Once again, Marvel have only shipped a single X-book this week.  So even though it's in mid-storyline, let's check in on Ed Brubaker and Salvador Larroca's Uncanny X-Men.

Issue #489 is the middle chapter of "Extremists", a five-parter in which the Morlocks return yet again, proving that not even the virtual eradication of their race can wipe them out.  This time, Masque is leading a group of surviving Morlocks in fulfilling a prophecy that, somehow or other, involves them finding Magneto.  Meanwhile, independently, Professor X and Nightcrawler are also hunting Magnus down.

On the whole, after a slightly bumpy period, Brubaker seems to be finding his feet on this book.  In contrast to the intergalactic space opera of his previous storyline, this is more of a street-level, character-driven story, and it plays more to his strengths as a writer.  There are some neat but logical twists, and the story finally gets to grips with some of the junk that the X-books have been burdened with over the last couple of years.  M-Day was a bad idea; Sentinel Squad O*N*E were barely even an idea.  But they're here now, and Brubaker is at least trying to use them as a foil for the characters we really care about.

Even so, there's a lot of baggage to wrestle with on the X-Men these days.  Brubaker has to try and address the situation he inherited - even though he spent the first year of his run studiously avoiding it at all costs - and the fact that even a writer as good as Brubaker can only raise the book to the level of "above average" shows how misguided and limiting the current set-up is.  Admittedly, I can't see a way out of it that wouldn't seem like a cheap cop-out.  But if nobody has any better ideas, I'd still accept the cheap cop-out with glee.

A major problem for this story, for example, is that Brubaker is trying to use the old device of having the villains endangering the good name of mutants.  So something's at stake, if there's nothing to their silly prophecies.  At any time in X-Men history until the last couple of years, this would have worked.  But now, it doesn't work any more.  The reputation of mutants?  What mutants?  What reputation?  With the numbers this low, it's simply a non-issue. 

M-Day has broken the series; the only stories you can do are ones that are absolutely personal to the X-Men as individuals, or ones that are about the X-Men trying to undo M-Day.  Nothing else really works.  Mutant politics no longer matters.  The backbone of the book has turned to mush.  Even Ed Brubaker can't work miracles, and heaven knows he's doing his best here.  Something about the story at least gives the impression that it's heading somewhere - even though, in logical terms, you'd be hard pressed to identify why.  For its dramatic tension, it does rely on you buying into the implicit assurance that, honestly, finding Magneto matters.  And for some reason I kind of do, but I suspect it's more because I trust Ed Brubaker than because anything on the page has given me a convincing reason to believe that Magneto matters.

The pace is also a touch languid, even allowing for the character-driven focus.  It's a five part story, but from what we've seen so far, it would have had more punch at four.  The pacing works well enough, mind you - there's just significant scope for tightening it up.

Larroca's art is as good as ever, and combined with Jason Keith's colouring, the book looks very atmospheric.  And there's something intangible about this story that makes me give Brubaker the benefit of the doubt - at least he's got me convinced that he knows where he's going with this, which is half the battle.  The creators are still labouring under a ton of handicaps which should be swept away as soon as humanly possible, but they're making the best of it.

Rating: B+

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