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Uncanny X-Men # 431
"The Draco"
Part 3 of 6 |
Rating:
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Writer:
Chuck Austen
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Penciller:
Philip Tan
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Key Events
- Polaris revealed to be Magneto's daughter
- First appearance of Jillian
- Jubilee actually gets to speak!
Questions Raised
- Why? For the love of Magneto, why?
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Inker:
Philip Tan
| Colours:
Avalon Studios |
Letterer:
Rus Wooton
| Editor:
Mike Marts |
EIC:
Joe Quesada
| Date:
November 2003 |
| Featuring:
Polaris, Xavier, Annie, Havok, Husk, Jubilee, Archangel, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Sammy |
| Versus:
Azazel, Jillian, many demons |
Quick Synopsis:
The three storylines continue to wind their way along: Polaris starts to feel better, Northstar is still unable to have a conversation that doesn't bring up his sexuality, and Havok, disappointingly, did not explode last issue.
Full Synopsis:
Lorna continues her psychic therapy, Xavier and Annie in tow. She reveals that she received confirmation that "genetically, Magneto was my father." Doing further research, it looks as though the plane crash that killed Lorna's mother was caused by Magneto. Furious, Lorna returns to Genosha, and is surprised when she's greeted by the people as a celebrity, like a "sovereign princess". And then the Sentinels attacked.
Instead of exploding, Havok appears to have someone managed to pull everyone into the dimensional rift, although there are no demons to be seen. Kurt is with them and is speaking again. He doesn't remember anything after going to bed. His hand appears to still be stuck to the person who was next to him, although the body belonging to the hand is nowhere to be seen. Warren uses his sword to pry the hand off, cutting Kurt in the process. Azazel and his soldiers then appear before the X-Men and one of them points at Warren saying, "Look! A Cheyarafim!" Azazel says that it's not really though, just someone with a similar appearance. With Kurt's hand now free, Warren offers to try and use his blood to heal the wound, but everyone's surprised when it burns Nightcrawler instead of healing. "My lord, the angel's blood burns one of the Neyaphem!" reports Captain Exposition on Azazel's side. This prompts a violent outburst from another of Azazel's minions, someone named Jillian who looks pretty much like a female Nightcrawler with wings, and she attacks Archangel despite Azazel's commands to stop.
In another level of Hell, the neighborhood bullies are beating up Sammy. This time, however, he fights back, taking them all by surprise. After nearly beating one of them into a bloody pulp, Sammy responds to his pleas mercy with "I don't stop for nothin', kid. I'm the Juggernaut." The other bullies run away while Sammy continues to pound the kid into hamburger.
Speaking of Juggernaut, he's listening to Northstar complain about being pulled from his class to play chauffer to Juggernaut. Northstar rather inappropriately asks if Juggernaut has an ulterior interest in Sammy, and Cain responds with a crack about Northstar's sexual preferences. Thus the conversation continues, with it seeming as though Juggernaut is a little offended that Jean-Paul doesn't find him even remotely attractive.
Back in Lorna's head, she tries to fight off the Sentinels, but can't stop their slaughter. Unable to do anything else, she simply tries to run away and hide, but can't find anywhere safe. She cries a bit, and then tells Xavier that she's all better now, that she only wanted to be happy; "I just wanted someone to love me and make me forget." Xavier's crying too, but as for Annie, she looks near hysterical, cowering under a nearby table.
Jillian races towards Archangel, but Husk intercepts her. All the demons attack then, and completely ignore Azazel's command that they all stop. Jubilee asks if Abyss can actually do anything, and after explaining that he opens portals that suck things to gods-know-where, Jubilee suggests that he try it on the demons since they're horribly outnumbered. Abyss tries, but to his surprise, instead of sucking things up, it starts ejecting things he's previously taken, like his skateboard, his neighbor's dog ... and Mystique.
| Review:
<sigh> You know, if I didn't get some sort of masochistic thrill out of reading these horrifically bad Chuck Austen issues, I'd be pretty depressed right now. It's particularly difficult as I am, quite literally, surrounded by issues of this same series that were a thousand times better than this. When you read <insert random Austen Uncanny story here> and then glance to your right to see "Fall of the Mutants", the original Brood saga, and "Days of Future Past" staring back at you ... It's disheartening. But at least my husband enjoys reading reviews of issues that I dislike. Every cloud has a silver lining and all that.
To be fair, it's a bit difficult for me to say at this point if Austen is really as bad as I think he is. I've been so thoroughly unimpressed with so much of his work on this title that I think he would have to completely blow my socks off to redeem himself even a little at this point. Frankly, I just don't think he has that level of quality in him. Austen is, without a doubt, a superficial writer. There's no such thing as subtlety in Austen's X-Verse, and even the questions that are typically raised when reading an issue aren't especially thought provoking. We're left asking things like "Why did this happen?" which is a given when you're reading a story because you can't read the author's mind, and "Is so-and-so dead?" which is pretty much always a rhetorical question. For an example of what I'm talking about, read back over the past few reviews of Uncanny that I've written. These are the sorts of questions that a three-year old child would interrupt their mother to ask about The Pokey Little Puppy at bedtime. "Where's he going? Why did he do that?" If you just shut up and read a bit further, your questions will be answered. And believe me, I wish it were that simple, but alas, this pain is stretched out into months and months, leaving me with a tear in my soul and a wistful glance towards the stories of yesteryear.
This issue continues to see the progression of the three main storylines. The fact that all three are mushed together and, aside from the connecting theme of fatherhood (that's what passes for subtle in Austen's world), they have nothing else in common. Why lump them all together then? My theory is that it's either to disguise the bad bits and hope you don't really notice them, or it's to stretch out the good bits because they don't form a long enough story by themselves. Perhaps it's both. Or neither. I'm not sure that anyone really knows or cares at this stage.
The "main" storyline in this arc, that being the story that was supposed to be about Nightcrawler, is by far the least interesting of the three, although it did have the best dialogue this time around (given the melodrama in Lorna's and the stereotypical feel in Northstar's, that's not as impressive an achievement as it sounds). Rather than doing us all a favour and blowing up into obscurity, Havok has instead somehow managed to survive and drag everyone along with him into what I presume is Hell or something. It's here that we see another example of Austen's "clever" storytelling, in that he's foreshadowing what I don't doubt will be his next big storyline: mutant grouping.
We've already seen this in "Dominant Species" (which I haven't reviewed at the time of writing this, nor am I in any great rush to), with the laughably ridiculous werewolf mutant pack thing. We're seeing it here, too, with the demonic-type mutants all gathering together. Next up? Looks like angels. Since Archangel acquired a sword in another book (Exiles, for those with enough taste to not buy those Austen issues either) and now has that angelic look going on again, he's of course identified by the Azazel's gang as, duh, an angel. And there are enough of them around in Azazel's world that his people utterly refuse to listen to him and attack Warren pretty much on sight.
Can you see it coming? We're headed towards inter-mutant segregation and, because Austen just looooves to beat this into the ground, it will be an allegory for religion. Perhaps we can feed them all exploding communion wafers and save ourselves some anguish. Next, it'll be the Hairy Mutants, led by Wolverine and Beast, against the Skunk Stripe Mutants, featuring Rogue and X-Man! If we're especially good, this storyline will also feature Austen's other two favourite things: sex and abuse!
And wouldn't you know it, they're both here, too! Oh happy day!
The second worst storyline we're dealing with in this arc is Sammy/Juggernaut/Northstar. At first glance, the conversation between Cain and Jean-Paul seems pretty amusing, and in a completely superficial way, I suppose that it is in some respects. But then you stop to think: Hold on. Has Austen ever written a scene with Northstar, excepting the one where he "joined", that didn't somehow manage to revolve around his sexuality? I just reread everything pretty recently, and I'm at something of a loss to think of one. I'm also at a loss for how to better phrase my feelings on the JP thing than this quote, written by someone not-me: "I don't know why Austen doesn't just redesign Northstar's costume to be rainbow-striped ballet tights and a pink belly-shirt with "The Gay Guy" written across the front in gold glitter. There are thirteen-year-old anime fangirls writing Digimon yaoi-fic that handle homosexuality with more subtley [sic] and nuance than displayed in this book." Nuff said.
The final storyline running in this book deals with Lorna's psychic therapy, and it's the only one of the lot that's moderately interesting. It's important to note, however, that I'm utterly ignoring the "revelation" that Lorna is Magneto's daughter. If Austen can ignore the fact that it was conclusively stated 30 years or so ago that she wasn't, then I can ignore his sudden declaration that she is. La-la-la, I can't hear you, la-la-la ....
Alright, that nonsense locked away and forgotten about, I did in fact enjoy seeing the destruction of Genosha through Lorna's eyes. Morrison may have done the deed, but thus far, Austen is the only one who's really dealt with it. There have been repercussions, of course; I think it's the only event in the X-Universe that's actually been acknowledged by all three core groups. But for such an enormous tragedy, it really did deserve more attention. This doesn't go far towards fully addressing what happened, but it's certainly a step in the right direction. I even like the fact that Annie seems to have been quite shaken up by what she sees here; a little bit of perspective might do her some good. My biggest complaint here is the fact that after a few minutes of watching Lorna's Most Depressing Home Videos, she's all better. This is a woman who threw scalpels at Annie the second she set foot in the mansion. I absolutely appreciate what Lorna went through, but if Xavier accepts Lorna's "I'll be all right now, Charles. I promise." and does nothing else for her, I will be exceedingly disappointed. If we're to believe that Lorna fell as far as she did into insanity, then we absolutely cannot have her cured within the space of five and a half pages.
Oh, and before I forget, the "cliff hanger" for this issue: Mystique's unexpected re-emergence from Abyss's abyss. I know that continuity is something of a joke at Marvel these days, but come on. The woman's had her own series for almost half a year now. Please, Powers That Be ... Please make at least a cursory attempt to place this event somewhere within your Universe's time frame. For those of us who actually enjoy a feeling that things are connected. Pretty please? It would mean so much to me.
| Quotes:
- Nightcrawler: And if someone has some extra clothes they're not using, I'm feeling a bit modest here.
Jubilee: Whoa. Why?
- Northstar: Did you--did you just call me a girl?
- Nightcrawler: Did she just say "death to all Angels"? Guess that'd be you.
Archangel: Guess so...
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