{"id":4530,"date":"2019-03-17T20:37:12","date_gmt":"2019-03-17T20:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=4530"},"modified":"2019-03-17T20:37:12","modified_gmt":"2019-03-17T20:37:12","slug":"uncanny-x-men-winters-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=4530","title":{"rendered":"Uncanny X-Men: Winter’s End"},"content":{"rendered":"

So here’s a new angle in curious labelling. \u00a0Uncanny X-Men: Winter’s End\u00a0<\/em>may be billed as an X-Men special, but it’s actually the final issue of Sina Grace’s\u00a0Iceman<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now, this certainly isn’t false advertising, or anything like that. \u00a0Iceman is in the X-Men too. \u00a0And there’s a long history of unresolved plots from cancelled books being dutifully wound up in other titles, at least back in the days when people bothered to do such things as wrap up the unresolved plots from cancelled books. \u00a0But there’s no getting away from the fact that this is an issue of\u00a0Iceman<\/em> – the main story will make sense if you haven’t read that book, but there are subplots that really won’t. \u00a0So you have to suspect that this has been bannered as an\u00a0X-Men<\/em> story in the hope that it’ll sell a few extra copies. \u00a0(You probably wouldn’t guess that it was an Iceman story from the cover, either, which is a bit of a giveaway.)<\/p>\n

Still, the bottom line is as you’d expect: if you were enjoying Grace’s\u00a0Iceman<\/em> stories, then you’ll want this, because it’s more of the same. \u00a0And if you weren’t, you won’t – even if you’re minded to try out some of his run, this is not exactly the place to start.<\/p>\n

What Grace and artist Nathan Stockman are going for here is that ever-elusive sense of resolution, where a story feels like it’s come to an end even though the character’s story will be continuing in other books for the foreseeable future. \u00a0And on that score they deliver pretty well. \u00a0Iceman<\/em> can at least offer thematic closure, covering a period of adjustment in Iceman’s life after he came out – or was outed, rather. \u00a0That’s the one remaining thread that this story closes off, by finally having Bobby register his objections to Jean about the way that was done.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, we have two classic devices for drawing a line under a run. \u00a0First, bring back a bunch of characters from other stories for a bit of callback. \u00a0So here’s Bobby’s parents again (and giving some constructive parenting advice for once). \u00a0Here’s Michaela Ladak to lament that nobody else seems to use her in their stories. \u00a0Here’s Christian Frost to thank Bobby for helping him out. \u00a0Here are the Morlocks, so that Iceman can do something to help them.<\/p>\n

And second, bring in an alternate version of the character from the future, and do a resolution with him. \u00a0So that’s our main story here, using Ice Master from the time travelling version of the Brotherhood. \u00a0The Brotherhood’s back story is convoluted, but fortunately this story doesn’t have to deal with it. \u00a0The idea is much more straightforward: in his own timeline, Ice Master got suckered into playing along with one of Daken’s schemes and kind of wound up wrecking the world. \u00a0And so he’s come back in time to try and alter history by… simply encouraging Iceman to give up.<\/p>\n

That’s a nice enough idea. \u00a0It plays into the notion that Iceman has in the past been too lacking in confident, and too willing to stand at the back and hope for others to take the lead. \u00a0Older Iceman seems to have developed from that version of the character, and so, confronted with the biggest mistake of his career, he concludes that he must just be a terrible superhero. \u00a0He could have averted the timeline just by persuading Iceman to steer clear of Daken, but no, he figures everyone will be better off without him. \u00a0And of course Grace’s newly confident and self-assured Iceman is having none of it.<\/p>\n

Nathan Stockman’s art is best when it’s doing character work and real-world settings; he’s good at those. \u00a0Much of this issue consists of people talking in the X-Men Mansion or in the current version of the Coffee a Go-Go. \u00a0 Apparently it’s been rebranded the Java a Go-Go – perhaps somebody’s trade marked the original name. \u00a0At any rate, these are places that look lived in, or at least drunk in, and that’s a real strength of Stockman’s work. \u00a0It’s such a nice change to see a room in the Mansion that actually looks like it’s been furnished. \u00a0On the other hand, when it comes to action sequences and sci-fi locations, Stockman’s often a bit average. \u00a0But at least his strengths play to what matters in the story.<\/p>\n

The story isn’t especially subtle, but it does at least succeed in bringing some sense of resolution to Grace’s run. \u00a0It’s not a classic, and sometimes it’s a little too obvious, but there’s an undeniable appeal to its sincerity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So here’s a new angle in curious labelling. \u00a0Uncanny X-Men: Winter’s End\u00a0may be billed as an X-Men special, but it’s actually the final issue of Sina Grace’s\u00a0Iceman. Now, this certainly isn’t false advertising, or anything like that. \u00a0Iceman is in the X-Men too. \u00a0And there’s a long history of unresolved plots from cancelled books being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4531,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4530\/revisions\/4531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}