Uncanny X-Men: Quarantine #1

A contagion is released on Utopia that renders all X-Men there powerless forcing Clyclops to quarantine the facility. In the meantime, Emma Frost, Kitty Pryde and Fantomex decide Sebastian Shaw's fate. 

Writers Matt Fraction and Kieron Gillen team up for this Uncanny X-Men story arc that puts the X-Men in quite an unusual predicament. While the idea was certainly interesting, I don't feel as if it was executed to the best of its ability. 

This story arc is filled with multiple story lines running simultaneously, which is a method of storytelling I like a lot if done properly, only that wasn't the case here. I liked the fact that the majority of the X-Men were rendered powerless and confined to Utopia. A small team was outside of the quarantine zone and carried out X-Men duties. So it was nice seeing this small team that included Pixie, Storm, Dazzler, Angel and Northstar work together and carry out the X-Men's fight. The only negative to this was the annoying dialogue especially between Pixie and Dazzler. The story line I had little to no interest in involved Sublime. They used a drug to give five volunteers the powers of the original five X-Men. I just didn't see this story holding much significance in comparison to the other story lines and what has recently happened with the X-Men. 

My favorite part of the story was probably the part involving Sebastian Shaw. The Emma Frost, Kitty Pryde and Fantomex triangle proved to be fairly entertaining. Sebastian Shaw's fate certainly came as a shock. 

The interior artwork is by Greg Land which was nice to see since I'm so used to seeing him limited to covers, I rarely get the opportunity to see him draw out a whole story. I like his style and while often times I felt the inking was a little to thick for my liking, overall it was very pleasing artwork. 

This story as a whole was a little lackluster and will hardly be remembered as one of the stand out X-Men stories to come out in recent years. A lot of people have criticized Matt Fraction's run on this series. In his defense, it's really not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. This is a slightly above average read.