There are a lot of feelings wrapped up in any X-Men book. Everyone has their own favorite characters and their own favorite era. That’s been an albatross hanging off the first month of titles from the post-Krakoa, “From The Ashes” era that kicked off last month, with varying results. I’m happy to say, though, that if you are a fan of X-Men, if you’re a fan of the franchise being able to jump from humor to action to heartbreaking emotion in a single issue… And if you’re a fan of superhero comic books that are just damn good: you are going to love Uncanny X-Men #1. This, my friends, is the X-Men comic you’ve been waiting for.
And frankly, I don’t even mean in the past month and change, but possibly for years. Full disclosure: I love the Krakoa era, the big swings, the huge changes, and the shocking plot twists. It’s a rarity that comics are allowed to change as wildly as Marvel allowed the X-Men to go over the past few years. But it was, per the MO of the franchise, an evolution. It was different, and we loved it for that.
Uncanny X-Men #1, from Gail Simone and David Marquez, doesn’t ignore all that. But it also uses the loss of Krakoa as fuel for character exploration and growth in a different way, not wallowing in it. There are terrifying new enemies, a sequence that will break your heart, and characters that are instantly recognizable as the ones you know and love, going on a new mission in a new location. It’s everything you want from an X-Men comic, and more.
The book feels like Simone filtering the entirety of the Claremont era through her own unique humor and heart, and these two tones fuse perfectly together. Using Rogue as a narrator and window character, Simone doesn’t ignore how much she’s changed over the decades… Gambit and Wolverine immediately defer to her as the leader of the team with no questions asked. But thanks to a thrilling (for the reader at least) encounter with a villainous snake god, some of that old Rogue doubt starts creeping back in. That, for better or worse, is Rogue. She’s strong, she rushes into danger first. But she also at her base holds onto the pain of when she wasn’t able to touch anyone without repercussions.
Rogue’s relationship with Gambit is also perfection here and will be instantly recognizable to anyone who has come to the X-Men from the recent hit X-Men ’97. It’s romantic and funny, and Gambit gets to be both the rogue and the lover we know him to be. While he seems the most constant here in this issue with the least amount of issues, there’s definitely danger on the horizon as they head back to his hometown of New Orleans.
The biggest surprise of the main trio, though, is Wolverine. Simone writes a softer, more nuanced take on the Canuck than we’ve seen in comics for… Decades? He’s usually drunk at a bar, angry, slicing people to ribbons. Here, Simone and Marquez give him a bit of sadness through the writing, facial expressions, and body language that round out Wolverine and tie him emotionally to the unsure lead of Rogue and the steadiness of Gambit.
And Marquez, by the way, does the most in this issue. He draws the giant snake battles I mentioned earlier. He crushes an emotional scene in a hospital that will make you cry in public. And there’s one panel of the new baddie the team is facing that might be one of the scariest things I’ve seen in mainstream comics.
It’s an impossible balancing act that’s being pulled off here. But if anyone could do it, it was Gail Simone, a comics pro’s pro. And that’s exactly what she does pulling off a book that will bring in new fans and old with an exciting, fresh start that somehow feels as comfortable as an old coat. One might almost say what Simone and the team have pulled off here is… Uncanny.
Uncanny X-Men #1 is in stores now.
