Title: Uncanny X-Men #15
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Art: Daniel Acuna
Publisher: Marvel
The last two issues of Uncanny X-Men have been amazing. Dare I say, better than the company wide summer event, AvX, which is currently creeping towards the upcoming Marvel rebranding.
There’s nothing worse than a writer prepping a delicious story just to forget about it later on in the series. Loose ends suck. I was concerned Gillen would drop the Sinister story he’s been crafting in favor of AvX content, but he’s actually married the parallel stories quite wonderfully. Particularly with the last issue.
Sinister has created an underground society of clones, all who are ‘plugged in’ to a massive consciousness. So, it would appear that Sinister is actually more a sentient force of nature than an individual. Kill one member of this Sinister society, and another will simply be produced on the manufacturing line, such as you’d see in a Twinkie factory. I may or may not be enjoying a delicious Twinkie at the time of writing this. Spoiler alert: I’m actually enjoying three Twinkies at the time of writing this.
Enough about Twinkies though, we’re talking about X-Men here. We’ll talk Twinkies and other snack cakes later. So, Sinister has reached an evolutionary stage that surpasses even the mutant race. Naturally, Cyclops has a problem with this. The fact that it was Sinister who filled Hope’s cranium with delusions of controlling the Phoenix didn’t help either. The issue ends with a battalion of Sinisters in Red Coats waging war on the Phoenix Five.
This issue actually gave us a much longer look at Cyclops than the AvX books have been providing. Uncanny X-Men # 15 really showed a side of the character that has been missing for a while. Albeit brief, we got to see a more talkative, rational Scott Summers. Fundamentally, he still pisses me off, but it was nice to see a bit of old Scotty still hanging in there.
The art from Acuna is energetic and fervent – always more than welcome. The Sinister city, modeled after London, looks alive and quite ‘chipper’ as I believe is often said over in England. But let’s not let quirks and quips define a nation, eh?
While some may argue, quite rationally, that the X-Men are a bit of a mess right now (stories, lineups, and X-Titles included) I was happy to read a well written X-Story that focused on the characters, while continuing a story with a neat angle and a revamped villain.
