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Ah, Uncanny X-Men. Our second
Chuck Austen book of the week.
This sees the debut of Salvador Larroca as
regular artist, something which clearly isn't going to last
all that long given that Chris Claremont and Alan Davis are
already waiting in the wings. I feel rather sorry for
poor Salvador, who was happy enough working with Claremont on
X-Treme X-Men, only to find himself being yanked off to
work first on the disastrous Namor, and now on Chuck
Austen's Uncanny.
Perhaps in a previous life he was an
entertainment lawyer, and this is some form of ironic
reincarnation punishment. "In your new life, you will
have artistic talent. But you will be contractually
obliged to illustrate crap."
Anyway, this is the first part of "She Lies
With Angels", although the letters column refers to it as
"Romeo X." Which says it all, basically. It's
Chuck Austen does Romeo & Juliet, with the Guthries and the
Cabots. You can't go that far wrong with Romeo & Juliet,
and to be fair to Austen, he's always better when he sticks to
low key stuff. Then again, he can't write women to save
his life, which doesn't bode well for his prospects of pulling
off a romance story. But we shall see.
Josh - the Guthrie brother with the mutant
singing voice - has developed wings, presumably because Austen
saw the words "voice of an angel" mentioned somewhere and
applied his usual chronic literalism. In fairness,
Larroca does turn it into a good visual. Unfortunately,
given that Archangel is in this storyline as well, it tends to
suggest that Austen is still not finished with his perennially
unsuccessful attempt to sell us on the idea of tribes of
mutant angels, demons and werewolves.
Still, it's Romeo & Juliet, and as long as
you stick broadly to the plot, you should be okay. Thus
far, Austen does - and since he's coupled with a decent artist
for once, the book admittedly looks rather good. Given
Austen's hopeless sexual politics, I can't see him pulling
this one off in a million years. But thus far, it's
acceptable.
Rating: B-
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