Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates, Review | Tagged: generation hope, kieron gillen, marvel, MVL, x-men

Wednesday Comics Review: Uncanny X-Men 538 and Generation Hope 8

I hate Breakworld.

I really do. And as a Joss Whedon fan it pains me to say so. But I really hate Breakworld. I'm not that enamoured of SWORD either.

So Uncanny X-Men #538 has that strike against it from the get go.

Especially since it embeds the Breakworldians into the X-Men Universe in terms of being repeated guest stars in the future. They'll probably be a big part of Schism too. Please no.

So bear all this in mind, I'm not going in favourably here.

It's the second half of Kitty's improvised chess game to turn the tides and the odds against her aggressors. After being solidified and killed last issue. And yes, that is a bit of a hinderance.

So pawns are put in place and the game commences, the only way it can as Kitty queens herself and then traps the opposing king. Clever, simple, trying to always hide its next move and mostly succeeding. But it all seems a bit samey, aside from a fun bit fighting with Wolverine, it's a bit dull, and dammit there's Breakworld all over the place. Seriously.

Generation Hope from the same writer, Kieron Gillen, does something very different. It takes a character we think we know, foreshadows what he's about to do, in plain sight, but when it comes to fruition, it's a complete surprise and an entertaining one at that. I got flashbacks to the first time we meet the bespectacled Gremlin who drinks the brain potion in Gremlins 2…

And not only that, but we then get another perspective on everything we've seen which puts it all in doubt again. All with Hope standing as Chief Machiavellian Manipulator General. This is the joy of the unreliable monologuer here, and despite Uncanny X-Men having more fights, thrills, stabbings and jumping off things, and Generation Hope mostly having people standing around, it's the latter which is the more exhilarating.

Of course one of the signs of a really good Machiavellian character is that the manipulated people either don't know that they are being mainipulated, or don't care.

And that's starting to fall apart. Next issue's cover indicates that something or someone is about to get snuffed out. Hope itself.

Uncanny X-Men dopes have better Dodsony art though. It just does. Even if it's used to portray Breakworldians.

Comics courtesy of Orbital Comics in London. Klaus Janson will be signing there at 5pm on the 16th June.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!