A surprise announcement this morning from Marvel has indicated that this October’s Uncanny X-Men #544 will be the final issue of the series, which is ending due to the events of the Schism event.
“The X-Men are getting torn apart from within. The events of `Schism’ do more damage to the X-Men than any villain has ever done,” says managing editor Nick Lowe.
Kieron Gillen, who has been an X-Men writer since 2010 and recently took over the Uncanny title, says “The X-Men has always been a book with ideology and ideas at its heart, and to be fair to them – to best present them – you have to be entirely true. And if the story we’re telling demands that you end the `Uncanny X-Men,’ you end the `Uncanny X-Men.’ No, it’s not taken lightly – but it’s taken if it’s necessary to do it.”
One of Marvel’s longest running titles, Uncanny X-Men debuted September of 1963 titles only as The X-Men, and featured the first appearances of Marvel mainstays such as Cyclops, Professor X, and Magneto before being renamed The Uncanny X-Men with issue #147, and later simply Uncanny X-Men. The series was briefly cancelled due to lackluster sales in 1970, but years of reprints garnered enough interest for Giant Size X-Men #1 in 1975, which famously introduced the world to the second class of X-Men including Colossus, Storm, and Nightcrawler, and added the recently introduced Wolverine to the team. The book then resumed it’s original numbering, and has consistently been one of Marvel’s best selling titles ever since, and is notable for writer Chris Claremont’s acclaimed 16 year run on the title.
While the cancellation of Uncanny X-Men does end a decades long legacy of the title, the characters have plenty of other titles to show up in; the second volume of the adjective-less spin-off X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, Uncanny X-Force, Generation Hope, New Mutants, and X-Men Legacy continue to run.
Well, that decides that: Been looking to start getting comics again in general when DC starts all those #1’s, and Uncanny X-Men has consistently been on my Start Reading Again list. Though, I have dropped and re-added it several times as DC announced more titles, but now the decision’s been made for me.
Unless of course they have Uncanny X-Men “#1” up their sleeve; that seems to be the thing to do lately.
Uncanny has been decent; leagues better since Gillen took over. But like you mentioned, I don’t think it’s a matter of if Uncanny X-Men is coming back, it’s a matter of when. It’s been running since the 60s, and was the #1 Marvel book for at least a decade thanks to the 90s success of X titles. It’ll definitely be back eventually, just a matter of when.
That settles it. My home life has gotten far too complicated if I’ve missed this announcement! Huge X-men fan and Uncanny has been my favourite title for years! Sad to see it go, hope the changes made are beneficial to the series.
Also I agree with Chris, Kieron has improved it dramatically!