rXtrospective: X-Men Divided

Welcome back to rXtrospective! This time we are diving into five issues of Uncanny X-Men (495-499). The creative team is Ed Brubaker (writer), Mike Choi (pencils/inks), and Sonia Oback (colors). Joe Caramagna does lettering for the first two issues, and Cory Petit does the last three.

I do remember getting the first two issues of this story before dropping comics and picking up a baby. The last three issues of this were a weird blind spot in my X-Men knowledge for a long time. I had collected and read the entirety of Brubaker's run on Uncanny up to this point. These are the last three issues before Matt Fraction comes on as a writer, and I read his run a few years ago. Finally, this column gave me a good reason to fill in the blank spot!

First of all, the title of this five-part story is , like most comic story titles, a bit dramatic. The X-Men are not divided on account of ideological differences (that comes later, in Schism), because half of the team believes the other half to be dead and vice versa (that was in the 80's), or because some of the team are off in space doing space stuff (that was earlier in Brubaker's run, and Joss Whedon's run, and in the late 90's, and the early 90's...). No, the team is divided because they are mostly just on vacation.

That's not totally fair. Just like Get Mystique! this story immediately follows Messiah CompleX. That means that, officially, there are no X-Men. Professor X has been seemingly killed, the only new mutant born in years has just been taken away to the future, and the X-Mansion/Xavier School has been destroyed. To top it all off, this is all shortly after the superhero Civil War that ended with ratification of a law that requires all superheroes to register with and work for the government. With all that in mind, the X-Men having been disbanded seems a little more weighty than I gave this story credit for. Still, the mood of the story is one of reflection and feels much more like a break in the action than a major rift between members of the team.

The X-Men this story follows are in three main groups. First, Cyclops and Emma Frost are vacationing in the Savage Land. For the uninitiated, the Savage Land is a tropical jungle in the depths of Antarctica populated with tribal humans, dinosaurs, a stone god named Garokk, and many other strange beasties.

Next, there are the drinking buddies Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine, who meet up in Germany (presumably shortly after Wolverine leaves Mystique for dead in Afghanistan). They travel from there by train to Russia to visit Colossus's home town.

The last group of X-Men are Angel, Hepzibah, Iceman, and Warpath. (Hepzibah is an alien cat lady who is best known as a member of the Starjammers, Cyclops's dad's team of space pirates. She and Warpath have been romantically linked, explaining her X-Men status at the time of this story.) They have been sent by Cyclops to San Francisco for reasons we don't know yet, and that is where most of the conflict takes place. Angel quickly loses contact with the rest of the team. We eventually learn that everyone within a seemingly growing area within San Francisco is under the influence of a powerful illusionist. Angel manages to send a message to Cyclops that he is investigating something strange before succumbing to the illusion himself. Cyclops and Emma fly back from the Savage Land to rescue their friends.

What makes the story feel even more lighthearted is the nature of the illusion. Everyone under the spell looks and acts like they are basically at Woodstock in 1969. Even though the story isn't very consequential, it is very fun and I'd rather not spoil more than I have to. Needless to say, San Francisco is eventually released from the illusion and the X-Men are reunited.

The B-plot following our boys in Russia is a bit more serious, but for some reason doesn't feel like it's got higher stakes. Colossus's appearance in Russia is noticed by the covert organization behind Black Widow's back-story. They ambush and capture the three X-Men in an attempt to use Colossus. With the exception of Nightcrawler, these X-Men are basically invulnerable, so the tension never gets too high. The highlight of the B-plot is the appearance of Omega Red, and his subsequent trouncing at the hands of three angry X-Men. At the conclusion of this Russian adventure, Wolverine gets a message from Cyclops that the three of them are needed in San Francisco.

One new character that gets introduced and I want to point out is Sadie Sinclair, the Mayor of San Francisco. She introduces herself to Cyclops at the end of the story, before he sends a message to Wolverine. She factors in pretty heavily in Matt Fraction's run on Uncanny.

Overall, this story is a fun break from the heaviness that was Messiah CompleX, and a nice lead-in to the big changes coming for the X-Men in the near future. Not the most memorable or important story, but good. I give it 3/5 X's

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