Uncanny X-Men #456
By LJ Douresseau
March 21, 2005 - 13:32
Writer(s): Chris Claremont
Penciller(s): Alan Davis
Inker(s): Mark Farmer
32 pp., color, $2.25
First off, I’ll say again how I’m overjoyed to have Chris Claremont on UNCANNY X-MEN again. When other people write the X-Men, they seem alien (Grant Morrison) or just boring (Joe Casey, Joe Kelly, Scott Lobdell). That said – Chris has returned the X-Men to being a band of custom adventurers running from one space opera/pulp sci-fi/high fantasy adventure to another. It’s just junk, but enjoyable junk.Issue 456 is the second chapter of “World’s End.” There’s a nice fight scene, and Chris makes the new mutant, X-23, an engaging, mysterious character. One thoroughly irritating thing was Rachel Summers falling under the control of the evolved, cyber-dinosaurs that are this storyline’s villains (at least so far). No matter how powerful Claremont makes his telepaths in the X-verse, their minds are always susceptible to someone else’s control, not a running, but a run on theme in his work. Let it go, Chris.
Meanwhile, Alan Davis is turning in some beautiful art in collaboration with inker Mark Farmer and colorist Dean White. A few of White’s colors are flat and uninspired, but some pages, like page four, are a four-color, impressionistic sunburst. Davis’s line, under Farmer’s inks, is smooth, rich, and thick, as if they’re doing this with chocolate drawing sticks. Maybe, Davis is the main reason some of us are so happy with Claremont’s return. B
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