As we all know Uncanny X-Men 500 came out today. I believe TJ will be covering that over on thankgoditswednesday. As excited as I am that T finally bit the bullet and bought another X-book it got me thinking about Uncanny X-Men 400 and the author of that issue in particular Joe Casey.
Uncanny X-men was not quite the halfway point in Casey's brief run which was not very warmly received at the time. Considering what came after that howvever history has been much kinder to good ol' Joe. The funny thing about this was this was during a big shakeupperiod for Marvel's merry mutants. New EIC Joe Quesada had wanted to move the books away from the standard Calremont formula and shake things up so we had God himself Grant Morrison on New X-Men and Casey fresh off his acclaimed Wildcats run on Uncanny. Casey's run believe it or not gets the short end of the stick. It had some great art by the likes of Sean Phillips and Ashley Wood and for the most part it succeded in modernizing the Uncanny X-Men the same way Morrison was updating New X-Men. Your core team was Wolverine, Angel, Chanmber, Nightcrawler and Mutant prostitute Stacy X. I am apparently the only one who didn't mind Stacy X. The core theme of the X-Men helping a world that hates and fears them was all there and Casey's introductory arc was a great satire on tweeny pop in which Chamber is used to make a thinly disguised Britney Spears analog generate some street cred. The next arc dealing with Banshee creating a mutant paramilitary strike team was also quite good. For me the whole run had a more grown up feel and showed some willingness to stray from the same tired old Claremont type plots. There was some philosophy, some politics and plenty of good action.
Like I said history has been much kinder than critics at the time. This is in no small part due to the Tsunami of anti-talent that immediately followed Casey known as Chuck Austen. Casey was respectful enough of the fans to put his own stamp on the franchise without pissing all over the core themes. Austen took a gigantic dump on the franchise and unlike Casey deserves every negative thing that was ever said about his painful two and a half year run.
If you are so inclined pick up Casey's run. I think its only two trades Poptopia, and Rocktopia. You will not be disappointed.
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