As if the last year hasn’t driven the point home enough, Uncanny X-Men #500 will immediately remind you that it’s a very good time to be an X-Men fan. The writing team of Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction have brought with them their unbridled enthusiasm for the X-Men characters, and you can feel it bursting off every page. With the new satus quo now firmly established, the relocated X-Men feel like they’re enterting a new era, with a new mandate to move towards the future that the ast few years have left them unsure even existed.

The sense of gravitas that anniversary issues were afforded in the past returns with #500, as Magneto makes a brilliant, classically-inspired appearance as an evil super-villain with a dastardly plot to destroy the X-Men – but all is not as it seems, as Magneto’s facade actually disguises something far more in keeping with his current situation as the unintentional architect of the Mutant race’s downfall.

While Brubaker’s run has been mildly disappointing – hampered,nitially by the attempt to make his run a self-contained, 12-issue story, adding Fraction into the dynamic has clearly re-invigorated the writing side of things. Dodson’s artwork is great to look at (wisely, he’s given the action scenes) and even Greg Land almost manages to keep up despite his particular brand of artwork being fairly unpalettable – there are still some moments where the tracing and posing get a bit much, but largely due to the strength of the writing, and the expert tempering of any tonal shift in art, the book manages to survive unscathed. The last time the franchise looked this promising was during Morrison’s and Whedon’s early issues, but this time, tone of the book seems substantially less knowing and ironic, it pushes forword while respecting the past, rather than winking at it.

In short, Uncanny #500 is a fantastic new start and a fantastic, mostly self-contained anniversary issue featuring probably the most enjoyably old-school Magneto Vs. X-Men clash in almost a decade. There’s almost nothing to complain about. If Ellis’ clinical, acerbic take on the team didn’t enthuse you, then good luck – Uncanny X-Men might just be back to try and reclaim its crown as the line’s flagship title.

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