The invasion has begun, and the exterminators are here. Can even the might of the combined Uncanny X-Men stem the tide of the terror from the stars? And what is the true mission of the alien force attacking Louisiana? Uncanny X-Men #32 is written by Gail Simone; drawn by Roge Antonio, Jim Towe and Federica Mancin; colored by Matt Wilson, and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Adam Reck: It’s time to wrap up the Mars (but not that Mars) Attacks arc this week. We’ve got triple duty on art and a very busy issue to tackle. The recap announces that the alien invaders are known as “The Nur” (no relation to En Sabah, I take it). Did I miss that in a previous issue?
Austin Gorton: Yeah, they got named last issue. Not that I blame you for missing it; there’s a lot of stuff, for lack of a better word, happening in every issue of this arc. I am generally pro not every story needing to be a trade-friendly five chapters, but this one maybe could have used an extra issue.
Adam: I agree! Let’s get into why. But first:
I’m not calling you that
Adam: I want to start with my biggest peeve in this issue. We’ve been waiting for Gambit to go full dragon cannibal since the very first issue of this run. He finally does here, and announces he is not Gambit. He is WYVERN! And I’m sorry, Gambit. I’m not calling you that.
Austin: I can’t decide if this is Simone trolling/winking at George R.R. Martin (the dragons in his “A Song of Ice and Fire” universe are infamously wyverns, not dragons) or not, but my biggest issue with the reveal isn’t the name so much as the staging of it. There’s the panel where he says, “I’m not … Gambit no more” as the transformation begins. It’s the second panel of a five-panel page. But the third through fifth panels of the page cut to Nightcrawler, aboard a Nur ship, away from the setting of the Gambit panel, rather than showing the reveal the Gambit panel is clearly setting up.
Instead, the whole, “…call me Wyvern!” (cue Pearl Jam) reveal comes two pages later, after Rogue and Nightcrawler rescue MacKenzie from the Nur, and it feels absolutely random because there’ve been so many panels between the setup and the payoff (and no captions or anything setting up the shift in setting). The whole thing reads like the pages were cut up into panels and reorganized into a new layout. It’s very awkward.
Adam: Speaking of MacKenzie, am I wrong to assume she is 100% infected by a Brood? The Nur went out their way to collect and then kill her. Has Nightcrawler ultimately doomed her to a terrible fate? I’m just not sure why I shouldn’t think that based on what we saw here.
Austin: Woof, I hope not. I’m not 100% on board with Simone’s whole “the Louisiana X-Men are cheered and loved!” bit, but I like MacKenzie, I like her with Kurt, I like the X-Men having some non-mutant friends/supporting characters, and turning her into a Brood would be an awful ending for the character.
I love this plan! Tell me what it is.
Adam: I mentioned this was a busy issue, and boy is it. We have Rogue flying back from the South China Sea (presumably from her miniseries? Unsure); Nightcrawler still on the UFO despite escaping it last issue; the X-Men, Outliers and Mutina fighting aliens and the Brood; and we have the aforementioned Gambit dragon stuff. Altogether this felt very rushed in a way the last two issues did not. The pace makes me feel like the book had just been canceled and Simone had been asked to wrap it all up an issue early.
Austin: It very much feels that way. As alluded to above, the Nur in particular feel very undercooked — I don’t need a lot in terms of their motivation beyond “alien exterminators,” but they do a lot of things that don’t seem in service of “wiping out the Brood infestation” if that is their only deal. Why were they capturing people in the first issue? Why were they continuing to target MacKenzie in this issue even while the Brood were right there, ready to be wiped out — is she a Brood, as you suggested?
Adam: I thought for sure the X-Men would team up with the Nur once they realized they had a common enemy. Turns out, I was wrong!
Austin: And I know the art team is stretched thin with the book double shipping this summer and Luciano Vecchio off designing masquerade costumes for the Hellfire Gala, but the cavalcade of artists working just on this issue, let alone the full arc, doesn’t help in that regard.
I also have no idea where Rogue was. At first I thought this was her going to do whatever she and Gambit are doing that necessitates Monet and Quicksilver joining the team, but that’s where they’re going at the end of the issue (and of course it quickly became clear Gambit was still around). Maybe she was doing prep work for her and Gambit’s quest?
Adam: At one point Deathdream excitedly jumps into the fray exclaiming “I love this plan! Also, tell me what it is, please.” And the issue feels the same way. I can’t determine who is where (inside? outside?), who is doing what to whom, or even quite how it wrapped up.
Austin: This is where the impact of the rotating artists is really felt. They’re all perfectly fine in terms of what they’re doing, but the jump from one to another minimizes visual consistency, and there’s a real lack of transitional captions or visual setup — the narrative just jumps around, without ever really setting up the transition into a different facet or setting of the story.
Adam: The shifting artists plus the unfocused script all contribute to the general confusion. Speaking of which, we mentioned it last week, but due to high water levels, New Orleans traditionally buries bodies above ground and not below football fields. What I thought was weirder was Deathdream’s line about thousands of hurricane deaths. It’s in character, but in extremely poor taste to put that on page gleefully as it was.
It’s so hard to say goodbye
Adam: The epilogue is a transition to the Rogue and Gambit-centric arc we’ll see in coming issues. We see The Outliers get new costumes in custom boxes (Who’s making these?!) and become announced as the new “The New Mutants!” (Mutina sold separately.) I don’t know why they need to be the new New Mutants. Maybe they didn’t like The Outliers. Maybe everyone in this book needs two names.
Austin: The Outliers name was fairly nonsensical in the first place, so this makes as much sense as anything, I suppose. I too have questions about the mechanics of these new uniforms (as you said, who made them and put them in cute little X-branded boxes, and also, who designed them to look like they looked in the simulation created by Perimeter?), but it’s still a nice moment. And it does feel genuinely earned. Once again, whatever else this book’s problems, the New Mutants (nee Outliers) are rarely among them.
That said, I did have a hard time buying how tearful everyone was about Rogue and Gambit going away. Like, they’re not leaving forever. I get being sad, but it felt like Simone was laying it on a bit thick just to underscore the whole “they’re like a family now” point.
Adam: As I said before, everyone is acting in character. Is it overwrought? For sure. I think we are trained as comic book readers to not be phased by characters coming and going on their adventures. But it does beg the question, did the kids all break down when Rogue went to do her solo thing recently? How dependent are they?
Given the speed at which this arc wrapped, it’s clear Gail is eager to exorcise Gambit, er, Wyvern. So that’s where we’ll pick up next time.
X-traneous Thoughts
- The Nur ships turning into tripods was a neat B sci-fi movie homage.
- Hey, I finally figured out what Mutina’s powers are, and they’re … just Dani Moonstar’s?
- The Vig survived! Very glad he did not bleed out after losing his arm like I thought.
- Given the new New Mutants’ looks are based on their looks from Perimeter’s simulation, does that make them the latest inductees into the proud fraternity of characters (like Havok and Polaris) to wear costumes designed/provided by a villain?
- Between this and the “Age of Doug” Unbreakable X-Men book, it seems like Gail has a thing for Galactus.
- Gambit traveling with a duffle bag feels right. Still deciding on Rogue having a standard roller bag.
Buy Uncanny X-Men #32 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.
