Pencilers: John Romita Jr, Jae Lee, Chris Sprouse, Brandon Peterson, Paul Smith
Inkers: Dan Green, Dan Panosian, Terry Austin, Tom Palmer, Keith Williams
Colorist: Mike Thomas
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Review: Will "Identity Crisis" Dubbeld
The sweet, sweet 1990s...
EARLY 1990s, mind you. ‘90-‘93, roughly. In the thick of it, the heyday, before hordes of speculators popped the bubble...
The 1990s nearly killed comics for me as a whole, however. Death and Return of Superman, Knightfall, Image’s lackluster titles, and clones, clones, clones soured the medium.
I still kept up with the industry via dearly departed Wizard Magazine and Grant Morrison’s New X-Men drew me back to the hobby.
But all that’s for another time.
Let’s refocus on Fatal Attractions...
Batman probably holds the title for my favorite character, but the Children of the Atom frequently edge out the Dark Knight.
Jean-Paul Valley may have turned me away from Gotham City, but I periodically would check in on Graymalkin Lane. Semi-frequent writing foibles aside, the X-Men are just incredibly fuckin’ cool, and they’re rarely cooler than when Magneto is about. Regardless of what side of the coin he’s on at the time, the Master of Magnetism takes the limelight whenever he shows up.
Jim Lee and Chris Claremont came out of the gate swinging with the relaunched X-Men #1, selling several trillion copies and setting the stage for Fatal Attractions.
Uncanny 304 takes place after the death of Illyana Rasputin and focuses largely on that tried and true X-Men storytelling device, pathos.
Professor X wrestles with his failures as a leader and protector, Kitty Pryde has lost her best and oldest friend, and Colossus now faces a life without parents and without his little sister.
As the X-Men are wracked with grief, Magneto and his Acolytes are making plans to destroy humanity.
...As per the norm.
It wouldn’t be an X-Men anniversary without a knock-down, drag-out fight and Lobdell does not disappoint.
Magneto and the Acolytes make a grand, if gauche, appearance by crashing Illyana’s funeral and soon the battle is waged.
Chock full of Claremontian exposition, the X-Men/Acolyte fracas exemplifies this sweet spot in X-history.
We’re talking the prime era of Blue and Gold teams, the animated series era, the X-cutioner’s Song and Age of Apocalypse era.
Purple prose flows freely, and the X-Men best their foes via an orgy of teamwork, just like Chris Claremont intended.
It’s glorious!
As an added bonus, the book opens with that shitheel, Fabian Cortez, getting the boots put to him by the rest of the Acolytes. Cortez is such an amazing villain in that I love to hate him. The character is such a mustache-twisting weasel, and it’s fulfilling to see him get a dressing down.
Or a beating up, as the case may be.
This is an outstanding book, cover to cover. Lobdell delivers a classic X-Men tale that dovetails into a crossover which, frankly, worked on levels unseen in modern Marvel books.
Threads woven from that first Claremont/Lee book find their way into the pages and then twist along to future stories. Colossus defecting from the X-Men, Wolverine losing his adamantium, Onslaught, and a few other seeds are planted and actually enticed readers to follow along.
The art department comes through in spades as well. The jam-book presentation seemed off-putting but in actuality worked rather well. All of the involved pencilers deliver, especially John Romita Jr. I know JRJRs art isn’t for everyone. It sometimes comes off as sloppy or rushed, and his pencils will absolutely get murdered by the wrong inker and/or colorist.
Jr’s X-Men work in the ‘90s was on-point, though. Every issue was phenomenal. He sometimes falters on team-driven books, working more efficiently with single-character stories like Daredevil and Kick-Ass, but not so here.
Unfortunately, Jae Lee aside, the other artists seemed to pale through no fault of their own.
They all do fine work, but it’s hard to compete with JRJR when he’s on his game.
I threw in the towel on Uncanny X-Men after the Phalanx Covenant and didn’t pick it back up until issue 400.
Diminishing returns in my enjoyment and shifting priorities made it easy to give up on one of my favorite hobbies.
Hell, probably my top favorite.
Whether the fault lies in my own drift or declining story quality, I always could rely on these earlier X-books to hit the spot.
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