Uncanny X-Men Vol. 4: The Draco
Writer: Chuck Austen
Artists: Philip Tan, Sean Phillips, and Takeshi Miyazawa
Chuck Austen redefines the definition of awful with THE DRACO! Rarely has such an EPIC FAIL of global proportions been seen!
Ranking: 1 star
Ugh… there is no easy way to start off this review. That’s how awful Chuck Austen’s UNCANNY X-MEN VOL. 4: THE DRACO is. I had read about this story in several articles throughout the internet, with nearly all of them declaring it not only the lowest point of Chuck Austen’s infamous run on X-Men, but also the worst X-Men comic ever made. Being the diehard X-Men fan that I am, I just had to see it for myself, and let me say, those people were absolutely right. In the words of Linkara, if I could sum up this entire book in three words they would be, “THIS COMIC SUCKS!!!” But enough ranting, let’s get onto why this book sucks so much. For those who don’t know, Chuck Austen is quite possibly be one of the most infamous writers in the comic book industry. He was somehow able to make a transition into the mainstream after working on pornographic black and white comics, and has since then gotten his hands on major titles from both Marvel and DC. While he is highly notorious for his awful runs on THE AVENGERS and ACTION COMICS, his most infamous work is undoubtedly his run on the X-Men. While it initially stared off strong, the book rapidly devolved into crap, with horrible characterization, cringe-inducing dialogue, and plot-holes big enough to fill up a black hole. Chuck Austen’s run was so widely reviled by fans and critics alike that he has virtually disappeared from the mainstream comic companies, and has written only a few comics since then. Austen’s run on UNCANNY X-MEN was enough to tarnish his own career and reputation as a writer people, that’s how bad this comic is. A couple of months ago I reviewed the HOLY WAR story arc of his run, as I was curious if his work was really as bad as people claimed it to be. The book was not only heavily offensive towards religion (in particular Catholicism), but the X-Men also came across as either complete idiots or a**holes, the dialogue was atrocious, and the book’s themes contradicted the X-Men’s entire mythos. To simply put, Chuck Austen cannot write the X-Men to save his life, and it’s just head scratching to believe that Marvel not only let him continue writing on UNCANNY X-MEN for another twenty issues, but also handed another X-Men title to him as well?! Seriously Marvel, what the heck were you thinking! If you thought HOLY WAR was as bad as it got, you’d be wrong. That would be this story, THE DRACO, which attempts to tell the true origins of Nightcrawler’s heritage, but instead is a colossal middle finger to Nightcrawler’s characterization, as well as an unsubtle, offensive, horribly written, horrendously padded, and hideously illustrated comic that is the JERSEY SHORE of X-Men comics. Quite rarely in our time, has such a literary failure of universal proportions been achieved… The plot (or what passes for a plot) begins with a flashback to twenty years ago in a remote estate in Germany, where a Baron and his wife Raven Wagner are attempting to, but are unable to conceive a child. Unknown to the Baron however, his wife is actually the blue-skinned shapeshifting mutant Mystique in disguise. While attending a party, she meets a lord named Azazel, who is the ruler of an island in the Bermuda known as La Isla des Demonas (gee, subtle Mr. Austin… subtle…), and is aware of Mystique’s true identity and nature. The two soon grow close, but Azazel abandons Mystique when she discovers that she’s pregnant. After killing the Baron, Mystique soon delivers her baby, only to discover that the child has blue skin, three fingers and toes, yellow eyes, pointy ears, and a spiked tail. Fearing that the child and his mother are demons, the a mob from a nearby village pursues Mystique, leading to her cruelly throwing her child into the river, and blames Azazel for everything. Back in the present, the baby has since grown up into the X-Man Kurt Wagner, also known as Nightcrawler. Acting as if he’s under a trance, Kurt hijacks the Blackbird, throwing the rest of the X-Men into a panic. As the team attempts to track Nightcrawler, the X-Men soon detect the signals of other teleporters (all possessing Nightcrawler’s physical attributes) alongside Nightcrawler that are all converging towards a single location, the island of La Isla des Demonas. Once the team lands on the island, they find Kurt and the other teleporters gathered around a fire and holding hands in a circle, performing a bizarre ritual. But before the X-Men can rescue their team, a portal emerges from the flames, transporting them into a Hell-like dimension. In there, they encounter Azazel, who reveals himself to not only be Kurt’s father, but also an ancient mutant from Biblical times who literally claims that he’s actually Satan (I wish that were a joke…). Azazel then reveals to Nightcrawler and the rest of the X-Men that he is trapped in this dimension, and that in order to escape, he has gone to Earth to breed with mortal women, producing children that were all mutant teleporters. Once he had bred enough teleporters they would then be able to open a portal that would allow him to escape his own dimension and, you guessed it, take over the world (this is where M. Bison from the STREET FIGHTER film shouts, “OF COURSE!” Once again, apologies to the Nostalgia Critic). Just as with HOLY WAR, the writing and dialogue are absolutely atrocious. The narrative lacks any flow or focus, making it incredibly difficult to immerse oneself into the story. The book is full of plot holes that are glaringly easy to spot and make no logical sense when you stop and analyze them. I know I’m not the first person to bring this up, but the worst of these plot holes is Azazel’s plan. As I previously stated, Azazel wants to escape his Hell-like dimension, but in order to do that he must travel to Earth to breed a batch of teleporting mutants that will be able to open a portal that can bring him back to Earth. If he’s unable to escape his own dimension, then how the heck can he possibly travel to Earth to have children with mortal women?! If he can already up and leave, why does he need this plan in the first place?! Austen never bothers to explain this. If it had been that Azazel could only leave his dimension for a limited time on his own that would have made more sense, but he doesn’t, making this plot point poorly conceived and stupid (Did the editors not proof-read this?!). The dialogue is also horrendous. The characters say things that people would never say, and almost every line takes you out of the story and makes you scratch your head or cringe. This makes an already difficult reading experience even more painful (I swear, the only reason I was able to get through it start to finish was by imitating MST3K and making jokes as I was reading). But in my opinion the worst narrative sin was how overly padded the book was. Although the main plot point is Nightcrawler’s conflict with Azazel, it felt as if more time was spent with either Xavier and the dreadful character Nurse Annie attempting to cure Polaris’ insanity, or the Juggernaut protecting a young boy from an abusive father. These are not only distracting to the main story, but they also continuously interrupt the main plot over and over again, robbing the reader of any potential investment into the story (what little there was anyway). I thought Frank Miller’s HOLY TERROR was the most padded comic I’ve seen, but this one’s worse (at least there it just overly extends one plot point and sticks to it rather than constantly interrupting it). I’m sure there are more writing flaws that I could mention, but it would take an eternity to cover them all! Whats even worse than the plot holes, dialogue, or padding though is the characterization. Absolutely none of the X-Men act as the characters that fans know and love. Not only is everyone written as either complete idiots or inconsiderate jerks, but Austen goes a step further by introducing elements that ruin the development they’ve undergone since Chris Claremonts work on the team back in the 70’s and 80’s. For instance, when Charles Xavier is arguing with his stepbrother Juggernaut (who is apparently now a member of the X-Men), the Juggernaut accuses him of having left him to die in the Temple of Cyttorak, Xavier says that he did, proclaiming that he wanted Cain gone. WHAT THE HECK?! First of all, Charles Xavier would never resort to murder as he’s a pacifist to his inner core! Second, the reason he left Juggernaut behind was because he genuinely believed his brother was either dead or beyond saving (as he was buried under an entire mountain). To see such out-of character behavior from one of my favorite X-Men just enrages me! Angel also suffers here as Austen was apparently not satisfied enough with the insults he labeled towards christianity in HOLY WAR, as he reveals that Angel was part of an ancient race of mutants that inspired the image of Heavenly Angels, essentially saying that divine creatures are in fact mutants. There are no words to describe how much of an EPIC FAIL that is on Austen’s part. To add on to this, Angel’s stupid healing blood power (don’t ask) literally burns Nightcrawler as if he were an actual demon, which brings us to Kurt Wagner, the character who is hurt the most by this moronic story. The whole idea of Nightcrawler’s character is that although he has the appearance of a demon, he is actually a kind-hearted and highly devoted Christian. This helps convey the idea that one should not be judged by appearances, which is an essential theme to the X-Men’s mythos. THE DRACO instead decides to give that concept the middle finger, and instead have Nightcrawler’s father not only be a literal demon, but also the Devil. This completely undermines the core element that made his character compelling to begin with, as it’s saying that Nightcrawler actually is a demon, and that one should be judged by appearances. It is a betrayal of both Nightcrawler’s character, and the very themes that the X-Men represent. Although mischaracterization is dominant throughout THE DRACO, the horrible treatment of Nightcrawler alone angered so many fans, and has contributed to Chuck Austen’s difficulty to find future work in the comics industry. On top of the mischaracterization of previously established X-Men, characters that were introduced in THE DRACO or the entirety of Austen’s run are just horrible to begin with. The primary antagonist of the book, Azazel, is a terrible villain not just for his ludicrous plan, offensive parallels to religion, or ruination of Nightcrawler’s character, but also for the fact that nothing about him is subtle! I already mentioned the unsubtlety about the name of his island being La Isla des Demonas, but even when he first appears to Mystique in the flashback and is disguised as an ordinary human, his hair is spiky and curves upwards, he sports an obvious grin, and his beard is sharply pointed out. Austen didn’t even have the artist bother to hide the fact that he’s obviously a bad guy. To add on to the unsubtlety, his true form sports the same facial features, but he’s also red-skinned, has yellow eyes, pointy ears, a spiked tail similar to Nightcrawler’s, and to top it all off he wears a blackrobe littered with human skulls, a goat skull-shaped shoulder-guard, and a fluffy cape. There is virtually no subtlety to Azazel’s character at all, making an already poorly written and offensive villain even worse. But while Azazel is undoubtedly a crappy villain, the worst character for me was the X-Men’s school nurse, a human named Annie. I briefly mentioned her in my review of HOLY WAR, and said how I hated her misogynistic characterization there, and here she plays a major role in the Polaris subplot. What bothers me about Nurse Annie in particular Austen writes her as a sex-crazed maniac (as he writes all his female characters), as in HOLY WAR she claims that men only like a woman whose a good kisser, and here she actively talks about being with Havock right in front of his ex-fiancé Polaris. Apart from the sexism, Annie is ignorant to her surroundings and is actively rude and condescending to those around her. Her awful characterization just made the padded areas even more painful to get through. The final flaw evident in THE DRACO is the artwork. The majority of the story is illustrated by Philip Tan, and while he has produced good artwork in other works like Grant Morrison’s BATMAN AND ROBIN, it’s just hideous here. Nearly every character has overly thin cheek bones, tiny eyes and mouths, and shadows so excessive to the point that it looks like their skin is dirty and cracking apart. This is made worse by the color pallet, as it feels as if light and dark shades are constantly clashing against one another, and the colors themselves make the characters look like their made of plastic (which is made no better by the cracks and grit on their skin). Not only does this make the artwork look awful and difficult to look at, but it actually becomes scary at certain points. For some odd reason, when ever characters have their mouths wide open, Philip Tan feels the need to draw scratchy lines in them, making it appear like they were in a horror movie rather in a comic. But the scariest artwork for me was by Sean Phillips in the opening chapter, as there’s a scene where Mystique is laughing maniacally with pupiless yellow eyes, bizarre facial lines, and a wide-open mouth with an enormous tongue and upper row of teeth. I swear this scene makes me jerk my head away every time I look at it (it’s that terrifying). Aside from that, Sean’s artwork fares no better than Tan’s as while it’s less dirty, it feels out of place and cartoony with inconsistent shading and bland colors. The only artwork I found fairly decent was the manga-style artwork in the final chapter by Takeshi Miyazawa, and even then it’s nothing special. To me, THE DRACO can be described as the horrifying hybrid SPIDER-MAN: ONE MORE DAY and like Frank Miller’s HOLY TERROR (which are the number two worst comics I’ve ever read and reviewed). Similar to OMD the story completely disregards characters’ development and mythos, insulting both them and the readers in the process, and like HOLY TERROR, it is horribly constructed on a literary, artistic, and tasteful level on every conceivable level. Not only is the book horribly written, atrociously padded, and poorly drawn, but also offensive to the X-Men’s mythos, to religion, and especially to Nightcrawler’s character. THE DRACO was so widely reviled by fans that it eventually led to Chuck Austen being let go from Marvel (and later DC), only briefly returning from hiding to write more pornographic manga. The story itself, along with the rest of Austen’s run, has been virtually ignored by X-Men writers due to how unpopular it was. The only evidence of this story being canon is that Jason Aaron later revived the character Azazel, and although I haven’t read the story, I heard he did the character justice there. (Why is it that I always end up mentioning Jason Aaron in reviews about Chuck Austen’s X-Men books? Oh yeah… BECAUSE JASON AARON IS A TALENTED WHO ACTUALLY UNDERSTANDS THE X-MEN!!!) To sum up, THE DRACO is unbelievably awful, and I agree with the popular opinion that it is indeed the worst X-Men comic ever made. Seriously, Chuck Austen’s work on X-Men has no right to bear the title of a series which has seen incredible talent from the likes of Chris Claremont, Joss Whedon, Jason Aaron, and Grant Morrison. It is absolute garbage! “If it be a sin to [disregard] honor, I am the most offending soul.” -William Shakespeare
