Sunday, April 28, 2013

Uncanny X-Periment # 163: Utopia



Utopia one-shot, Uncanny X-Men # 513, Dark Avengers # 7, Uncanny X-Men # 514, Dark Avengers # 8, Exodus one-shot, the Confession one-shot

Simon Trask launches a march through San Francisco, promoting Proposition X.   Beast and some of the other X-Men lead a Mutant counter-protest, which soon devolves into a riot.  The media runs wild and Cyclops promises that the urban violence that is breaking out over this event will be contained by the X-Men.   Of course, it doesn’t go very well.  And Norman Osborn decides that his needs his own X-Men team to jump and be the face of Mutantkind.  He puts Emma Frost in charge of it and he, the Dark Avengers, and the newly-minted Dark X-Men hit San Francisco. The Dark X-Men consist of Dark Beast, Mimic, Namor, Mystique (disguised as Professor X), Guardian, Daken, and Cloak and Dagger.

Osborn imposes a city-wide curfew, which the X-Men decide to obey.   But some of the Mutants decide to launch a demonstration, which the Dark X-Men put down quickly.  They are taken to the Omega Machine, which is supposed to take away Mutant’s powers . . . but it does so rather harmfully.

Cyclops meets with Osborn and argue.  Cyclops leaves.  Meanwhile, the Dark Avengers aren’t very happy with the way they’ve been regulated to second banana by the Dark X-Men.  At a hospital, several people are turned into Sentinels by Trask.  The Dark X-Men move in and put them down, with Cyclops watching. He sends Dani to Hel to become Valkyrie again, has Mindee arrested, sends the X-Club on a secret mission, and has X-Force gathered up and meet up with Wolverine.

X-Force infiltrates Alcatraz and engages the Dark X-Men.  While this happening, Cyclops orders the X-Club to raise a hunk of Asteroid M from the depths of the ocean and into San Francisco Bay.  Everyone evacuates to it.   X-Force then prepares to leave Alcatraz, and Namor and Emma accompany them.  Turns out they’ve been stringing Osborn along.  Cloak and Dagger take along. 

The Dark Avengers and Dark X-Men launch an attack on Asteroid M, and there’s a fight.  Valkyrie takes down Ares.     Iceman defeats Mimic.  Emma finds Professor X and with his help, shuts down Sentry, but she gets locked in her diamond form because she’s absorbed a part of the Void from him.  Wolverine goes after Guardian.  X-23, Armor, and Pixie take on Dakken.  Archangel handles Bullseye. 

With the whole world watching, the X-Men, New Mutants, and X-Force defeat the Dark Avengers and Dark X-Men.  Cyclops then declares Asteriod M a Mutant safehaven and a separate county, hereby called Utopia.   Both sides decide it’s a victory.  But we really know who won.  It’s the readers.

We also see that Emma and Scott have laid their secrets bare, at Hank’s urgings.

I think this simply yet another example of who Cyclops has really grown into a masterful leader and strategist.   From the moment Osborn arrived in San Francisco, Scott sized him and his cohorts up, and knew exactly what to do.  He had an enemy to out think and some bad guys to hit.

But I have to wonder  - would Scott have been as successful in Osborn didn’t show up?   Because he was really failing at keeping the peace in the city.  Osborn took care of that.  Scott screwed up.

I felt that this was solid crossover, if just to show off just how high and mighty this Mutant community has become.   It says something when the Avengers (even these Dark Avengers) fall to the X-Men.  Scott’s unified front really did it.  And, even though I’m not the biggest Matt Fraction fan, I was really sold on this.

My biggest beef with this crossover is actually with the art.   Dodson is a great artist, but the incredibly lack of flow between his chapters and Dedato’s  caused this to suffer and was like artistic whiplash.

But hey, this was good besides that.

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