Comics / Comic Reviews / Marvel Comics

Utopia TPB

By Dan Horn
April 25, 2010 - 09:06

Since Civil War, Marvel has made a conscious effort at every turn to keep its comics contemporary and relevant. Utopia is no departure from that formula as it pits America's mutant pariahs, the X-Men, against a federalized police state helmed by Norman Osborn.

Utopia Jae Lee variant cover

Simon Trask's Tea Party-esque conservative and hate-mongering Humanity Now! movement takes San Fransisco by storm, but is impeded by the equally vehement protesters of the Californian city's mutant variety. A riot is sparked during a confrontation between Henry "Beast" McCoy and Trask, spurring a federal takeover of the SFPD. Norman Osborn, his Avengers, and the alternate-reality Dark Beast detain any mutants perceived as threats, siphoning the mutants' powers into the Omega Machine to fuel HAMMER's newly enlisted powerhouse Weapon Omega. Meanwhile, Osborn has given the surreptitious Emma Frost the reigns of a new X-Men team as her former flame/mutant-kind's patriarch, Cyclops, plots against the oppressive new regulations enforced by martial law.

Despite a modern Bill of Rights premise that effectively and imaginatively hits home, Utopia takes a decisively slow start out of the gate, which unfortunately doesn't pick up the slack for any plot holes or lack of cohesion in writer-extraordinaire Matt Fraction's arc. Aside from the laboriously obvious "plot twists," erratic story developments, and painful melodrama, Fraction laces his chapters with downright hackneyed expressions (read the volatile and foreboding Omega spouting such inopportune ultra-cliches as "We're all dead! And this is hell!") and throwaway fights as seen with the battle between the dark X-Men and Trask's cannon-fodder bio-Sentinels. In fact, any one-on-one fights you may be hoping to see in Utopia never really pan out. Really, Jae Lee and Simone Bianchi's beautiful variant covers may be the closest you get to seeing Colossus and Venom, Iron Patriot and Cyclops, or Namor and Sentry actually come to blows. It all just plays into my theory that Marvel's new tag line should be: "Sure, we have plenty of opportunities for headlining bouts... but we'd rather take preposterous shortcuts and get straight to the denouement." Marvel, you've been "building up" events like this for seven years! Give us a good battle, for crying out loud!

Exodus Simone Bianchi variant cover

The inconvenient truth of the matter is that sometimes Fraction's writing is just garbage, plain and simple, while other times it's absolutely brilliant (see his archetypal writing on characters like Cyclops, Emma Frost, Bullseye, and Norman Osborn). So, readers of Utopia are left with a slightly more than mediocre balance that may be nothing like what they are used to seeing in the pages of Invincible Iron Man.

Thankfully, the book is redeemed by sterling issues written by Mike Carey, Jason Aaron, Matt Fraction himself, and many others. The sheer bulk of noteworthy comics in this over-sized TPB is nothing short of overwhelming. The artwork itself ranges from good to astounding. Luke Ross, Carmine Di Giandomencio, Dustin Weaver, Leonard Kirk and mainstays like Terry Dodson, Daniel Acuna, Jock, and Mike Deodato excel as Marc Silvestri also lends his legendary talents to the opening act, making a stellar return to X-Men comics.

Overall, Utopia, though its potential is never fully realized, is worth a read, even if just to get caught up on pre-Siege events. But, the copious amounts of supplementary material printed in the Utopia TPB are where this collection truly shines.

Utopia HC and TPB Marc Silvestri cover

Rating: 8 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12