AvX has been going strong and taken over anything with an A or X in its title, and Uncanny X-Men has both. How has this affected the title? For the Major Spoilers look, take the jump.
UNCANNY X-MEN #13
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Billy Tan
Inker: Cam Smith & Craig Yeung
Colorist: Guru eFX
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover Artist: Adam Kubert & Morry Hollowell
Editor: Nick Lowe
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: $3.99
Previously in Uncanny X-Men: Shortly before the whole AvX thing, the X-Men helped S.W.O.R.D. with a breakout of their alien criminals that destroyed part of S.W.O.R.D.’s brig. Because of this the X-Men took on one of their more problematic incarcerates, a genocidal creature/robot known as Unit. He made an impression on Hope right before the Phoenix showed up and the Avengers attacked. Now, Hope and Scott’s main team are on the moon, but what about the rest.
THE REST
This issue is mostly dedicated to two groups, the adults and the youth of Utopia. The adults are Magneto, Psylocke, Storm, Nemesis, and Danger. For all but Danger we are mostly treated to some decent character interaction as they lick their wounds and get prepared to try and join the rest on the moon. Nemesis is mostly out of it and gets some great jokes because of it, but the rest deal with the current situation. They talk of the three mutants that are with the Avengers, Wolverine, Beast, and Quicksilver. Storm also speaks of being taken down by her husband, Black Panther, and the entire sequence is a very quiet, sobering moment as they realize the odds stacked against them and their inability to continue the fight.
The youth team is what’s left of Hope’s group, Primal, Transonic, Velocidad, and Pixie. They are arriving on Utopia after the breakout during Avengers Academy. Their entire purpose is to confront Unit off of a simple note from Hope. Their portion of the book is a lot more action oriented than the adults as, after learning Unit’s true motives and an ancient story of the Phoenix and a messiah, they are attacked by a Unit controlled Danger. This portion isn’t as good as the moments amongst the adults, but still gives an interesting twist to the whole AvX story that I won’t give away here. The book then ends with the same big reveal as the primary AvX title, which makes sense considering the main characters of the book are those directly involved with that.
THE DANGER OF ROBOTS WITH EMOTION
Tan does a good job on most of the book. My big complaint here is Danger, she just looks weird most of the time. While she is fighting the kids she is talking about how she can’t control herself and it looks like she might be trying to show emotion, mostly sadness, and doesn’t work. All of the humans look good, and Magneto looks the best as a suitably rundown older man, but Danger just bothers me.
BOTTOM LINE: IT’S GOOD
This was a good tie-in book. It brought the focus onto characters not involved in the primary action without alienating the reader that didn’t know the primary action. My only complaint of the book was the look of Danger, and even then only a few panels of her are troublesome. Uncanny X-Men #13 doesn’t reach for much, but what it does it does well and as such gets a solid 3.5 out of 5 stars.
