Editor's Note: Uncanny X-Men #514 arrives in stores tomorrow, August 12.

"Utopia: Part 4"

The "Dark Reign"-based "Utopia" crossover rolls on with this fourth chapter, which continues the story of Norman Osborn's interventions in a mutant conflict in San Francisco, bringing together the Dark Avengers and the Uncanny X-Men in a gigantic sprawling battle with Simon Trask and his anti-mutant cohorts.

Despite a fairly promising start, I haven't found myself particularly interested in the last couple of issues of this storyline. The first issue set out a fairly compelling political conflict that not only touched on classic X-Men themes of prejudice and hateful discrimination, but also provided a plausible reason for Norman Osbon and his Dark Avengers to get involved. Since then, though, I don't get the sense that things have really progressed, with the book's large cast of characters divided into various teams that constantly fight with each other (and sometimes among themselves) whilst we wait for Cyclops to reveal exactly what his big endgame is.

Not only is there a lack of development in the plot, but some of the story's core elements as set out in the first issue have actually been undermined by later chapters. For example, whilst this issue sees writer Matt Fraction point out the irony of Simon Trask's anti-mutant supporters becoming mutated themselves (after a fashion), the "Human Sentinels" have the effect of reducing Trask's anti-mutant campaign to a fantastical super-villain plot, distancing it from the more realistic human prejudices and bigotry that X-Men comics have always reflected. Also, I still don't buy Emma Frost's acquiescence to Norman Osborn's demands that she lead a team of "Dark X-Men" -- although I'm still hoping that there's more to this development than meets the eye.

I don't want to sound too down on this book, as there are several fun touches in this issue. I like the way that the Sentinels communicate in binary, there's a fun bit of business between Dakken and Bullseye as they compare "claws", and Fraction can still pull out some neat dialogue at times, too: for example, Emma Frost's "The whole world is watching, children. Be amazing" is perfectly in-character.

That said, the issue is subject to a few clichés, too. The contrived in-fighting between the "Dark X-Men" and the "Dark Avengers" early on seems to exist only to fill the pages with a little more action, and the idea that the team of good guys is going to beat the team of bad guys because they fight as a cohesive unit rather than as a group of loners is so done-to-death in team superhero books that I'll be disappointed if it plays out in as straightforward a manner as this issue suggests.

The issue looks pretty good, with the Dodsons providing their usual brand of slick, shiny, bouncy artwork. I was sceptical that the pair's artwork would suit such a "dark" storyline, but they actually manage to capture the tone of the book quite effectively, and depict the story's many different players faithfully (with a typically high level of attention paid to the female X-Men). Of course, the production of a 6-part crossover in such a short space of time has led to a certain visual inconsistency to the "Utopia" storyline as a whole, but at least the crossover's different artists have all been of a fairly high quality.

Whilst this issue provides some decent enough action sequences and a couple of nice character moments, it's difficult to escape the sense that this is an editorially-mandated and hollow crossover that doesn't quite fit in with the direction that Fraction was taking Uncanny X-Men in previous issues. Perhaps it would have been more compelling as a more focused, streamlined story, but the presence of so many different players (check out all the headshots on that recap page!) makes it feel as though the book is simply cramming as many characters in as possible, and the book struggles to really convey the high stakes of the conflict, preferring to substitute endless fight scenes and repetitive action for any real depth of storytelling.

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