For the first time in New Orleans history, the city has declared a Mutant Appreciation Day festival and street fair, with all the music, food and fun the city is famous for. If the Hellfire Gala is filet mignon, this is corn dogs and lemonade. But are all mutants OK with this attempt at bridging the gap, or are sinister forces lurking behind the Tilt-A-Whirl? Uncanny X-Men #18 is written by Gail Simone, drawn by Luciano Vecchio, colored by Rachelle Rosenberg and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Adam Reck: Hey Austin, happy Mutant Appreciation Day! Though I know you just got back from speaking at the Uncanny Experience in Minneapolis, are you ready to celebrate again? I know you have some experience when it comes to state fairs.
Austin Gorton: Honestly, what we saw of the Mutant Appreciation Day festival looked a lot like the Uncanny Experience — though I think I need to talk to the organizers of both the Uncanny Experience and the Minnesota State Fair about getting some gumbo in a waffle cone for their next events.
Adam: Gumbo in a waffle cone sounds both delicious and like a huge mess, but I’d give it a try! Lots to cover here between the fair and the fire, so let’s get into it.
Austin: “The Fair and the Fire” is my new band name!
Sleepwalking & Party Planning
Adam: OK, last time we weren’t super fans of Mutina, but she’s back on page one tormenting poor Calico. At least I assume it’s actually Mutina? Turns out Calico’s a sleepwalker, but her torn up mattress suggests our horror movie antagonist paid a visit.
Austin: I continue to be confused by Mutina’s whole deal, but at least, according to Gail Simone at her recent Uncanny Experience panel, we’re meant to be confused by her whole deal at this point, and Simone intends to further flesh out the character over time.
That said, this sequence was legitimately chilling, and kudos to both Vecchio and Simone for pulling that off. Going after Calico — more or less the most childlike/innocent of the Outliers — makes it all the more horrific, and while Vecchio’s style here has a really smooth, animated feel to it, he nails this darker, edgier sequence, making it very unsettling.
Speaking of the sleepwalking, I’m no sleep doctor and I have no idea whether the whole “don’t wake up a sleepwalker” bit that has permeated pop culture (perhaps most humorously in Adam McKay’s Step Brothers) is accurate, but I feel like Gambit should be more disturbed by the massive knife-like slashes strewn across Calico’s bed and not just be all, “sleepwalkers be sleep-cray-cray, amiright?” about it.
Adam: Not to mention Calico repeating the creepy threats Mutina left her with! I was complimenting Gambit’s Dad-style last ish, but he should be a teensy bit more aware and concerned.
The next day we catch up with Nightcrawler, who seems to be very gently falling into a relationship with Mackenzie DeNeer. This issue makes the domestic implications of this potential pairing crystal clear, and while it does seem like a departure to see our furry sex icon in the role of the dad who stepped up, I am interested in seeing what Gail wants to pursue here. The book has both Jubilee missing Shogo, and Rogue and Gambit trying on parental roles, roles difficult to maintain as a serialized superhero.
Austin: Not to be the “Gail said” guy in this review, but Gail said on social media recently that she wants to give Nightcrawler and Jubilee more to do in this book, and I think we’re starting to see those efforts set in motion. You’re right that “superheroes as superparents” is a tough thing to pull off in these monthly punch-’em-ups, but this book — at least under Simone — might have a better chance to pull it off given how much the theme of parenthood and found family has consistently been at its core, and handled pretty well. I don’t love this book’s take on “(S)Mother Rogue” but I DO love “Cool Dad Gambit.”
Uncanny X-Men at the State Fair (Not of Texas)
Adam: The core team step into the crowd at this thing and are immediately treated as celebrities. Given how bad we’ve been told on and off the page that mutant-human relations are post-Orchis, it’s nice to see our characters being welcomed into a public space. The thing I was a little weirded out about was the sheer amount of X-Men cosplay and fan activities drawn by Vecchio. They’re fun Easter eggs, but seeing carnival workers dressed up as Colossus and Sunfire or a photo op where you could pose as Jean and Scott on the cover of Uncanny #137 seems pretty meta. It’s not that we haven’t seen people geek out over X-Men in the past, but it’s not something we’ve seen in this era.
Austin: I bumped on this as well, and ultimately just had to accept it as some kind of weird deal where what we, the readers, see is representative and not literal depictions of what the people in the comic are seeing, because how would anyone in-universe know how the cover to the real-world Uncanny X-Men #137 was staged?
Anyways, the other thing I bumped against in this sequence was Rogue’s desire to see a generation of mutants not have to hide themselves away. Wasn’t that Krakoa? Hasn’t she already seen that? Isn’t there a generation of mutant kids currently living their best life on Krakoa in the White Hot Room, right now? I’d chalk this up to more willful ignorance of Krakoa on the part of the “From the Ashes” gestalt, but Krakoa gets referenced directly elsewhere in this issue. Maybe Rogue is thinking more specifically about wanting mutant kids to be able to be out and proud mutants anywhere, not just on their special island country?
Adam: You’re not wrong, but given this era’s propensity for ignoring the events of Krakoa while still using its iconography, her sentiments don’t seem that weird when taken solely in the context of this book.
Austin: The Vig — the new character introduced in the series’ last one-off issue — returns here, and is used pretty well. The confrontation with Wolverine where Wolverine suspects the worst is cute, and I appreciate the nuance of the Vig’s character here: He’s not a good guy, but he’s not an out-and-out bad guy, either.
Adam: You and I both had good things to say about that stand-alone issue, and I was happy to see it wasn’t as stand-alone as I expected. Bringing the Vig back as a regular adds to the Nawlins world Simone has been building, and he was a welcome addition.
Austin: Kudos again to Vecchio as well as colorist Rachelle Rosenberg, who did a really nice job in the carnival sequence. There’s some tricky lighting stuff going on (here and later in the fire sequence), and everything looks great, with the X-Men popping like Skittles on the page.
Backdraft
Adam: If you were expecting a conflict at the actual event, you’d be wrong, as the Vig directs the X-Men to a fire at a children’s hospital in town. While it’s unclear who the arsonist is (Mutina maybe?), local firemen acquiesce to the X-Men’s help. And they’re not the only ones here. We know Rogue invited him, but what did you think of Rogue’s warm welcome of Cyclops?
Austin: Like most of the “From the Ashes” Cyclops/Rogue interactions, confused? So they’re friends now? Is that where things ended after the Xavier of it all was taken off the table? I legit can’t remember.
I didn’t mind that Rogue invited him to the party, which better fits the idea that their “conflict” is more about how best to react to the new post-Krakoa status quo (which can be broadly defined as “less militantly vs. more militantly”), even if that idea has been largely muddled thus far by the dictates of crossovers. And I genuinely enjoyed, as a Cyclops fan, the bit where Rogue found herself submitting to Cyclops’ direction (and didn’t mind it), which speaks both to their long history together and Cyclops’ Captain America-like ability to just take charge and be listened to because he has the cred to back it up.
Adam: I think I was just puzzled because it reset their status after us never really understanding what the deal was previously. I also never remember Rogue being on a hug basis with Scott, so that threw me a bit. All that said, if we’re past the “it’s a Schism but we don’t know why” stuff, it’s all for the better.
Austin: So Cyclops shows up (hooray!), and he’s brought Outlaw (‘cuz Simone created her, sure), Angel Salvadore (deep cut, but I’ll allow it), Strong Guy (OK…) and … uh … Haymaker, from Laura Kinney: Wolverine (what)? What do you make of this eclectic assortment of random characters, and why aren’t they just more X-Men?
Adam: We saw a similar motley crew once in Jed MacKay’s X-Men, and that didn’t make a whole lot of sense then and this doesn’t either. I also wasn’t clear if these are characters who Scott brought with him or whether they’re supposed to be “locals” who we’ll see again. But I’m willing to concede that if folks want to just throw some extra mutants in their book, I’m OK with that, too.
Austin: Another thing I raised an eyebrow at was the level of danger Rogue seemed to think she was in during the fire. This is a character who got punched into space once; I’m pretty sure she can survive a collapsing building (even if the building is also on fire).
Adam: One would think.
Austin: But my quibbles aside, this was another effective done-in-one issue, a nice palate cleanser from the previous issue neither of us enjoyed terribly much.
Adam: Much better use of Mutina, a fun festival and the X-Men save the day (and didn’t have to save the Outliers!). Everything was working for me with this one.
X-traneous Thoughts
- Vecchio draws a really good Jubilee.
- Between Ember, Waffles and now Nightcrawler the Hamster, are we building toward a Pet X-Men team? If so, yes please!
- Gail noted on socials that Waffles’ Model number is WF-L5.
- For the record, that last “Gail said” note came from Adam, not Austin.
Buy Uncanny X-Men #18 here. (Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, ComicsXF may earn from qualifying purchases.)
Adam Reck is the cartoonist behind Bish & Jubez as well as the co-host of Battle Of The Atom. Follow him @adamreck.bsky.social.
Austin Gorton also reviews older issues of X-Men at the Real Gentlemen of Leisure website, co-hosts the A Very Special episode podcast, and likes Star Wars. He lives outside Minneapolis, where sometimes, it is not cold. Follow him @austingorton.bsky.social.
