Is it the end? – review of the comic “Uncanny X-Men. The Fall of the Mutants”, vol. 1

Life for the X-Men group has never been easy. Although they saved the world more than once, most people were never very fond of them. Every now and then there was also someone who wanted to get rid of mutants for good. This time, it happened as well.

 

Chaos!

Without Charles Xavier and Cyclops, Kitty Pryde leads the X-Men team. It is on her shoulders to guide the old group members and teach the new ones. However, when she too disappears, chaos creeps into the ranks of the team. Jean Gray tries to control it, but the task is made difficult by the fact that supernatural phenomena begin to occur all over the Earth – giant insects and members of the Dark X-Men group appear, and dinosaurs return to life! In this situation, Homo Superior has their hands full. To make matters worse, Angel loses his mind and reunites with Magneto and Omega Red. The country is also flooded with subsequent versions of Multiple Man, and Legion is involved in everything. The heroes must find the source of these anomalies as soon as possible.

I have a bad feeling about this

Uncanny X-Men. The Fall of the Mutants is a comic book from the Marvel Fresh series. Ed Brisson, Matthew Rosenberg and Kelly Thompson are responsible for its script. Unfortunately, such a large number of authors did not affect the plot very well. While its main plot is interesting, unfortunately there are holes in many places. In an instant, an alternative, evil version of the Beast appears, and in a moment the character is completely forgotten. The Avengers are also mentioned, who reportedly help the X-Men to fight the anomalies, but their contribution to this unequal fight is not visible. These are just two of a few examples when it looks like someone is moving a topic that we give up after a while, but we do not undo our previous adventures and leave the reader to some consternation. Besides, we also have a lot of references to the group’s past and they are significant to the events. Therefore, if someone does not keep track of the history of mutants, may have a problem understanding all the threads, and thus discourage from further reading. And this is not the end of the disadvantages of this album. It was decided that an event so important for the X-Men should be attended by as many characters as possible. Thus, most of them appear practically for a moment, do not add much to the action and disappear for the next few pages, and we practically forget about them. Only the X-23 shines in these short scenes. Looking at the people who get more time, it’s practically just Jean, Psylocke, Legion and the main rival of the team (and a few new mutants about which I will talk about) show character here and are expressive enough. Let us add that the whole story is very long and there are repetitions of some actions in it. I think if you were to compress this comic and cut it in half,

There’s sweetnes in the mix

The story presented in The Fall of the Mutants it’s not the best, but luckily you can’t say it’s hopeless. As already mentioned, several of the participants in this adventure get along and pull the story forward, leaving a good impression. The writers also decided to introduce us to some slightly lesser known X-Men, and they did it. The Armor, Pixie, Glob and Rockslide quartet is doing great. You can see immediately what they are fighting for and what their plans are. Moving to an alternative reality, they take on even more character and grow into the foreground homo superior. If the developers continue on this track, they will find a lot of fans, and Marvel will benefit from them. To the pluses, the ending itself should also be added, which will probably surprise many readers and tempt them to reach for the second volume. In a way, fans of X-Men will also be pleased with the already mentioned references to the past of the team. The scriptwriters did not forget about any important moment and kept the comic book continuity.

You should watch this

While the comic’s plot leaves a lot to be desired, visually, you cannot have any comments. The RBSilva trio, Pere Pérez and Yildiray Cinar are responsible for the drawings for the album. The gentlemen rose to the occasion and gave us a great adventure. The combat scenes look great, and the performances of Storm and Archangel and the fight of X-23 with the tyrannosaur are downright epic! In addition, in such a multitude of various superheroes, they managed not only not to get lost, but to present everyone in such a way that the reader would have no doubts about who we are dealing with. You could even say that they gave them more expressiveness than the writers. The artists also took care of numerous details in the background, thanks to which we can even see the Red Guardian fighting a mammoth or Captain America struggling with a giant dragonfly on one of the TV sets. Finally, I will add that the drawings of all three do not differ much from each other, so we will not experience jumps and different styles here. Is that okay? I think that here each recipient has to judge for himself.

New form

In the case of Uncanny X-Men. The fall of the Mutants is also worth spending a few words on the release itself. Egmont doesn’t disappoint us again. First of all, at the beginning, we get a short introduction to history and a reminder of previous events. We will also find a presentation of the most important characters, which will make reading much easier for us, and perhaps also supplement the knowledge about the X-Men of people less interested in the activities of this team. There is also some novelty here. So far, we always got alternative covers at the end of the album. This time they are located between the individual chapters. This is a good solution because it makes it easier for us to match the drawings to specific events.

Nothing special

Uncanny X-Men. The Fall of the Mutants is a lumpy comic that disappoints in many ways. It has too many story holes, repetitions, and is too dragged out. Only a few of the heroes have a pretty good level, the rest will not be remembered, unfortunately. It is much better visually, and the release itself can be praised. What the writers succeeded in in turn was the ending. If we get to the last pages, it turns out that something is going on there that should tempt us to reach for the second volume.