Uncanny X-Men #22: Birthdays, Bamfs, and Battles

Uncanny X-Men has been one of the most successful titles to come out of the “From The Ashes” chapter in Marvel history. With Gail Simone (Wonder Woman) and David Marquez (All-New X-Men) attached, it’s a highlight in an era of X titles that has been met with equal parts praise and criticism by many readers and critics alike. In its twenty-two issues the book has notably been tied up in two rather lengthy crossovers, including the four-part “Raid on Graymalkin” and the seven-part “X-Manhunt” events.

Uncanny X-Men is an X title that didn’t need a significant change of pace. Thankfully Simone has made the right call here by picking up the story more or less where we left off, with the found family inhabiting Haven House. Except this time, it’s on a very special night.

Nightcrawler, the fuzzy elf of the X-Men, is out on a date with MacKenzie DeNeer. This should come as a surprise to no one who has either been following this title or who dipped their toes into the Age of Revelation’s The Last Wolverine storyline, where Kurt Wagner had married MacKenzie in a false future. In Uncanny thus far, the two of them have had a budding romance that began all the way back in issue #6 more than a year ago.

Gail Simone’s characterization of Nightcrawler is exceptional. He is both a charming gentleman and a priestly figure who cares for mutants, both the good ones and the often temporarily bad ones. This comes out in full force with the issue’s main event, as seen on the cover art. Mutina is back for blue…and gold apparently. After her first appearance as an anti-mutant movie star back in issue #17, she’s been a dagger dangling over the heads of Louisiana’s X-Men. To avoid spoilers, I won’t go into any specific details about why she’s come to Haven House on a special night, just that it ends up involving Nightcrawler in one of his best character moments in Simone’s run on Uncanny since it began back in 2024.

David Marquez’s (All-New X-Men) artwork is, forgive me…uncanny. Smoke clouds from a nighttime bamf are sketched into the background and fill the page on several occasions. Multiple characters are drawn together in one panel without turning into a mess of shapes and lines on the page. It’s all a masterclass in modern comics artwork, really. Matthew Wilson’s colorwork also deserves praise here. A moonlight walk in the opening pages glows golden with the soft hue of streetlights. Somehow, all of this shading, including the red tux on the bluest mutant of them all, blends together perfectly with soft texturing and a complementary color palette that makes Issue #22 one of Uncanny’s prettiest.

The one weak point of the issue is also oddly a strength. Mutina is an interesting character, in concept at least, but she’s yet to show that one thing that all characters need to avoid feeling like inserts for ideas, beliefs, or worst of all, the writer themselves. Motivation. She’s driven by circumstances, such as her reason for visiting Haven House in this issue, which I will avoid spoiling here, but why these circumstances matter to her beyond simple amusement is yet to be seen.