Interesting takes on the Brubaker Uncanny X-Men run, P.Giddy.
I enjoyed The Extremists quite a bit, but you’re definitely right about how he shouldn’t have abandoned the space X-Men plot. I quit reading about those characters when those other writers did that War of Kings and whatever space crossover saga thing. I think it was nice, after a year of X-Men in space, to go in the opposite direction and have the X-Men deal with the Morlocks. The whole notion of an underground community of misshapen freaks living in the sewers is totally a comic book thing, but I think Brubaker did a good story with them. Definitely better than any other Morlock-related story I’ve ever read.
I think The Extremists was Brubaker going back to his roots and telling a “street-level” type of superhero tale. Like, it was his way of telling a poppy, mainstream version of a superpowered crime story, what with Masque going around and turning folks into deformed freaks, the X-Men trying to track down their perp, and Skids as an undercover investigator. (Also, Larocca’s cover to #490 looked like he was trying to channel Sean Phillips. Just look at the shadows on Hepzibah.) It made a good break from the space opera, but he really should have gotten back to that at some point.
As for Divided We Stand, I also enjoyed it. It sort of reminds me of that three issue arc in Catwoman Brubaker wrote after that whole Black Mask thing. In those Catwoman issues, Brubaker basically just halts all the adventuring and takes the time to examine how the main characters are reacting to the horrible, life-changing events of the previous story. It was totally Brubaker doing his indie thing and doing a whole lot of talking heads and character drama.
Divided We Stand isn’t anything like Bru’s indie roots, but it reminds me of that run in Catwoman because it’s the X-Men getting over the major events of Messiah CompleX. There’s a lot more action and it’s more traditional than Catwoman, presumably because Uncanny carries more mainstream expectations than a fringe title like Catwoman. In a way, it is kinda a retread of all those “Something horrible happened, and now we must travel the world in an attempt to rediscover our souls”-type of stories. But I had fun with it.
Also, as a native San Franciscan, I had no problem with the portrayal of my city in this run. I mean, hippies are one of the things that define this city, along with, dunno, the Golden Gate Bridge, the bay/ocean, Alcatraz, the gold rush, and Castro Street.
Manifest Destiny wasn’t as good, though. Greg Land’s art wasn’t very good but the story was kind of average. I liked some things, like the Hellfire Cult, but the plot with Pixie wasn’t very interesting. It was predictable and run-of-the-mill. No sense of wonder involved at all.
And they didn’t do a good job portraying SF itself. I remember during this one chase scene, they’re in the Sunset District and then all of a sudden they’re on Geary Street. It was very geographically inaccurate, to the point where I wonder if New Yorkers read Marvel comics and say, “What the hell, that building isn’t on that street!” I was really disappointed by that. I mean, finally, SF gets some love but they didn’t do it justice. How hard is it to use Google Maps and check out pictures of what the streets and buildings look like? You’d think Greg Land spends so much time using photo ref that he knows how to look for it when he needs it. Sweet Christmas. I’m throwing my hands up in helpless frustration.
I guess I should be grateful they didn’t do a story about how the X-Men found a secret community of time-displaced hobos living in caves underneath Golden Gate Park, but still… damn.
