the panels looked more sketchy than normal. As one of my colleagues stated, the high point of this issue has to be the fact that Alex Summers, Havok, is finally out of his comma and back in the ‘regular’ Marvel Universe. Overall, this was a decent issue, not as good as the rest of Austen’s or Kia’s work on the title, but still better than any issue of what constitutes New X-Men. (Any idea why they called it New X-Men when it was over 100 issues old when Morrison started on the book? Just curious.)
7.0
Well that was a bit painful and yet uplifting all at the same time. It’s apparent again this week that there’s something for everyone out there, but at the same time, not everyone likes the same stuff…the choices is ultimately yours though.
