24 Hour Comics Reviewing Day, Hour Fifteen: Uncanny X-Men #478

UNCANNY X-MEN #478: This comic is fun. The Shi'ar Empire keeps a-risin' and a-fallin' as the X-Men's twelve issue space-spanning epic movies into its fourth chapter, wrapped in a spooky and beautiful cover that harkens back to the cover of Uncanny #50. I'm no fan of Deadly Genesis, the storyline that led into this, but "Rise and Fall" itself is a nice mix of drama and mystery and the space-faring high adventure that's been such a vital element of the X-Men since the early Claremont issues. As Vulcan speeds towards revenge against the Shi'ar, he's pursued by Professor X and a ragtag team of X-Men (mostly the non-marquee names, who are tied up in Astonishing X-Men). I wish that the otherwise serviceable recap page that opened the book would have included a list of the X-Men cast here—various members kept popping up and surprising me. I'm not certain if there's enough story here to keep the title occupied for twelve full issues, but this is full of fast-moving, dynamic action and nice characterizations, especially Nightcrawler, Professor X and Havok, and in the end I'm in favor of any storyline that keeps the X-Men off Earth until Civil War's over and done with and Joey Q's seventy-three part "Post-War Reconstruction" followup begins.