Uncanny X-Men #16 Review

Don’t do drugs kids, or Magneto gets angry!

Everyone else has had some character development on the staff somewhat,  but not old Mags. So we get this lead up into his own upcoming series in Issue #16 of Uncanny X-Men.

The issue begins with a follow-up Pro-Mutant rally at the same campus that the Blockbuster Sentinel ran amok in, where Magneto is having a vivid daydream of slaughtering them left and right. He’s pissed off because until now they’ve done nothing while his people have suffered and their problems comes from humans. He’s so pissed off he bites his lip until blood comes out and he snaps back to reality, where Agent Dazzler (Mystique) meets with him.

As usual she knows nothing, he doesn’t trust her, but then she starts cross analyzing him and states that what the world is focusing on is Scott and no one really paid much mind to him. She basically baits him into going to Madripoor, where a mutant suddenly runs the show and has taken over. Naturally, his interest is peaked so he dons a suave hat and goes on vacation here.

If you don’t know, Madripoor is essentially a hellhole in the Marvel Universe. That’s saying something. Even more so when we see some kids going to get Mutant Growth Hormone (drugs) from a bar while some dude is getting his ass beat on the street.

Mags walks into the Bar and starts asking around for some info after a drink. They don’t take to kindly to that and the bartender cracks him over the head with a baseball bat and tells them to take him out back and gut him. Now, at this point they didn’t know it was Mags they were screwing with, so he makes it clear by controlling their guns and knives and beating the hell out of them until they tell him to go to the Hydra Tower.

There he runs into The Blob, Sabertooth, Silver Samurai, and the new Queen of Madripoor, Dazzler. Well, at least for a few seconds before she dropped the disguise and shows she’s Mystique. She wants to offer him a seat at the table, since he’s given them a chance, but he brings up the MGH that’s on the streets. While she says it was all in play before she got there, and to be fair it probably was given the place, he says that while Charles wanted co-existence and he wanted them to be the dominant species, this ain’t going to fly since kids and drugs don’t work for either.

Magneto flips his lid, has Silver Samurai stab Mystique, whip out bullets that he controls and basically tears through everyone and brings down the building. Now, Mystique and Sabertooth will probably be fine, but it makes a point. He’s clearly unhappy with that place and leaves, but he doesn’t return to NXS and the issue ends with a prompt saying to check him out in his own Solo series.

…What can I say, this issue was excellent. Mags showed that what Mystique had been building up was not what he had in mind. They weren’t the dominant species or co-existing, but wallowing in the waste of drugs and sin. He wants the mutant race to flourish and it won’t as long as MGH and Sentinels are floating around, so he’s going off to do something.

A must-have issue, it gets a 5 out of 5.