Uncanny X-Men (2018) / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation: The portrayal of Pixie, Anole, Rockslide, Armor, and Glob. They either have a legitimate point but come off as Unintentionally Unsympathetic due to poorly-thought characterization. Or they are intentionally written as whiny and entitled so that they can learn a lesson but come off as Unintentionally Sympathetic because at the end of the day, they're right. On a meta level, whenever their portrayal has been an attempt at acknowledging complaints from New X-Men fandom or at constructing a strawman of their argument and basically telling these fans to shut up?
Broken Base: The first annual was well-received up until the last few pages, which had Cyclops say that he was wrong for everything he did since M-Day. Some like this as they never liked the more militant Cyclops, others hate it for being a lazy attempt at returning him to his 90s status quo and pandering to his haters. And yet others dislike this, but accept it as the only way Marvel would be willing to have Cyclops as a hero again.
Catharsis Factor: After the years of civil wars, betrayals and attempted murder it’s refreshing to see Cyclops and Wolverine put aside their petty bickering, tear through a gang of Reavers, Purifiers and Sapien Leaguers and agree to team up to keep the dream of the X-Men alive after the events of “Disassembled”. Even better, their interaction is just as strained as ever, but both agree to focus on the bigger picture for once to get things done.
Cliché Storm: With exception of anything involving the Phoenix, if you can name a popular X-Men plotline, this book probably tried to rehash it with "Disassembled".
Fanon Discontinuity: Several fans are more than happy to ignore this run even happened. Seeing several of the characters killed here being already alive and well for the Dawn of X initiative does help in that regard. The fact that X-Men (2019) ignores and even outright contradicts it only added more fuel to the fire. And the fact that it doesn't probably just pisses everyone off even more.
Hilarious in Hindsight: The start of Rosenberg's run began with the Tempting Fate line from Cyclops stating, "Every X-Men story is the same." Immediately after this oft-reviled run concluded, House of X and Powers of X began, turning the tables on not only X-Men comics but superhero comics in general, becoming the poster-child for taking an old property and applying a new direction after years of false starts.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
- Hey, did you want another retread of Warren and Archangel? Well, here you go! In the most forced way possible! The series overall seems to really like retreading the 90s, best exemplified by Cyclops being reset, both in terms of characterisation and appearance, to what 90s fans would be familiar with.
- Disassembled leads into yet another extinction era barely two years after the last one, while also setting up rehashes of both Age of Apocalypse and House of M.
- Scott and Jean reuniting in Uncanny #22. Others, of course, are ecstatic.
Just Here for Godzilla: After the negatively-received "Disassembled", the majority opinion seems to be "I'm gonna stick around for Cyclops and Wolverine."
Narm: Yeah, maybe if trying to start your serious and grim story coming at the heels of one criticized for recycling every popular X-Men cliche at once, having the very first line say "Every X-Men story is the same" is not such a good idea.
Older Than They Think: The concept of mutant extinction in general has been used and reused several times. But in this case we have only a handful of remaining mutants, with a large portion of the big names gone (not an alleged extinction that is only a problem for unnamed mutant masses, minor and forgotten characters, and just one or two big names for the sake of drama). The X-Men themselves are on the run, without a comfortable mansion or reinforcements if things go bad, and no Big Good looking after them. Being a mutant is made unlawful in itself, and law-abiding citizens who happen to be mutants have to take a "cure" that removes the mutation. All this have already been seen in Ultimate X Men, post Ultimatum.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The treatment of the New X-Men era cast has gotten a lot of scrutiny for the Continuity Snarl and one-note characterisation they're given. Fans of their characters are really annoyed at them being de-aged and derailed back into students, despite many having graduated on-panel, as well as the book treating them as if they're inexperienced idiots who hate that the older X-Men don't treat them as equals all the while acting in a way that would directly inspire them to be treated as such. Normally this would make them all The Scrappy, except that since its such dissonance from their previous characterization, the anger is aimed at the writers instead of the characters.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: What was eventually achieved in Rosenberg's solo run. At the start, killing off characters was treated as very dark and serious by many readers. But after Jonathan Hickman's run was announced and Rosenberg continually slaughtered characters for no apparent reason, it became a mix of thinking none of this will matter once Hickman's run begins and that the deaths aren't even worth getting upset about anymore; this seemingly hit its peak with what happened to Magik, who is consumed by her dark side... despite an apparent version of her being prominent in the promotions for Hickman's run.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
- Psylocke. Everyone stands by her decision to turn Angel into Archangel, and we're probably supposed to feel bad for her. That doesn't change that he's got a point. She inflicted on him his worst fear, one he'd finally gotten free of, all to take away X-Man's Horseman of Salvation that... flies.
- The younger students, with the exception of Pixie, being so pissed at their perceived sidelining by the senior X-Men. They don't ever shut up about the perceived sidelining, which comes off as petty and even quite selfish when they start complaining about not getting 'cool' missions, the very idea of doing clean-up and being given any order — simply because they're being told what to do. How their rebelliousness is justified only gets worse, such as when they lambaste the adults for imprisoning Legion despite how much trouble he's caused both recently and in the past, as well Armor implying it's Kitty Pryde's fault that two of her team got hurt when she disappeared, when Kitty was kidnapped. Essentially, the characters have almost no reasons to rebel but are doing so anyway.
- Pretty much any of the adults calling the students kids or children or insisting they're too young to take a part in real missions. Jean was previously okay with having two of their peers, Gentle and X-23, and an even younger character, Honey Badger, on her team in X-Men: Red. Jubilee started as a Tag Along Kid herself and Laura was with those very kids on a team, meaning she is similar age to them. So they all come off as colossal hypocrites. And in X-Men: Legacy Legion was dating one of the students so him constantly calling Blindfold's peers children makes him look like a total creep.
  - On the opposite side, Kitty Pryde was giving lectures to Havok how only a monster could allow any of the kids on a team in Astonishing (written by the same writer as this book) so her deciding to trust them to buy time against X-Man here makes her look as bad as Jean, just in the opposite direction.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- For one of the first times in this history of the franchise Apocalypse is in a comic with both his favorite horseman, Archangel (who also temporally served as his successor), and Genesis, his teenaged clone who has been fighting all his existence to not become whom he was intended to be. Yet not one word of dialogue passes between the three.
- Legion returns in the same story that tries to bring more spotlight to X-Men students and their plotlines are strongly intertwined. Yet Blindfold, the student he formed a romantic connection with and the only person to remember him after he Un-person himself is nowhere to be found. Made even more infuriating when she shows up right after the story involving Legion ends and he is no longer in the book.
- A Jamie Madrox dupe has taken on the role of Layla Miller's husband and the father of her and Jamie Prime's child. How this came about is never shown, nor is Layla's "reunion" with Jamie — that all occurred off-panel between Multiple Man and Uncanny X-Men #11.
- The new Jamie Prime in general has very little to actually do, merely providing cannon fodder for Rosenberg to kill. The death of a dupe is meant to be a big deal, as the original Jamie Maddrox had an existential crisis when one of his dupes died, but for the new Jamie Prime it apparently means nothing. While this could be explored and justified in some way, it isn't — it's not even acknowledged that their treatment is different.
WTH, Costuming Department?: The majority opinion on Cyclops wearing his 90s Jim Lee outfit. While many liked it at the time, common opinion is that it hasn't aged well and is just out of place in modern stories. Most fans would've preferred he go with his Astonishing outfit or the similar Utopia-era suit.

YMMV / Uncanny X-Men (2018)

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