Spread
out in fiery points
Glowed
into words, then would be savagely still.
Joe Casey and Ian Churchill’s second issue, Uncanny X-Men #395, is a less successful comicbook. Churchill’s strengths from the previous issue are still on display, only less so. From what I can tell, there are two reasons for this: Casey’s script isn’t as tight or aimed at providing a big impression like on the previous issue with its one-off structure and mandate to kick off the new creative era; and, judging from the ensuing issues and Churchill’s quick absence, he was possibly already pushing to make deadlines (which is not meant to criticise Churchill as there are any number of reasons why this could have been the case, many outside of his control – I’m not here to litigate someone’s ability to hit deadlines, particularly with no knowledge of the situation).
That second point is partly contextual, partly the final sequence of the issue where Mister Clear attacks the mutants in the sewers, and that scene is Churchill’s weakest batch of pages. Although, to be honest, the first sequence in the sewers is also below Churchill’s other work. He seemed to really struggle with depicting the ‘freakish’ mutants. Even one that seemed relatively simple and in his comfort zone, the Cyclops, never really hits visually. It looks like Churchill could never get the one big eye in the middle of the forehead to look right. In a lot of panels, he has it shut, giving the character this big slit in his forehead that looks awkward.
The two characters that Churchill absolutely nails whenever they show up are Chamber and Nightcrawler. Chamber is such a visually dynamic character, even when standing still, due to the energy effect of his powers. His first appearance in this issue is among Churchill’s best: energy spewing from his chest, long leather jacket kinda blowing along with his hair, the tail of his shirt blown up to reveal his navel... it’s a magnificent introductory panel that just stop you dead. Nightcrawler is the opposite of Chamber, who doesn’t do anything physically dynamic but is visually appealing anyway. For Nightcrawler, Churchill leans into his leanness and agility and rarely has him simply standing like anyone else. It’s all flips and hanging upside down and weird bent-over-backwards yoga poses. Like Chamber, you get a real sense of who this character is just by looking at him.
The way this run lost its steam quickly is down to the disconnect between Casey and Churchill. Casey has said that Churchill was recruited first and, even knowing that, it doesn’t seem like Casey made enough of an effort to hit the artist’s strengths. Moreover, I’m not sure Casey was in the right space to do so. At the beginning of the run, he didn’t quite have a handle on a strong direction and his scripts meander a bit. Less action, more talking... more like Wildcats. Which is a shame, because I was actually excited by the combination of these two when they were announced on Uncanny X-Men back in late 2000. Both men had won over my approval thanks to the multi-year subscription that I had to Cable coming out of Age of Apocalypse where I was just a bit too naive/out of the loop to not know that X-Man wouldn’t go on forever and, while I got the final two issues of that series, it transitioned to Cable (rather than issue five of X-Man). That meant reading a bunch of Jeph Loeb/Ian Churchill issues (his cover to Cable #25 is still a favourite, speaking of a time where he nailed cramming a ton of figures/detail into an image – it was a gatefold cover, I believe) and, eventually, the first Joe Casey Marvel issue, Cable #51. While the two never worked together on that title, it was a nice coming together of people whose work I dug at different periods of the title on another X-book... and it didn’t work.
Just one of those things.
