Nothing
with nothing.
After Ian Churchill left the title, having done two-and-a-halfish issues, Uncanny X-Men went through a bunch of artists doing bits and pieces starting with issue 396. Oddly, the most consistent artist through issue 400 was Ashley Wood, probably not anyone’s first pick for one of Marvel’s franchise titles from a commercial standpoint. Issue 400, in particular, seemed to push the boundaries of an artistic jam that would decidedly not appeal to X-Men fans. Never mind the Sienkiewicz influence and his landmark work on New Mutants, placing Wood in the tradition. But, hey, there was also Cully Hamner and Eddie Campbell in that issue. Following that, Casey was paired with another popular headliner sort of artist, albeit one that matched up with him creatively better: Ron Garney. Their first issue together was the silent issue as part of Marvel’s ‘Nuff Said month where every comic had no dialogue or captions. That allowed Garney to ease in by dominating the book.
Uncanny X-Men #402 was the first ‘proper’ collaboration between the two where both had their hands untied. Garney’s line work isn’t quite as distinctive or flashy as Churchill’s but he’s surprisingly adept at establishing mood – and the final X-Corps designs are perfect. There’s a bit of visual alignment with Casey’s collaborators on Adventures of Superman, Mike Wieringo and Dustin Aucoin. A kind of blockiness to the forms. Garney isn’t quite as animated as Wieringo or as rough as Aucoin... he kind of delivers a middle ground between the two, still in continuity with two artists Casey was working well with.
Even still, the fit wasn’t perfect from what I could tell. Casey was progressing towards figuring out the title and characters, highlighting the trio of Nightcrawler, Iceman, and Archangel more, treating Chamber and Stacy X as supporting, ‘junior’ members, and leaning more into a thoughtful approach by the team, even if they come off as overly judgmental and reactionary in this issue. Instead, it’s X-Corps that provides the action for Garney to flex those muscles and show off. His action art is crisp and clean, never confusing. It flows better than Churchill’s panel to panel work, but is able to pull off some of those dramatic angle changes better. There’s a more natural storytelling logic to Garney’s art. One of the small details that I enjoy is that he always has the Blob break the panel borders.
Like Churchill, though, Garney didn’t last long before fill-ins took over (this was his last issue with Casey), and Sean Phillips became the de facto regular artist, completing the transformation into a Wildcats copy. There was, once again, no chance to find a groove and good working relationship. The X-Corps story would be finished by Aaron Lopestri and Phillips.
