Editor's Note: Uncanny X-Men #512 arrives in stores tomorrow, June 24.

Shawn Hill:
Dave Wallace:

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Shawn Hill

Plot: The Beast is still on his mission to save mutantkind, and after traversing the far limits of space and magic, the latest frontier is the oldest one: time travel.

Comments: Steam punk is very in vogue right now, and comics are in a way the perfect medium for it. It's not the first time Fraction has flirted with pre-pulp heroic archetypes (he perfected the motif in Iron Fist, especially in several evocative annuals, when he and Ed Brubaker were busy enriching Danny Rand's back story more than ever before). It's not the first time the X-Men have approached the high-tech/low-tech of the Industrial Age (Ellis did it briefly, in a story that was much more style than substance in the uneven "Ghost Boxes" issues). It's not even the first time mutants have been shown to have a stake in the 19th century, as Joss Whedon recently did in his memorable (if much-delayed) Runaways arc.

But this is the first time this new era of Uncanny, relocated to San Francisco with a more public agenda, has really clicked. It's just funny that Fraction had to go back a century to really get a handle on his characters. This is the issue where he makes the X-Men his own.

Maybe it was the freedom of not having the yoke of the rotating artists (the Dodsons and Greg Land) that have made his run thus far more gimmicky than it needed to be. Land's shallow vixens undermined the admittedly thin femme fatales story arc (which mostly served to bring Psylocke back to life, again); and the Dodsons' work, though good, was too jarring a change whenever they took a turn. Paquette, in this issue, draws a cohesive team, be they in contemporary or 19th century guise, and he also has a lot of fun with some of the clever steam punk ideas.

So read this tale and feast your eyes on a cast-iron Sentinel, and watch the machinations of a scheming Hellfire Club back in their epochal setting. I don't quite work out all the ins and outs of the plot machinations (why did Shaw try to steal the very device he and his goons were paying the Bradleys to make again?), but I enjoyed every word balloon from Henry's mouth, and the chemistry between Nicola (the brains) and Catherine (the brawn) Bradley (and their child in the present day, James) makes for an action-packed retro-modern yarn.

And when the tragic end comes, as it inevitably must, Fraction has earned it, because we've met all the players and understand how all the competing motivations just collided so unfortunately. If the book could keep the consistency of this one issue, this could truly be called another great era.

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Dave Wallace:

This issue of Uncanny X-Men sees the Beast and his "X-Club" travel back in time to early-1900s San Francisco in search of some clues that could help them to understand how and why mutants first began to appear, in the hope of using this knowledge to reactivate the X-gene in the wake of House of M. It's a perfect example of what a serialised superhero comic should be: a complete story that makes for a satisfying read in its own right, but one that also pays off several subplots from previous issues, and sets up further plot threads for exploration in the future.

Matt Fraction is clearly comfortable with both the subject matter and the period setting of the issue. Having gradually built up his "X-Club" group of characters over the course of several issues, it's nice to see him finally have some fun with them in a dedicated story of their own -- and the fact that it's a steampunk time-travel story is the icing on the cake. (Between this and the recent short story in Warren Ellis's Ghost Boxes, I'm starting to think that there should be a regular steampunk X-Men title. Make it happen, Marvel!)

The story itself is fairly straightforward: the X-Club wants to obtain samples of blood from James Bradley's parents, Nicola and Catherine – but they soon find themselves embroiled in a 1906-era Hellfire Club plot to steal Nicola Bradley's inventions. However, it's in the telling of the story that Fraction really succeeds, making it entertaining on several levels. He quickly establishes Nicola and Catherine Bradley as interesting characters in their own right, making their interactions with the Hellfire Club as compelling as the X-Club's own mission. He crafts some exciting action sequences that give the X-Men the chance to shine, both individually and as a group. And he imbues the story with some unexpected emotional weight, with a bittersweet quality to the closing pages that is guaranteed to leave readers with a lump in the throat.

Yanick Paquette turns in some polished artwork that serves Fraction's script well. Stylistically, it's a little reminiscent of Billy Tan and Matt Banning's current work on New Avengers but with smoother inking (in the Rachel Dodson mould). The most striking element of the artwork is Paquette's solid grasp of form: characters and objects remain consistent from panel to panel, faces and bodies are realistic and unexaggerated, and there's a strong sense of texture in some of the smaller details (such as the wood panelling on Catherine Bradley's handguns, the precise geometric design of Nicola Bradley's device, or the authentic cars and architecture of early 20th-century San Francisco). All of this helps to sell the reality of Fraction's story, grounding it in the real world despite the fantastical trappings.

There are also some wonderfully imaginative designs on show here. A prototype Sentinel is slightly reminiscent of the giant Victorian Cyberman from Doctor Who's most recent Christmas special, "The Next Doctor" (I wonder if Fraction and Paquette were directly inspired by that episode?), and there's a great sequence that shows Madison Jeffries reconfigure an early automobile as an offensive weapon (think a 1906 version of Transformers, and you won't be too far off).

Finally, I have to mention the issue's cover, which passes the book off as a dog-eared and well-thumbed pulp novel. It's a clever concept, perfectly executed, and one that sells both the tone and the content of the story accurately.

There are one or two slight quibbles with the story that stop it from feeling absolutely perfect. The first few pages see Beast talk about his efforts to find a scientific solution for the Scarlet Witch's decimation of the mutant population, which continues to seem a little ridiculous given his acknowledgement that the mutants were wiped out by magic rather than by any tangible scientific method. However, that's more of a problem with the mechanics of House of M's climax than with this story specifically.

There's also the question of why the X-Club travels back to the early 20th century to trace the history of the first mutant, when readers know that Wolverine (one of the most high-profile X-Men) was born in the 19th century, some years beforehand.

Also, the book is forced to occasionally fudge elements of its circular time-travel logic in order to make certain moments work. However, that's an inherent problem with many time-travel stories, and it didn't bother me too much here.

All that said, it's easy to overlook these minor problems in favour of a story that is otherwise hugely enjoyable.

Any longtime followers of Fraction's work will be delighted to see the writer return to both the steampunk vibe that characterised his Five Fists of Science and the relatively compressed storytelling style that allowed each issue of Casanova to stand as a satisfying reading experience in its own right whilst also working as part of a larger story. Yes, this is an extra-sized issue (38 story pages in all), but there's still a strong sense that Fraction is managing to pack a lot into this story. It might be slightly more costly than usual ($3.99 instead of the usual $2.99), but there's more entertainment to be found in this single issue than could be derived from the most recent arc of Uncanny X-Men in its entirety.

This is exactly the kind of thing that I was hoping for when I first heard that Fraction was going to take over the flagship X-title, and I'd recommend it to everyone -- especially those readers who might have been disappointed with his run thus far.

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