An extraordinary forgetable x-men story
When I sit down to write this review I am almost amazed by the fact that this story turned out so bland since most of the ingredients are appealing. Just before Ed Brubaker wrote this x-men story (and after it took over the Uncanny X-Men title) he hade done wonders to Captain America by returning to Caps roots and changing his history by declaring that Bucky Barnes never died and instead lived on as russian assassin Winter Soldier. This retcon proved to revitalize the Captain America comics in many ways. In Deadly Genesis Brubaker tries to do something similiar to the X-Men mythos by inserting another "second x-men"-team assembled and trained by Moira MacTaggert. This team, lead by yet another Summers brother (Gabriel), was sent to Krakoa to rescue the original x-men but failed to do so. This lead to Xavier gathering an international x-men team and then sending this team on the mission of rescuing Iceman, Beast, Angel & Jean Grey on Krakoa. The problem with this retcon is that it's not really necessary. In contrast to Captain Americas adventures in WWII the origin of mutants, X-Men and the Summer family is already very complex and has been changed and added to a number of times. Brubakers changes to this origin feels kind of pushed and unrelevant. Deadly Genesis also tells the story of how Cyclops and the rest of X-Men learns about the second x-men team and also realizes that Xavier has been manipulating them by telepathically removing their memories of this second teen mutant team and third Summer brother. This becomes obvious when a mysterious figure emerges after the House of M/Decimation-events. He kills Banshee and attacks a lot of other x-men and then reveal himself to be Gabriel Summers (Vulcan) and, as mentioned above, exposes Cyclops and the X-men to the new horrible truth. With the help of another surviving second x-men survivor, Darwin, X-men manages to defeat Vulcan who then takes his escape to space. This leades in to Brubakers Uncanny X-Men run and the story arc "The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire". As I have already explained I find this retcon quite unrelevant and unfortunatly I find the storytelling of this comic bland. It is not bad because Ed Brubaker is a competent write (and the art is good as well) but the execution of this project is sort of uninspired. Also, nothing lasting really come out of this story (except for Banshee dying). After Brubakers "The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire" Vulcan is not really mentioned again. Cyclops and Xavier have a sort of fall out but this later evolves and is depicted better in later comics. It also seems like Cyclops is the only one insulted by Xaviers action, no one else really becomes upset long term by the reveal of Xaviers manipulation.
