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By Jason Bourgeois
2013 is quickly shaping up to be a year where I could start every column with my standard disclaimer and explanation of my general feelings over Brian Bendis. I hate banging on that drum, but he's writing a lot of books right now I'm actually getting, and they are definitely worth talking about.
I recently covered All-New X-Men and how much of a surprise that book was, but what about Uncanny X-Men? That's the grandaddy of X-Books. The flagship title. Even if it's now been restarted twice; but that's a rant for a different month.
How does his other X-Men title fare? How does Bendis do on the title that should be THE X-title?
In short, it's pretty damned terrible. But getting better. Slowly. So, very slowly.
Uncanny is the Bendis I know and loathe oh so very much. Characters are off, continuity is light (Although not that bad, all things considered), the plot often makes little sense, and the dialogue is repetitious.
The dialogue is repetitious?
Yes, the dialogue is repetitious.
The book starts off with Magneto going to SHIELD, in a terrible sequence trying oh so very hard to not reveal who he is, with the added bonus of having him shave his head. Because white hair would have been a dead giveaway, you see. No other reason is given. Magneto may as well have said, "I decided to shave off all my hair because the plot needed my identity kept secret."
Anyways, he's there to sic SHIELD on Cyclops and his rogue, revolutionary X-Men because Magneto doesn't think a mutant revolution will do anyone any good.
Magneto.
Fortunately, that turned out to maybe be a ruse, so I don't knock too much off for that one. But he, at the time a mysterious narrator, told SHIELD how Cyclops and friends had their powers broken because of the Phoenix Force. Okay, I can see revealing Cyclops' powers being weird, that's precious information to give away to win SHIELD over and let them know they have a chance to stop him.
But Magneto would never NEVER EVER reveal to humans that he was not at his best. He would guard that secret closer to his chest than the one about Cyclops sometimes slipping into Jean Grey's Phoenix outfit when he's feeling lonely. You could reveal that point to the readers in the scene he's narrating, since it's important that WE know, and why he can't handle the giant metal robots attacking, but to have him say Magneto is weak? No. No no no.
Which leads to a repeating plot point that there are Sentinels out there, all new Sentinels. Sentinels which look exactly the same as old Sentinels. And are not doing anything new. So to say that these are brand new, newly dangerous, new Sentinels, and not SHOW WHY is such a failure of storytelling. That's pretty basic. And since it keeps happening issue after issue...
Once the book got its setup underway, things got better, but it was such a rough setup, with all those Bendis tropes, it is such a frustrating book. There are good ideas there, but just handled so poorly, in my opinion.
My favourite part is the running gag that Bendis likes to stop fights just as they're about to get started, often as a cliffhanger, and then come back in the next issue with the fight over and done with. We're lucky if we get characters sitting around with doughnuts, "Boy, that was a tough fight! Good thing we did X thing to stop them!"
In Uncanny, Bendis has introduced an all-new mutant that has the power to stop time. She is literally Bendis powered. She can stop any fight, and let the team walk away.
The third issue is entitled, "Avengers vs. Uncanny X-Men: GO!" So, one would naturally think that the teams would, y'know...go at it. Fight. But nope! Bendis is pracitcally allergic to action scenes, so after half an issue of Cyclops yelling (Albeit very GOOD yelling, so there's that! If he's keeping the repetition down, Bendis is quite good at dialogue), the new girl freezes the Avengers and the team leaves.
On the art duties is Chris Bachalo, which I am split on. I don't hate his art, but I much prefer his style back before Age of Apocalypse, so uh...20 years ago. His newer style got really busy, crazy, and incomprehensible for awhile there, which is a bad thing on a group book that is frequently being attacked by giant, clunky robots. He's cleared up considerably from where he was 10 years ago, but he's far from an artist I look forward to these days. Oh, and his costume designs are just bad, they don't distinguish multiple characters, and his themes are almost as repetitious as Bendis's dialogue.
Fortunately, there is that slight improvement, so I'm sticking with the book for now, but it is dangerously close to me dropping it at a moment's notice. I don't think I can handle so many books written by Bendis at a time.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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