Uncanny X-Men #2

And the fun keep coming! This new volume is already becoming everything that the mutant superhero team should be! For too long I watched this book decline, odd stories, pointless team-ups and then the final straw was when they took the "flagship" status away from this book and gave it to Astonishing X-men. From there it was a slow decline into Dark X-men nonesense, silly mutant "plagues" (that don't hold a candle to the Legacy Virus), just pointless story after pointless story as they tried to be the "mutants in the global view" book. Well that's over with! I don't really know what the plan is for Astonishing but this Uncanny X-men 2.0 seems to be where the mutant action is and is going to stay. With Cyclops' new mission of proactive action to make the X-men more of a peacekeeping force, like the mutant Avengers, I think we can expect to see more of the mainstream stories occurring here (such as the teased Phoenix story) rather then getting limited and one-shot to handle major events and changes.

So on to the new Extinction team. WOW. That all I can say is WOW. First of all I am shocked that Namor is actually staying on the team. When his book got cancelled and then I heard about Schism, I assumed his tenure with the X-men was done and I wasn't too broken up about it either. But the longer he is there the more he feels like he belongs with the team. His connection to Emma Frost seemed really out of left field at first but the writers have really taken the time to develop this relationship into something that might really happen and I am sure there are already people that would prefer Emma with him instead of Scott. It's also really interesting to see Scott and Ororo on the same squad again after so long. I went back into my old back issues and realized that Scott and Ororo haven't been on the same squad since Uncanny X-men #201. After that he left to form X-Factor with the other originals, and when he came back they split the team into Blue and Gold squads, and from there they jsut never really made it back onto the same regular squad again. So it will be nice to see her playing Jiminy Cricket to his Pinocchio. And it comes as no surprise to me at all that having Hope and Magik on a regualr X-men team is amazing! Illyana has always been such an amazing (and favorite of mine0 character but I almost felt that they always had her too bogged down in her demonic fate to explore her truly. And in New Mutants most recent volume, she was soulless for much of that time so it was more Darkchild then Magik. Now we get to see her really come into her own and for once we get to see her watching out for her big brother instead of the other way around. Oh and where the hell is Emma's arm??? Has anyone been watching it??

And how about Sinister? This megalomaniac has come a long way since being Mr. Sinister leader of the Marauders and ordering the death of the Morlocks. This issue explained to us exactly what he was doing in the closing chapter of the previous Uncanny X-men volume. This new 'Sinister System" is leaps and bounds more creative and innovative then that Miss Sinister debacle. It is also worth mentioning that Scott thinks nothing of killing these Sinisters (even when he thought that there was one lead one). Back during Inferno, Cyclops was heartbroken when he thought he destroyed Essex with his optic blasts and he readiness to do it as many times as needed in this case is a sure showing of how far he has fallen in his moral standing. Uh, and did everyone else see how Jugger-lossus just squeezed his head like a grape?! YIKES!

As I've stated in previous blogs and reviews, I wasn't really sold on splitting the X-men into two separate camps at first but after two months of this new title and the new Wolverine & the X-men I think that this new status quo could be an even better set up then the legendary Gold/Blue split. I am still curious as to where Professor X is going to end up because he was clear that he's not staying at the school but he also hasn't been shown any sort of role yet in the new Uncanny situation either so only time will tell. I look more and more forward to these main book every single month, thank god they are finally pulling X-men out of the rut they've been in these last few years. I can't wait to see what the creative team has in store for us in the coming issues...is that a Celestial thumb I see baring down on Cyclops in the "Next Issue" spot...?