Scanned Thoughts: Uncanny X-men #15

I know the X-men have always been about confronting stereotypes, but some stereotypes won’t go away no matter how much anyone confronts them. Black men will always be better at basketball and white men will always be worse dancers. Get over it. And while the Rosie O’Donnell’s of the world don’t want to hear it, women love to shop and have a nice girl’s night out. And men are always going to find some way of turning that into a perverse fantasy. Again, get over it. Uncanny X-men #15 has been billed as an issue that offers insight into how the women of Cyclops’s revolution spend an off-night. It’s not their fault they’re spending it at a time when Marvel’s Inhumanity event is creeping into multiple titles. Like getting stuck in traffic with explosive diarrhea, it’s just a matter of bad timing. But it’s still the sexy women of the X-men going shopping and taking a break from fantasizing about Cyclops’s penis. It definitely has plenty of potential for awesome.

But part of that potential doesn’t involve watching Magik meditate. If I want to watch pretty girls sit and stand around for no reason, I’ll peak in on a yoga class. She’s not really into it that much. It’s part of some kind of training that Dr. Strange is giving her. On top of that, this is the Dr. Strange of the past. For some reason, she feels the need to time travel to get help for being a walking demon seed. While I rarely condone time travel outside of Dr. Who or Back to the Future, I guess I can make an exception. Even so, not much happens here other than Dr. Strange reminding her that if a future involves a world that’s intact, then that future doesn’t suck. It’s not unreasonable logic, but it contributes jack shit to the story.

Once she returns, Magik is confronted by Tempus and the Stepford Sisters. They want to go on a girls night out. They even invite O5 Jean Grey along for the ride. Apparently, there isn’t much to do in a secret Weapon X base aside from flirt with teammates and make idiots of themselves in the Danger Room. Plus, they kind of need new clothes. They mention how limited their wardrobe is at this base and for some women, that might as well be as bad as a malignant tumor at the base of their spine.

That’s not as sexist as it sounds, even coming from a drunk like me. It’s purely pragmatic. Normal, practical shit like shopping for clothing is the kind of stuff that gets glossed over in comics in favor of fighting giant robots or watching Tony Stark hook up with beautiful women with green skin. While that kind of menial shit may not make for an epic battle worthy of Michael Bay’s last four movies, it does help humanize these characters. And when these characters can do shit like travel to Limbo, stop time, and read minds that’s kind of a big deal.

Having money is also a big deal because last I checked, people still charged money for clothes. This leads to the second reason why the girls enlisted Magik. They think a demon seed who once took on Dormammu is the only one who could survive waking up Emma Frost. That’s not an unreasonable assumption in the slightest. They don’t have money. She does. For a girls night out and new clothes, they’re willing to risk enraging her. So yeah, they’re pretty fucking desperate. I think their concerns were somewhat eased when they saw Emma Frost sleeping in a position that was probably very convenient for the Cyclopses, Sebastian Shaws, and Namors of the world. It may actually be one of the best panels of the year, at least according to my penis.

But the idea of going shopping on a girl’s night is probably the best request they could have made to Emma. Plus, they need money and she reminds them that she was once the White fucking Queen. She has so much money that she always keeps a big fucking bag of it nearby just in case. She even recruits Kitty Pryde to join them, treating it like a mission because in Emma’s view she is badly in need of some added fashion and O5 Jean is badly in need of protection from the Stepford Sisters. Since I know jack shit about fashion beyond underwear and sweat pants, I’ll gladly yield of Emma Frost’s expertise.

Unfortunately, we don’t get to see the girls splurging on overpriced shit or trying on the kind of crazy clothes that wouldn’t be welcome outside Mardi Gras. It just skips right ahead to long after the girls have bought everything they needed and they’re just cruising around London looking for a bite to eat. This was disappointing. Usually, I don’t care to watch beautiful women shop unless they’re in a Victory’s Secret trying on thongs. But I was hoping to see more of these girls bonding because if they can’t bond over shopping with limitless money, then there’s no hope for Cyclops’s revolution. Is that really hoping for too much?

The only bonding they really do is over a quick meal. Tempus talks to O5 Jean about why the Stepford Sisters hate her. And while this does turn into a nice bit of trolling from O5 Jean, it doesn’t really do much more than what was done in All New X-men #19. It establishes some clear conflict between O5 Jean and Celeste, but not much else. There’s no interaction with Emma Frost. There’s no interaction with Magik or Kitty. There’s nothing dramatic or heartfelt about it, which is actually pretty surprising given Brian Michael Bendis’s track record. Not only is it disappointing, it’s way too fucking rushed. It’s like there’s no time to really show them enjoying a girls night out. It basically makes the premise of the whole issue fall flatter than Kristen Stewart’s acting.

So it ends up being even more disappointing when their girls night out is cut short by some commotion outside. It’s not a Sentinel attack. It’s not even a sneak-attack by the Purifiers. But it does attract a bigger crowd than Russell Crow taking a shit in public. Since they’re used to giant robots randomly attacking them, the Stepford Cuckoos cause the crowd to disperse so they can investigate. In addition, they try to figure out what could possibly fuck up an innocent girls night out. O5 Jean reveals it’s part of Global Terrigenesis, which is basically some crazy shit that happened in the current Inhumans storyline.

I’m usually all for greater connections between series in Marvel. Like the lube used in pornos, the cohesiveness of the Marvel universe is part of what makes it awesome. But in this instance, it feels way too fucking random. There’s no hint that the X-men were aware of the shit that had been going on with the Inhumans or that it’s worth interrupting their girls night out. They just investigate as if it were another stray Sentinel and that makes it hard to feel as though this makes the Marvel universe more cohesive. It just gives the impression that whoever organized these connections had really potent weed.

This little anomaly associated with Global Terrigenesis created a crystal cocoon of sorts. It’s sort of like the cocoons in Aliens, minus the face raping aliens. And when it breaks, a new Inhuman emerges who was probably just minding his own business, tweeting pictures of his dick. He looks like Dick Cheney just shot his face up, but he’s not overly hostile at first. He’s a guy. Who could possibly be hostile to a group of attractive young women being led by Emma Frost? Then he finds out that these beautiful women are mutants and just like that his boner disappears faster than the CEO of Goldman Sachs at tax time.

The girls find out that he’s an Inhuman. They find out way too fucking easy, as if Inhumans are as well known to the Marvel heroes as Facebook. Before they can even offer to help, he reveals his disgust towards mutants. The girls don’t take it too personally. They seem to attribute that to him just being a douche while also being from Latveria, which I guess is the Marvel Universe’s equivalent of the Jersey Shore. There’s not much action or conflict. There’s just talking. Boring, uninteresting talking in an effort to not make this guy a new enemy to the mutant race. It still ends up going horribly wrong.

Without much provocation or any interesting conversations, the guy just snaps and uses his new Inhuman powers. And they’re not event at impressive. He just explodes in a giant purple fireball and that somehow knocks everyone out cold. While that may be a pretty potent power, especially for anyone waiting in line to get the new iPhone, it’s pretty fucking dull. It’s almost as dull as the actual encounter between the girls and this lone Inhuman. There’s no charisma or drama like there has been before. There isn’t even a shocking twist of any kind. Once the girls pass out, he doesn’t even try to cop a feel. He passes out as well, AIM and a bunch of nameless associates drop by to take the kid away. That’s about it. It’s as exciting as it sounds. Even a hit of LSD won’t make this very interesting, although the unicorns that appear on the page are always fun.

When they wake up, they’re basically like, “Oh…he’s gone and there are the cops. Oh well. Wonder if my DVR recorded the last episode of the Big Bang Theory?” They don’t really do much with this knowledge once they make the cops go away. They just acknowledge that there’s a sudden surge in Inhumans and that may affect mutants somehow. Again, there’s no sense of drama or foreboding. This whole issue seems less about showing these characters in their more personal moments and more about just informing the X-men that the Inhuman population is on the rise. I’m pretty sure just an email or a random Facebook posting would have been more efficient. The approach in this issue just wasted all the potential that a girls night out with these characters could have realized.

This was an entertaining issue, but in a limited capacity. It was certainly entertaining to see the girls of Cyclops’s revolution interact and talk about things that didn’t relate to Cyclops’s penis. It just didn’t lead to much more than some trolling of the Stepford Cuckoos and some integration with the events of Inhumanity. That’s all well and good, but it’s more of an appetizer rather than a full meal. It’s like light beer at the halftime of a football game. It just isn’t enough. This issue was still a nice change of pace from previous issues, but shit like Magik’s short attention span with Dr. Strange and the limited conversations between the girls as they went out didn’t amount to much. Maybe I was hoping for too much. It’s not like I expected all the girls to get naked, smother themselves in bacon grease, and wrestle each other with their tongues. I reserve that for very special dreams. But I was expecting more and this issue didn’t deliver. I give Uncanny X-men #15 a 5 out of 10. Not much happened, but everything that did happen wasn’t so egregious that it would make someone shit their spine. And that’s really the most we can hope for these days. Nuff said!

Uncanny X-men #15 Lettered Preview - Emma Loves Doggy Style

Anyone who has been following this blog for any amount of time knows it doesn’t take much for me to make a dirty joke. I see woman’s lips quiver or a man’s right hand shake awkwardly and almost immediately, my mind ventures into that dirty space located somewhere between Ron Jeremy’s asshole and Jenna Jameson’s breast implants. Since the men and women in comics already look like porn stars and male strippers, that’s easy to do whenever I review comics. But sometimes I see something that requires no joke. It’s as dirty and as awesome as it needs to be without me saying a damn thing.

Such is the case with the latest preview for Uncanny X-men #15. I already did a post on an unlettered preview that was released a few weeks back. But that preview didn’t need to be lettered. It basically conferred the premise of the issue. The women of Cyclops’s revolutionary team want to get away from revolutionaries and worshipping Cyclops’s penis for a while and just dive right into old female stereotypes. And that’s fine. That has plenty of appeal because we see these characters doing enough crazy shit like fighting giant robots or rubbing shoulders with cosmic entities. It helps regular drunks like me relate to these characters when we see them involved in less hostile activities.

But the shopping concept and all the ways that pisses off some feminists isn’t the bonerific moment of the preview here. The lettered preview that just came out, courtesy of Comic Book Resources, didn’t include the same pictures as the unlettered preview. It was shorter too and that’s usually a real pain in the ass, but in this instance it compensates in a big way. I could coordinate with my brain and my penis to try and describe how it compensates. Instead, I’ll just shut up and let the preview speak for itself.

CBR: Uncanny X-men #15 Preview

INHUMANITY TIE-IN!

The ladies of the UNCANNY X-MEN go out on the town and find themselves face-to-face with the effects of INHUMANITY.

Wait, is that Kitty Pryde with the UNCANNY X-MEN?!?!

Rising star KRIS ANKA (covers of UNCANNY X-FORCE, ALL-NEW X-MEN SPECIAL) comes in as guest artist for this special issue!

There are way too many dirty things I could say here. I know I’m already on the FCC’s most wanted list and I’m sure the NSA laughs their ass off at this shit when they’re not laughing at my drunken texts at three in the morning. But for once, I think the picture here speaks for itself.

We’re so used to seeing Emma Frost looking so elegant and regal. She’s the fucking White Queen for crying out loud. That’s practically a reflex for her. She comes off as the kind of woman who spends no less than two hours getting ready in the morning. And she makes damn sure that everyone she confronts knows it’s worth it. But no matter how hot Emma Frost looks during most of the day, she won’t always look her best. I’m convinced that Helen of Troy herself looked like shit when she first woke up in the morning. This just takes it to a hilarious extreme.

It’s not enough for Emma to look disheveled. She also has to fall asleep in a position that was probably incredibly convenient for the Cyclops, Namors, and Sebastian Shaws of the world. Like a smartphone on standby, this woman was built to be sexy even in her sleep. And that’s sexy on a level that no other woman can touch. Nuff said!

Uncanny X-men #15 Preview - Ladies Night At Its Most Awesome

I believe it was Sun Tzu who once said that the mightiest army of men will always fall to the second mightiest army of beautiful women. Or maybe it was my old therapist, who also happened to be a militant feminist who had a necklace of preserved dog testicles. Whoever said it, I agree completely. No matter how strong or powerful men may be, they'll always be at the mercy of their dicks and beautiful women have a way of manipulating dicks like a weapon of mass castration.

For this reason, the women of the X-men have always held a special place in my heart and my penis. They have shown time and again that a penis isn't necessary to be a good X-man with Cyclops being the lone exception. There are so many alpha females in the X-men that I imagine every scrotum shrivels within a ten mile radius of every X-men base. So what would happen if some of these powerful X-women decided to take a break from destroying Sentinels and inducing boners to have a girl's night out? What kind of night could the women of the X-men possibly have? The awesome kind, that's what.

It was already teased as part of the upcoming Inhumanity event that Marvel is launching. As this story finds its way into the pages of Uncanny X-men, it offers a less-than-perfect setting for a girls night out. But I imagine that any night out that doesn't end with a Sentinel attack is a win by X-men standards.

The timing is actually pretty perfect in some respects. Kitty Pryde and the O5 X-men just joined Cyclops's revolutionary team. And as we saw in All New X-men #18, they're getting along about as well as fresh cooked bacon and a hungry bear. The Stepford Cuckoos have made it clear that Jean Grey is about as welcome as Elton John at Rick Santorum's house. On top of that, O5 Jean Grey has done a great job of effectively pushing away the men who want to get into her panties. Since she seems to suck at getting along with men who want to bone her and is in desperate need of female companionship, she needs a girls night out. And the fine folks at Newsarama released an unlettered preview of what that night out could entail.

Newsarama: Uncanny X-men #15 PREVIEW

I want to complain that this preview is unlettered, but this is one instance where it helps to have a dirty imagination that can great a porno out of anything. In this one instance, I don't mind filling in the blanks, even though I know the actual dialog is probably going to be much more kid-friendly.

Even though I can't tell what's going on, I imagine it consists of something along the lines of Eva saying, "Hey Jean! Join us on our girls night out!" and one of the Stepford Cuckoos saying "If you dare come along, I will rub acid on all your tampons and shave your head in your sleep." It even looks like Emma Frost tags along, probably providing the necessary funds for them to enjoy themselves. It must be nice to be both rich and a wanted fugitive. I imagine Edward Snowden is cutting off his own fingers in jealousy.

Beyond my innate tendency to make a dick joke out of every unlettered preview, it looks as though Eva may provide O5 Jean with a much needed female friend. She has had so little and because of that, her perspective is kind of fucked up. I imagine being the only X-woman for such a long time fucked with both her outlook and her hormones. Hell, I'm surprised she's still sane after living in a house where most of the thoughts of every boy, including Charles Xavier, revolved around wanting to bone her. So in a sense, she needs this, if for no other reason than to distance her from the fucked up love triangles that dominate so many of her stories.

I think this may also be part of a larger effort by Brian Michael Bendis to tell a different kind of story for Jean Grey. For so long now, her stories have consisted of loving Cyclops, hating Emma Frost, resisting the urge to bone Wolverine, and managing the Phoenix Force. Between this and the upcoming Trial of Jean Grey, I think he's trying to tell a different kind of story with her and part of that process is having her interact with more characters. He already set the precedent by having her develop a close bond with Kitty Pryde. Now it looks like she'll be establishing more bonds with other members of the New Xavier School while developing a new rival in X-23, who learns faster than O5 Jean that the power of Cyclops's penis can't be ignored forever.

But I'm okay with waiting for that story to develop later on. Let O5 Jean make a few new girlfriends, if for no other reason than to explain to her why gender equality has stalled due to the advent of selfies, reality TV, and the Kardashians. Nuff said!

Uncanny X-men #15 - Cosmic Sinister Awesome

When five superheroes suddenly become imbued with cosmic power, what sort of shit do they have to fear? So many superhero stories are based around the heroes being the underdogs and like the 1980 US Olympic hockey team or the 2007 New York Giants, they overcome impossible odds to defeat a stronger opponent. People tend to fall for that shit all the time, even if it's only in sports and never against shit that might actually improve the status for some peoples' lives in this shitty world. That's part of what made the X-men so appealing. They were always the underdog, the upstart branch of human evolution that makes creationists shit bricks and incur the kind of bullying that even Dan Savage would say doesn't get better. Well thanks to the Phoenix Force, they're not the underdogs anymore. Hell, they're practically the doctor that cuts off the dog's nuts and pulls out their teeth. So what do they have to fear?

Well even the most powerful heroes have enemies. For the X-men, no matter how powerful or well-organized they get there are always some enemies tenacious enough to fuck their shit up. One that ranks in the Hall of Fame for ruining the X-men's day and being cock-smashingly cool about it is Sinister. He may not be the most imposing villain. He's not even the ugliest. Hell, I know college co-eds with daddy issues that would think he's very doable. But what he lacks in god-like power he more than makes up for with a suave cunning that I liken to a cross between James Bond and Kim Jong Ill. No matter how powerful or secure the X-men may be, Sinister will find a way to fuck with them and in the pages of Uncanny X-men he already has.

When Kieron Gillen relaunched Uncanny X-men and formulated the X-men's Extinction Team, he had Sinister as their first major villain. Since being KIA in Messiah Complex, he's been a busy mad sociopath. Now no longer content with just being one cunning asshole, he turned himself into an entire species. And after hijacking a Celestial in the first Uncanny arc, we find out that in Uncanny X-men #14 he's used that power to create his own little mock-up of Victorian England in an underground cavern complete with mercury covered top hats and taboos against showing ankles. Even for Sinister, it's a kind of madness that you can't help but be impressed by. Using Celestial power to turn yourself into your own species isn't the craziest thing I would have done (I would rather use it to end all hangovers now and forever), but it's right up there.

Uncanny X-men #15 takes what Sinister created and brings it to the doorstep of the Phoenix Five. It comes at a time when the Phoenix Five and the X-men as a whole are enjoying all the trappings of being cosmic powered beings in a world where the Avengers have become the assholes. It starts with Magneto taking a light stroll through the new Utopia mega-city that makes the old Utopia (which is basically just Asteroid M, the world he built) look like an old underfunded rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike. He meets up with Psylocke, who he's been conversing with regularly in the pages of Uncanny lately. You get the sense that with Rogue leaving Utpopia that he's in need of some replacement pussy and since Psylocke lost Angel, he's looking to swoop in and get some pity sex. I mean fuck, she gave it to Fantomex. Magneto would be a step up, but for now her panties are locked. That just talk about how far the X-men have come and you can almost see Magneto getting a boner when he talks about it. Danger shows up to remind them that they've got a meeting with the Phoenix Five, but she's still being controlled by Unit (insert dick joke here) so Sinister isn't the only looming threat they'll have to deal with. At least with Sinister, I don't have to make as many dick jokes.

 
But Unit isn't the only butt-ugly source of devious douche-baggery that the Phoenix Five still have to deal with. During the Fear itself event (which feels like one of those parties where you woke up with ten dicks drawn on your face at this point) Colossus became the new avatar of Cytorakk. Well now that he's hosting a portion of the Phoenix Force, you would think Cytorakk would get jealous. But surprisingly, he's more than willing to share. He actually sounds affectionate in the way a serial killer is affectionate towards his victims when he says Colossus has been his favorite avatar and the Phoenix's propensity to bring destruction can only help his desire to cause it. He may be a twisted as fucked inter-dimensional force of nature, but he's not wrong. And even when Colossus and Illyana try to fight him, they fail miserably because even with the Phoenix Force they might as well be pissing into the wind while in Cytorakk's domain.

Colossus and Magik must then attend the Extinction Team meeting knowing they got pwned by Cytorakk and will only continue helping his inter-dimensional ass. But it's probably not the most fucked up anyone has been at one of these meetings. I'm still convinced Emma Frost shows up high on Ludes half the time, but now this particular meeting is fucked up at Courtney Love levels with the presence of the Phoenix Five. I'm sure it makes Storm and Magneto feel like that kid that got lost in Miami and ended up in a male strip club. But while Hope's absence is quite glaring, they rightly point out there are other threats besides the Avengers that are more pressing. One of them has used the Phoenix to fuck with them before and it's only fitting that they use the Phoenix to fuck back. I'm pretty sure that's the plot of several pornos, but this promises to be only somewhat less messy.

The threat in question is Sinister, of course. He taunted and teased the X-men with the same casual attitude that a ten-year-old has when they take a piss on an ant hill. He's become his own species and he's got Celestial tech to boot. He also was the first one to drop the Phoenix bomb on Hope so I guess that's the equivalent to calling their mother fat for the Phoenix Five. They rightly conclude that the Avengers aren't going to hurt Hope. Sinister, however, has a history of using young redheads in ways that would automatically get someone blacklisted as a sex offender in some states. So the Phoenix Five want to take his ass off the board before he decides to stick his red-head hating dick into the mix. And armed with the Phoenix Force, that pasty faced psycho can't hide from them any more than he could hide from the IRS.

The previous issue of Uncanny X-men showed how Sinister created his own little slice of Victorian Era London. It's a charming yet exceedingly creepy world occupied by this fucked up species that must make for some horribly awkward masturbation needs has been essentially a hiding spot for Sinister. He revealed that he suspected the Phoenix's arrival in the previous issue and created this world underground to bide his time and prepare for their arrival. That and I'm sure he wanted a place where he could dress like an old world pimp and nobody would give him shit for it. When one of his fellow Sinisters reveals that the Phoenix Five are in the process of psychically hunting down their pasty white asses, Sinister Prime just sits there calmly drinking what appears to be hard liquor. I admit I would do the same if I got news some overly powerful forces were coming to end my ass.

Sinister is smart enough and cunning enough to know that he's got no chance of hiding from the Phoenix Five. He also has to realize that one of them, Cyclops, is someone he's routinely fucked with in ways that violate every article of the Geneva Convention. So he's going to have extra motivation to burn Sinister's ass with cosmic flame, let him heal, and burn him again all while fucking Emma Frost doggy style over his ravaged corpse. Even if the danger is real, he remains remarkably calm while telling his fellow Sinisters to prepare for battle. They may have the Phoenix Force, but he has his own species armed with Celestial technology. That actually sounds like a fair if not fucked up fight.

This is actually a nice little addition to the Avengers vs. X-men event because to date the Phoenix Five haven't faced many battles that they couldn't dominate. Even the Scarlet Witch could only hurt them, but not outright oppose them. She's basically the only thing keeping the Phoenix Five from frying the Avengers like a strip of bacon on an episode of Epic Meal Time. But Sinister has far more robust forces. He actually has his own little world with which to oppose the Phoenix and even if it still seems skewed, you can't help but appreciate the ambiance of such a battle. It's like an outdoor strip club near a pool at the Four Seasons. It just adds something special to something that's already awesome.

The Phoenix Five pretty much ditch Magneto and Storm back on Utopia. They make it clear that Sinister is someone only those with cosmic power can handle. I can't help but think that's a subtle way of saying "We've got cosmic power and you don't. Ha ha!" But name-calling aside, they make their way to Anchorage, Alaska (yet more proof that Sinister is trying to fuck with Cyclops) and Colossus uses that Cytorakk hard-on to dig all the way to the underground world that Sinister has ready for them. They arrive to find Sinister's devious perversion of Darwin's theories armed with Celestial technology and dressed in their finest attire. I guess David Lee Roth was right. It's not whether you win or lose. It's how good you look.

Unfortunately, we don't get to see the spectacle unfold beyond a page or two. We don't even get more than a glimpse of the Madelyne Pryror clones he has waiting in the wings. It just has the Phoenix Five arriving in Sinister's domain and that's it. The whole issue basically set up the two sides to do battle. It's a setup issue and unfortunately it's as exciting as it sounds. The premise is juicer than Jennifer Lopez's ass, but we only get a slight drop of that juice. We're stuck having to wait or take sedatives for the next issue. I'm personally leaning towards the sedatives.

The first time Sinister unleashed his twisted perversion of a species on the X-men, it was about as fair a fight as pitting a retarded ferret against Mike Tyson in his prime. The only reason Sinister didn't completely end the X-men in the first arc is because he's not that basic a villain. He's got a very different agenda and a very unique style in terms of going about it. We're not talking Lady Gaga style here, but it's close to that level of eccentricity. You get the sense that the coming battle is more evenly matched. Five Phoenix powered X-men against an entire species of Sinisters armed with Celestial technology sounds like shit that belongs on pay-per-view alongside Co-Ed lesbo porn. Sinister doesn't seem too worried about it and given all the Madelyne's he's got waiting in the wings, it's clear that he's got a plan to fuck with the Phoenix Five. The only problem is we've got to wait another two fucking weeks to see that fight.

In many ways, that is this issue's greatest flaw. It really does spend too much time setting shit up rather than unleashing the battle that was nicely built up in the previous issue. Now maybe this is a result of Gillen or the big wigs at Marvel not wanting to move too fast with this tie-in so they don't give too much away. Even so, it's still painfully apparent that this issue just set a lot of shit up. Granted, Gillen made the most of each page in this issue. He took some time to address the ongoing side-plot with Colossus and Cytorakk, which had gone completely untouched in every other tie-in. He also took some time to get the other members of the Extinction Team involved, which is a nice touch even though they really didn't do much other than show how obsolete they've become under the Phoenix Five. But given that it means Magneto having more time to get into Psylocke's panties, I don't think they mind.

Overall, this issue was a solid Kieron Gillen style issue full of his usual flare for dramatics. Sinister's presence in Uncanny continues to be one of the most entertaining and colorful of any character that Gillen has used. But as well-done as it was, it still had all the features of a setup issue. It's really hard to get too enthusiastic about it. It's like going to what you think is an all-nude strip club and only seeing bikinis. It's disappointing and your dick ends up hating you. My dick still enjoyed this issue though and convinced me that Uncanny X-men #15 deserves a 4 out of 5. The battle between the Avengers and the X-men may be getting all the press, but with the way this series has been unfolding it's clear that the battle between the X-men and Sinister will definitely be the most fucked up. How can it not when you've got a guy who is his own species with an army of Jean Grey clones NOT named Hope on his side? Nuff said!