Along similar lines, we have Uncanny X-Men #474, the final part of "The First Foursaken." 

The previous two issues were plotted by Chris Claremont and scripted by Tony Bedard.  This one is written by Bedard alone, with a footnote crediting Claremont for "inspiration."  It sounds suspiciously as though Bedard had to come up with the actual finish himself, since if it was Claremont's story, even only as an outline, they'd surely have given him a co-plotter credit.

The story ties up a long-running subplot involving Psylocke's mysterious return from the dead, and her brother Jamie Braddock hanging around on the fringes of the story.  And it serves that role perfectly well.  Psylocke's not dead because Jamie saved her with his reality-warping powers; Jamie did that because he wanted to use her as a weapon against this issue's villain.  All perfectly sensible, at least by the standards of stories about reality-warping lunatics.

But with the long build-up Chris Claremont gave to this storyline, it's hard to believe he wasn't planning something a little bigger.  What we've got is a thoroughly acceptable superhero story which does the job adequately but won't really stick in the mind.  A cosmic threat is introduced, sets out a passably villainous plot, and then gets beaten in 22 pages.  For somebody who's been set up as the opposite number of the Phoenix and a threat to all reality, he really ought to put up more of a fight against Psylocke.  It reads like it's being rushed to a conclusion to make way for the incoming creative team.

The First Fallen is a reasonably promising villain, albeit that his plan doesn't entirely make sense.  He wants to create a perfect collection of people by taking four people from each world and putting them in a violence-free mind-controlled utopia.  But if he takes four people from a planet, then the rest of the population are frozen in time.  It's never very clear why, or whether this is an unintended side effect, or what.  Which is unfortunate, because the basic idea of a cosmic villain simply trying to tidy everything up is quite appealing.

Roger Cruz fills in on art, and does his usual job - better than average, but not especially distinctive.  Overall, it's a perfectly decent little story.  It goes in, makes its point (the ever-popular "no quick fixes" moral), and leaves.  It'll be forgotten in a couple of months time, but it's fine for what it is.  Once again, better than you'd probably expect for a story that changed writers halfway through.

Rating: B

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