With one X-man down and hell coming for the rest, Rogue finds herself alone against a power of darkness for which she is completely unprepared. No backup, no lifeline and no way out. Uncanny X-Men #4 is written by Gail Simone, drawn by David Marquez, colored by Matt Wilson and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Jake: Well, here we are again for another Uncanny X-Men review, Anna. These issues are coming out so fast Iâm not even sure whether to count them in numbers or letters. Fortunately for me, Iâve still got a liâl mess oâ Captain Marvel hidden on the back shelf which should see me through.
Anna: I was excited to spend more time getting to know the Outliers this week, after their strong buildup in the last issue. So itâs cool that they barely took a line in this one. Iâm sure weâll see more from them in future issues. But whether weâre talking about roller coasters or X-Men comics, while some momentum shifts are exhilarating, others leave you regretting the price of admission.
Jake: To paraphrase Michael Corleone from The Godfather, âjust when I thought I was in, they threw me back out,â and thatâs exactly how I feel about this series. Fundamentally, Uncanny is in conflict with itself about the story it wants to tell. For every step forward, for every new detail revealed about the Outliers or Rogueâs role as their new protector, it feels like weâre constantly being yanked back to the past. Except itâs more of a theoretical past because this eraâs refusal to meaningfully engage with the actual recent past means that itâs regularly either repeating story beats weâve just had or clashing with them.
Anyway, letâs begin exploring the murky, swampy depths this issue, starting with the star of the show. Yes, thatâs right: Sarah Gaunt.
The Gaunted Forest
Jake: As teased by the cover, the darkness at the heart of Sarahâs backstory is explored in this issue through flashbacks and the present day. During a brisk spring walk through the Oxfordshire countryside with Charles Xavier, Sarah drops the bombshell that sheâs pregnant and intends to keep the child. Meanwhile, in the present, Rogue and Nightcrawler descend upon the dark forest where the monstrous Sarah lies in wait. After discovering Wolverine battered and bloodied, Rogue orders Kurt to teleport him home. Resolving to take her on solo, Rogue goes up against Sarah and, even after dusting off the Captain Marvel powers sheâd left on a shelf in the garage, is summarily dismissed. While sheâs whooping ass, Sarah provides insight into her backstory. Her home decimated by a hurricane (potentially Katrina given the timeframe), she failed to rescue her son Brian during the storm. In her despair, she too allowed herself to succumb to death, but nature had other plans for her. Emerging after three days as a monstrous creature, she vowed revenge on Charles for as-yet unconfirmed reasons.
Meanwhile, she has dispatched an army of forest creatures and ⌠knights(?!) to Haven House, where the X-Men and the Outliers are holed up. A brief scene with Warden Ellis confirms her true intentions â to capture the mutant children, which Ellis warns the X-Men about out of a rare act of empathy related to the tragic death of her brother (but also because Sarah had become uncontrollable). After a less than rousing speech to the assembled mutants by Gambit, the X-Men prepare to face off against the amassed forces.
There are two key elements to unpack here, which are the details added to Sarahâs backstory and, frankly, her obscene power levels. Where do you want to begin?
Anna: Every âwho would win in a fight?â convo is silly because the answer is always whoever the writer wants to win, in service of whatever story they want to tell. To that end, I donât have a problem with Sarah wrecking Logan and Rogue. What I do have a problem with is how boring her powers appear to be. Marquez, who remains the bookâs main draw (pun intended), presents a heckuva good battle. The ways in which Sarahâs proportions seem to change from moment to moment, her claws stretching and bending to cut and crush, convey a sense of supernatural dread that recalls Bill Sienkiewiczâs epic rendering of the Demon Bear. Yet the narrative, and Rogueâs in-fight narration, suggest Sarahâs main power is just that sheâs really, really strong?
And like, thatâs fine, I guess. But a supernaturally themed villain, and Marquezâs evocative art, deserve better fight mechanics. Does Sarahâs connection to the natural world drain the powers of her opponents? Do her claws infect them with doubt? Maybe she feeds on fear? Thereâs definitely more going on with her; she can apparently transform the children she captures into her monstrous hencemen. But in the context of the fight at hand, Sarah is presented as powerful just because she can hit hard. I was going to say this basically makes her the Champion, but actually, the Championâs Power Primordial comes from residual Big Bang energy, and thatâs pretty freakinâ cool. Sarah, as the central antagonist in the relaunch of a storied flagship, deserves to be cool. As yet, so far, she is not.
Iâm also not nuts about the way the monstrous mother trope is being used. But Iâll save those complaints for another time; thereâs still room for this story to surprise me.
Jake: I am not a power scaling person (says every comic book fan ever). Itâs probably the aspect of comics discourse that bores me most because the answer is, as you note, âitâs what the writer decides works best for the story.â BUT.
You canât just say your newly introduced character is 10 times more powerful than an omega-level mutant to justify them destroying two of the most battle-hardened X-Men around. Why would that be the case? It may well be, as alluded to here, that her connection to the natural world is what has granted her this obscene strength. Again though, why would this be the case? The cause of her personal tragedy being the source of her strength, again, makes sense thematically, but itâs not particularly compelling. Itâs all just stated, rather than explored; said, not shown; ultimately, not earned.
Anna: âUnearnedâ describes a lot of the stakes in this comic, as well as some of the emotional drama. I do not doubt that Rogue and Logan have a deep psychological connection. But also, Logan and Kurt clearly, unquestionably, have a deeper one. (The first issue of Loganâs own current ongoing had Kurt and Logan acting out a hurt/comfort fanfic.) So using Loganâs apparent near-death to motivate Rogue with Kurt in tow but seemingly less affected is one of those odd beats this series keeps accumulating. Same with Rogue equating the tragedy of the fall of Krakoa with the death of Harvey X, a kid she knew for all of 30 seconds. Iâm not saying Harveyâs death wasnât tragic, but I think itâs fair to acknowledge that in life, some tragedies are more personal than others. At issue #4, I still donât have a great sense of whatâs taken Rogue to the place sheâs at mentally, why this is one of the hardest times of her life, and why no one is calling her back. And it keeps on keeping me from being as invested as I want to be.
The Charles Xavier Shame Train
Jake: It exhausts me to say this, especially having very recently reviewed Rise of the Powers of X, but we need to talk about Charles Xavier.
Now look, there are gaps in the story that could explain all of this away, but â hold onto your hats here â Charles may have been a bad father again. Or is it again? Anyway, the mystery of how Charles went from innocently frolicking through the English countryside with his new beau to being the subject of Sarahâs undying hatred might have been effective if Fall of X had not just taken him to rock bottom in such a brutal manner. We were led to believe that he would be allowed to fade in the background in disgrace in this era, which was sensible because he was broken as a character, deliberately so by great writing from Kieron Gillen. Yet here he is again, with yet another woman and child he has abandoned in secret, yet another Deadly Genesis, yet another Amelia Voght, yet another Matthew Molloy; itâs yet another secret shame that the easiest target in X-Men can be blamed for. As we said in one of our previous reviews, you canât just heighten stakes by entrenching something as far back in a characterâs past as possible. Retcons only carry weight when they establish something new that works mechanically with the history of the fictional world. This is another time Charles Xavier let someone down, and probably the least interesting time. This isnât some sort of incendiary scandal, itâs just another pile of wood to add to the Dumpster fire of Professor Xâs history.
The point I made at the top about this series yanking itself back into a vague sense of the past rather than actual continuity is most frustrating here. This story is a rerun of so many past stories, and recent ones, but it is not in conversation with any of them. Rather than having the desired effect of making the events of the issue more important, it actually diminishes them. Not only that, here we are devoting a significant proportion of the issue to this storyline when we could be learning new things about The Outliers, or developing an understanding of what the hell Jubilee is doing here, or exploring Rogueâs new position as a leader and protector of these kids. Itâs such a shame.
Anna: That was exactly my feeling, Jake. The Charles stuff is a retread of so many more interesting stories, it canât help but make this story seem weaker by comparison. I already know Chuckâs a bad dad who doesnât practice safe sex. Thatâs practically his online dating profile (and really should be in the âpowers and abilitiesâ section of his Marvel wiki). I know itâs not my job, as a critic, to try to write a better comic. But it feels like thereâs so clearly a better comic within reach here, if you were to simply tie Sarah into Rogueâs backstory instead of Charlesâ. Maybe there will be a connection; Marquez does allude to a connection between Sarah and Rogue when, at the end of the opening scene, he has the expression of Rogue in the present mirror the expression of Sarah in the past.
If Iâm being generous, maybe thereâs something going on thematically regarding different approaches to mentorship and/or motherhood, as represented by Xavier, Ellis, Sarah and Rogue. But to this point, I know Charles entirely too well, donât fully understand where Rogue is at, and donât understand Ellis or Sarah at all. I wish I felt something when Ellis did her surprise hero(ish) turn. But because I donât know her deal beyond âevil bigot,â I did not.
Characterization
Jake: I wanted to talk about characterization in this series so far because itâs been such a mixed bag. During the first issue, when Gail Simone had the page space to really explore Rogueâs internality for the first time, I was impressed by the emotional depths she managed to reach, elevated by Marquezâs incredible rendering of facial expressions. Since issue #2, though, where the issues were reduced to standard length and other characters jostled for position, there have been some real casualties from a characterization standpoint.
Anna: I will admit Iâm having some unfortunate flashbacks to the low points of the Brian Michael Bendis-penned Avengers, when he kept on adding more and more characters who never got a word in edgewise because the cast was simply too big, and too dominated by familiar-favorite mouthpieces. Jubilee doesnât need to be here. I might even dare to say she doesnât deserve to be here, languishing in the background of a story that doesnât seem to have anything to do with her. I mean sure, itâs only issue #4, thereâs plenty of time for Jubes to get more page time. But imagine how many pages weâd have for Jubilee if Charles Xavier wasnât hogging so many of them.
I also continue to wish we had a stronger sense of why these particular characters have been drawn together. At various times, most of these characters have had deep connections to each other. But why here, why now? Why are they the only ones answering Rogueâs calls? Simply put, this book still lacks a mission statement. Teams need identities. Whatâs the identity of this one? Speaking of unfortunate comparisons to better stories, for my money, Eve Ewing and Carmen Carneroâs Exceptional X-Men is doing the whole âdisaffected leader finds new purpose mentoring a new crop of young mutantsâ quite a bit more effectively, with more grounded emotional stakes and a more compelling connection to the real-world implications of the mutant metaphor.
Jake: This lack of a mission statement flattens the characters to a series of quips and one-liners that, even if theyâre things characters would say, arenât saying anything about where theyâve come from, where they are now or where theyâre going.
Take Kurtâs âKrakoa yet lives, my friend,â which really frustrated me. First of all, this is a complete non sequitur and felt like nothing more than lip service. Second of all, Kurt and Logan, whom the exchange is between, were among Krakoaâs biggest skeptics, so it doesnât even really make sense. The follow-up line, âAnd god lives as well. Heaven be praisedâ was the type of basic characterization I alluded to earlier. Other than âNightcrawler is religious,â it served no story purpose.
The Midnight M is another example of this kind of empty symbolism that frustrates me. Letâs make another comparison. Take the concept of mutant circuits, which were most successfully developed through Vita Ayala and Rod Reisâ New Mutants run. This was such a beautiful representation of the strength of community; the notion of celebrating the benefit of diversity; of the whole being stronger than its parts. This concept was developed over a series of issues. It was the mutant metaphor in action. The Midnight M is the mutant equivalent of âthree, two, one, go team!â and does nothing for me.
Reaching the end of this review, it strikes me how sharply it contrasts with our review of the last issue. Part of my frustration is that this series has some great ingredients, itâs just not a balanced recipe. The Charles Xavier plot is like excessive garlic. It overpowers everything else and leaves a weird taste in the mouth.
X-Traneous Thoughts
- This issue all but debunks the Calico as Sarahâs daughter theory.
- Someone please give Jubilee something to do!
- How did Ellis get Gambitâs phone number? More importantly, why did he pick up a call from an anonymous caller? Why did he pick up a call in general? The X-Men donât do phone calls, they much prefer a brief misunderstanding brawl before clearing things up.
- Iâm still not nuts about Kurtâs teleportation powers being so massively leveled up during the Krakoan era (limits are what make some characters interesting!). But damned if Marquez doesnât make it look good, giving a visceral propulsiveness to every marvelous and terrifying BAMF.
- On Twitter/X, Simone recently denied Warden Ellis is meant to allude to Warren Ellis. But once you see it, itâs hard to unsee it.
Buy Uncanny X-Men #4 here. (Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, ComicsXF may earn from qualifying purchases.)
Anna Peppard
Anna is a PhD-haver who writes and talks a lot about representations of gender and sexuality in pop culture, for academic books and journals and places like Shelfdust, The Middle Spaces, and The Walrus. Sheâs the editor of the award-winning anthology Supersex: Sexuality, Fantasy, and the Superhero and co-hosts the podcasts Three Panel Contrast and Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow!
Jake Murray spends far too much time wondering if the New Mutants are OK. When he's not doing that, he can be found talking and writing about comics with anyone who will listen.
