Sunday, March 31, 2013

Uncanny X-Periment # 160: Sisterhood


Uncanny X-Men # 506-512


The story kicks off with the Red Queen and the Sisterhood stealing Kwannon’s body.  They take the time/space displaced Pyslocke and put her into the rejuvenated body of Kwannon and hence, under the Red Queen’s control.



The Sisterhood attack the X-Men’s base in Marin and Maddie gets a lock of Jean’s hair to use to . . . uh . . . rejuvenate Jean’s body (right?  Does this make sense?).  Emma also gets a little visit from Jean whilst she is under psychic lock-down.  No real reason given.



Anyways, they over to the school to get Jean’s body from the grave.  Scott, Logan, and some other X-Men follow, but luckily, Domino happened to be in the area and she puts another body in Jean’s grave for Maddie.  Maddie is able to take over and rejuvenate Jean’s body and dies.



Meanwhile, the X-Men battle the Sisterhood in San Francisco.  Eventually, thanks to Dazzler, Psylocke returns to her normal body.  Uh, her original body.  Uh, I mean, the body that’s Japanese and really hot.



Then, the X-Club travels back in time and battle a Steampunk Sentinel and meet Doctor Nemesis’ parents.



Sisterhood sounds like a great idea – having Maddie Pryor as the Red Queen gather some of the vilest femme fatale Muties out there and lead them against the X-Men.  Sure, outside of the Mastermind girls and Chimera, the roster was very human-heavy.  But hey, we can let Lady Deathstrike in.  She has a score or ten to settle.  And Spiral, what the heck, she was in Freedom Force.  Even bringing Psylocke in?  Sure.



But it lost itself.  It was all wrapped to tightly.  It suffered from an over-abundance of dues ex machinas, like Elixir and Domino.  The story just didn’t do anything for me.  I didn’t care about anyone I was reading about.  Moments that should have been elaborated on are cut sadly short, such as Scott’s obvious feelings about Logan having a lock of Jean’s hair.   And the Red Queen, a very legitimate villain that seems to have been waiting in the wings for a while, was dismissed far too easily.



Worst of all?  The art.  Greg Land is terrible.  All of his characters look plastic and silly.  No one seems to fit into the scene.  He grabs random X-Men and shoves them in the background, while at the same time, making the main characters look excessively glamorous.  And at least three-fourths of each issue has at least one person inappropriately smiling per page.   At least.



Ultimately, I’m disappointed.  Story potential lost.  Characters muddled.   Shitty art. 


Oh yeah, the Steampunk issue . . . it was okay.  Nothing fantastic, despite my interest in Steampunk.  It was okay, but nothing to write home about.

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