Well I just read Uncanny X-Men #500 and Brubraker and Fraction never cease to amaze me. That team up is got to be the best writer team out there. It all started with Immortal Iron Fist. Those two revolutionized the boring stagnate character of Danny Rand and made him an accessible flawed character of the 21^st century and I have a feeling they are going to make their run in Uncanny X-Men unforgettable.

With cover art by the great painter Alex Ross (Marvels) this is a “can’t lose” book. The art for this issue is by Greg Land and Terry Dodson. In my opinion, Greg Land has got to be one of the most underrated artists in the business. This guy drew Ultimate Fantastic Four with Mark Millar. He covered, my favorite arc of the series: Tomb of Namor. I love this guy’s art and I really think you will too.

Back to the comic. Uncanny X-Men #500 was a double, 40 page issue with 2 prologues and 2 epilogues. A doozie of a story. It starts off with the mutants moving to San Fransisco where they are accepted. That really makes sense in that city. Granted I have never been there but I feel like anyone and everyone is welcome there.

**spoilers after the break**

The story goes on and the mutants have moved to San Fransisco in hopes of finding peace, tranquility, and acceptance. But the first thing they encounter is free speech. A liberal artist finds it in his heart to make a sculpture using old outdated sentinel units from some of the original encounters with the giant automatons. Well the X-Men, although upset about this show of how the artist interprets respect, go to the unveiling.

Of course this didn’t go off without a hitch. It’s a comic book. The whole point of which is to drive your characters through hell and back. The sentinels are reactivated by no one else but Magneto, master of magnetism. It seems only fitting that the X-Men fight their arch nemesis, Magneto, and the sentinels both on this historic 500th issue. As they fight Magneto (and by they, I mean all your favorite X-Men ever get involved including Colossus, Wolverine, and Nightcrawler), all the X-Men wonder the same questions as you and I: Didn’t he lose his powers after M-day? And how did he know how to turn a sentinel back on and control it not to attack him?

Cyclops and Emma Frost realize this and Cannonball shows up out of nowhere and nails Magneto with a charging assault. Magneto is thrown away revealing a torn robotic armor of sorts. The armor apparently gave him the power to control magnetism. As it turns out Magneto is being helped by none other than the High Evolutionary. Not my favorite character ever. He was always kind of boring and one dimensional, but maybe Fraction and Brubraker can go in another direction with him. Magneto, as it turns out, is in league with the High Evolutionary. Their exact plans are not shown, but one can venture a guess that they are trying to give mutants back their powers in one way or another.

Now the X-Men think that they are going to be safe in San Fransisco. But I have to disagree. Although they see San Fransisco as a safe haven of sorts I find it hard to believe that the Friends of Humanity and other anti-mutant groups wouldn’t follow the mutants anywhere. Anti-mutant groups have held quite prominently in current series (such as the Purifiers in New X-Men), their is no way they wouldn’t be involved just because the X-Men moved. [Editors Note: Then again, the Purifiers are being held up in X-Force, so we can't be sure when this story takes place. This is proved given that Angel isn't Arch Angel in this issue but in X-Force #5 that came out this week he just changed into Arch Angel. Craziness. --Mike]

Another thing I noticed is the mayor of San Fransisco is prominently shown in this issue and in last month’s issue. For some reason she gives me this feeling that she isn’t exactly who she says she is. I think, if nothing else, she has her own agenda as to bringing the Mutants to their new city, but what that could be is beyond me.

Overall Uncanny X-Men #500 is a great spot to jump on the X-Men train. It starts a new story, and as it seems now, a new generation for the X-Men.