Comic: "Uncanny X-Men #511"
Published by: Marvel Comics
Written by: Matt Fraction
Artist: Land, Dodson

Reviewer: Max Burbank
Posted: 6/25/2009

Plot: Red Queen Madelynne Prior and her Sisterhood are after a body to house her consciousness. And whose corpse could be a better fit than the woman she’s cloned from, Jean Grey? How will she find the body? Simple. She can track the DNA with a lock of Jeans’ hair she ripped off from sentimental ol’ Wolverine.

Review: The X-Men franchise has become a vast, multi-book nearly impossible to follow stew. Between overexposure, especially Wolverine, (or as I like to think of him, the new Multiple Man) multiple possible time lines and continuities and more people coming back from the dead than a vampire membership drive. It’s sad because X-Men was my go to book for a large part of my life.

That’s why it’s nice that at least one book, Uncanny X-Men, is still a good read and still comprehensible without taking out a second mortgage to buy every other damn X-book up to and including ‘Lockheed and the Brood: Deep Space Neutering.’

Matt Fraction has a nice mix of action and characterization, and he knows the players well. From Wolverine an Cyclops not speaking to Maddie’s ex-wife issues, the dialogue is spot on. Greg Lands’ artwork is, as always, awesome, particularly his facial expressions. His people don’t just sit on the page, they act. Both Land and Fraction handle a huge cast better than anyone since the glory days of the Avengers with George Perez on board.

One quibble. I like San Francisco, but the X-Men belong in the mansion. Okay, so it got destroyed. Anyone want to drag out their back issues and tell me who often that’s happened? About half as many times as the X-Men have survived a plane crash, which is to say a lot of times.

So go ahead. You can’t really keep up with the X-Men, but if you pretend hard you can feel like this is a solo book, and enjoy it the way you used to.

Overall rating:
(Scored on a 0.5 - 5 pickles rating: 0.5 being the worst and 5 being the best)