Uncanny X-Men #8

Greg Land continues to offer up impressive realistic visuals that make each mutant look their best. His superb work on each character's facial expressions does wonders to help sell the emotional beats hit throughout the issue. The top moment goes to the aforementioned scene involving Namor and a certain sea monstress, and if it does not make you go "Ick! Ick! Ick!" then nothing will. Read Full Review

Overall, Gillen has restored my faith in the X-Men titles, and in fact, I feel slightly silly for almost doubting him! My dislike for some artistic choices is in no way enough to extinguish my X-flame, and I'm grateful that Gillen has shown me as such. Read Full Review

I actually laughed out loud a few times during this issue which is not something I remember doing since I started this run. I especially appreciated the reference to our term of Super Hero as a discordant word compared to the Apex's term in their superior language. I was not fully lost in this week until the end of the issue, and I'm beginning to dread that I won't fully grasp the upcoming inclusions to Uncanny X-Men unless I start reading Uncanny X-Force and Generation Hope. I feel the issue somewhat constructively utilized this break in action, but I would have liked to learn a little bit more about the team by this point. I do have to finish on this note though: The art for The Juggernaut was awesome. I once had a teacher who told us awesome was overused and should only be used to describe powers such as a Tsunami, but yeah, The Juggernaut was pretty awesome. Wrapping that all together and spitting it back out, Uncanny X-Men #8 comes to a 3.5 out of 5 stars for me. Read Full Review

Some might accuse Gillen of decompressed storytelling and dragging this story out. Normally, the events of this issue would be crammed into a few pages; by giving them the room to breathe, Gillen shows a different side of the team and allows the characters to reveal more of themselves. Read Full Review

This was a fascinating story arc. A new world was explored, lives were lost & alliances were forged. I loved the light hearted moments between Hope & Namor and his encounter with the tapeworm queen was off the hook. Namor, you sea-dog! Kieron Gillens writing is solid & I hope illustrator Greg Land sticks for several more issues. From Marvel Comics. Read Full Review

Hope/Namor and the Apex carry this issue through the rough patches, as does Gillen's nack for dialogue in general. That said, the wrapping up of the plot is done in a very troubling way. Read Full Review

The Tabula Rasa arc never managed to achieve a sense of purpose, so giving it a full extra issue of resolution is unjustified. I like the idea of Tabula Rasa, and I hope it becomes a recurring location in the Marvel Universe. For now, however, I'm happy to be done with it. Read Full Review

What a boring, lackluster ending to a boring lackluster story arc. I personally feel this was a complete waste of four issues. Read Full Review

hatmasta

Oct 12, 2012

This was a fantastic issue, and- SPOILERS--- the part where Namor has "sex with a tapeworm" (offpanel, mind you) had me in tears I was laughing so hard. but even better than that was that Gillen DIDN'T have Namor hook up with Hope....despite the obvious sexual tension building up between them in the series thus far. I doubted he would take that route, but the tension had me worried as it would be an easy route for Gillen to take to generate hype/do something wild. The resolution of the Namor/Hope interaction was more than perfect, if such a thing is possible! I find myself confused and perplexed by the perpetual low grades that a lot of Gillen's Uncanny issues have received from review sites. I'm guessing that a lot of the story i s just going right over people's heads due to complexity. Gillen writes stories that require thought. These are not issues that you can breeze through like Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man (which I also like). more