When you look at the surface of ‘No End In Sight,’ you get a crossover of the ‘Uncanny X-Men’, ‘Iron Man’, and ‘Nova’ and I’m sure you are asking the very same thing that I am: How does this mash up make any sense? On the first hand, we have Scott Summers, the most wanted man in America trying to prepare his mutant students for war. On the other hand, we have Iron Man, recently returned from space and once again part of the Illuminati who, if he came across Cyclops, would probably try to lock him up. Finally we have Nova who is still a kid himself and while almost an Avenger and barely a New Warrior, just loves having cosmic adventures. So two out of the three of those descriptions just mentioned space. Could this have something to do with Summers’ past exploits in space catching up to him after all of these years?
Well, yes and no. While Nova isn’t tied into the crossover in this issue, the X-Men and Iron Man clearly are and that happens by the way of Death’s Head! While Scott is taking his students out for flying lessons (the mechanical kind not the mutant power kind), their ship is suddenly brought down. Mysteriously attacked, we quickly learn that it is Death’s Head and a group of unknown mercenaries who appear to be working for him that have taken down the ship.
Death’s Head! All right! One of my favorite characters! One who is completely one dimensional and barely used properly in the story. In fact, his best use is near the end of the issue when he isn’t even on the page.
I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s hold on here. So with Cyclops captured and the rest of the mutants waiting for backu, Magik shows up and takes the students home.
So who is after Scott? No one apparently. Death’s Head grabbed the wrong Summers as he was supposed to kidnap his younger brother who is currently a member of ‘The Uncanny Avengers’. Who is after Alex? I swear I should know who this is but the art is throwing me. Honestly, Ron Ackins’ art throughout the entire book was hurting at best with none of the X-Men really keeping their look that solid throughout the issue.
So with no easy way to go off world, clearly the only solution is to infiltrate S.W.O.R.D. and use their resources to find out who may have taken Scott and how to get him back. As they sneak in new recruits and are able to all too easily move around the base, they discover ‘Death’s Head’ is the culprit. (You can’t blame them for not knowing the intergalactic bounty hunter. They are, after all, young mutants.) The solution? Go after them! Only they are offered a little bit of help. For some random reason, Tony Stark is hanging out on S.W.O.R.D.’s base and just happens to be walking through this apparent side research room when the data is being looked up.
Mmmhmm. Seems legit. Honestly his response is fitting that he had a recent issue with Death’s Head and wanted to settle the score. It was a very Stark response. Only with the events in his own book and the ‘New Avengers’ going on, it doesn’t seem like he would have a lot of free time to be on the space station to begin with, let alone have time to take a jaunt into space. I understand the books don’t all take place at the exact same time but there seems to be too many big events going on for this to fit in there that well.
With a mixture of sub par and uninspired art as well as a crossover that doesn’t seem feasible in the Marvel Universe right now, this is an event I’m pretty sure everyone can skip picking up.
UNCANNY X-MEN SPECIAL #1
Writer: Sean Ryan
Artist: Ron Ackins
