Since this is an anniversary week of sorts I got a fabulous idea that's right folks THEME WEEK! I will be covering all of the creative teams on Uncanny X-Men from issue 400-499. Yesterday's review covered the unfairly criticized Joe Casey Run. Today we will cover the totally fairly criticized and eggregiously terrible Chuck Austen run.
So much has been written about how bad these years were that it would seem there is little left to say. Out of curiousity I recently picked up a good portion of the Austen run. You know how it is you hear all this negative stuff and you think to yourself "it can't be that bad" Its not. Its so much worse. Marvel actually kept Austen on this book for issues 410-443 just shy of three years worth. Here are some lowlights
Nightcrawler as the messiah of an anti-mutant satanic faction of the Catholic church complete with (swear to fucking god) evil disentegrating communion wafers.
The mother of all retcons in which Nightcrawler's father is revealed to be the demon Azrael who tries to escape hell by fathering children all over the world (I know what you're going to say TJ it sounds cool but trust me its not)
Polaris turns into a complete lunatic and Havok inexplicably dumps the love of his life for a slutty nurse with a mutant kid.
Those are just the plots rest assured the dialogue and charcterizations are equally atrocious. Austen thought all mutants were the same and would band togther simply because they were mutants. All of his women characters were either complete whores or nuts. Whats worse Austen had the colossal audacity to blame the fans for criticizing him. If you didn't like his work you either were too stupid to get it or not a true X-Men fan. Austen's behavior in interviews was so smug that he actually made Rob Liefeld look humble for God's sake.
Basically this was the worst period in X history that inexplicably lasted 3 years. After removing him from Uncanny with issue 443 Marvel actaully replaced Austen with Chris Claremont and dumped him over on New/adjectiveless X-Men as a fill in until recently departed Grant Morrison's successor could be found. This was actually a stroke of genius since fans would've hated anyone who dared follow Morrison immdediately. No problem we'll stick Chuck in there for nine issues and the fans will be so happy to see him go they'll throw the next guy a parade.
If you are curious then you can probably find some Austen stuff in 25 cent bins at any local comic show but be aware. Its like going to see an Ed Wood movie. You are in it purely to see how bad it is.
Later
Kevin
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