review: Uncanny X-Men #475-476 (2006)

Publisher: Marvel Entertainment
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artists: Billy Tan, Danny Miki, Frank D'Armata

Rating: 4/10

Considering how much I'm enjoying Brubaker's work on Daredevil, I had high hopes that this new team was going to give me a reason to be interested in the X-books again. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. The first two issues of the twelve issue "The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire" story arc were a complete borefest.

The first issue in particular was a complete mess. It seemed to be just a series of excuses for why Brubaker's pet characters, many of whom are appearing totally out of the blue, need to be part of the team. I'm not opposed to switching up the team, and when you have so many good characters at your disposal, it's arguably worse to not use them enough, rather than to swap them around too often. However, this switch up felt too forced, a feeling which was reinforced by the lame explanations for why these characters were suddenly showing up. It would have been better to not try to explain it at all; just bring all the X-Men into a room and assemble a team like you're picking players for a pick-up basketball game. It's just as reasonable, without the downside of wasting a whole issue on tedious justifications.

On the art side, I can't quite put my finger on the problem, but it just doesn't come together for me. I've tried to like Billy Tan before, and he's done some good stuff, even in these issues, but he doesn't do it consistently. I think the problem is that it feels like Image-lite. It's as if it wants to be Lee or Silvestri, but it misses the mark just enough that it becomes distracting, and thus maybe seems worse than it actually is.

I also can't stand the coloring style D'Armata is using here. I'm sure this is a conscious decision, since he doesn't always color this way (his coloring on Daredevil is completely different, and I even cited it as an asset on that book). Everything looks way too shiny, particularly the people. It's as if they all just took a bath in baby oil. It's downright disturbing. The coloring alone is almost reason enough for me to stay away from this book.

Overall, if you're a die-hard X-Men fan, I don't think there's anything here you will object to, and you may even be excited by the reappearance of some under-utilized characters, but for the rest of us, there's not much here to recommend. I may give it another issue, in case it was just a very poor start, but I'm not looking forward to it.