In the wake of Secret Wars (2015), a new series of Uncanny X-Men began as part of the All-New, All-Different Marvel initiative, written by Cullen Bunn, with art primarily by Greg Land and Ken Lashley. The series featured a darker roster of characters doing what they have to when mutants once again become an endangered species. The roster included Magneto, Psylocke, Sabretooth (still inverted from AXIS), M, Archangel, Mystique and Fantomex.
Notably, this is the first time the Uncanny X-Men series was definitively not considered the flagship X-Men series, which was Extraordinary X-Men.
The series ended after 19 issues to begin ResurrXion.
The fourth volume provides examples of the following tropes:
- Always Save the Girl: Whenever there was danger, Sabretooth's first priority was protecting Monet over anyone else, including their team & the mutants they were supposed to help.
- Artistic Licence – Biology: When the caskets of the mutants who chose to freeze themselves until the terrigen mists were gone are broken, they pretty much just get up and walk off. Despite having been frozen in liquid nitrogen mere minutes earlier!
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Creed & Monet have a constant snark-fest. Psylocke even tells them at one point to just Get a Room!.
- Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Kinda sorta used by Exodus, who is targeting mutants kidnapped by the villainous Someday Corporation and giving them telepathic "nudging" to work for him instead. Magneto flips out over this, despite doing worse to the Marauders in his 2014 solo series (which this run is more or less a direct continuation of).
- The Bus Came Back: Exodus and Elixir make a surprise reappearance in issue 19, saving Magneto from a slow death courtesy of Psylocke.
- The Champion: Sabretooth for Monet early on, however unwanted it was. Later he falls into Failure Knight territory when he tries to help Monet with her Emplate-curse but only makes things worse, despite having the best intentions toward her.
- Continuity Nod: Magneto allying with the Hellfire Club is an obvious nod to his dalliance with them in Claremont's legendary run.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- The pacifistic Shen Xorn single-handedly curb-stomps the Dark Riders.
- Exodus is also given one of these courtesy of Magneto, though writer Cullen Bunn hinted in an interview
that Ex may have let him win that one.
- Darker and Edgier: The team has a really dark roster. Magneto is already a borderline Villain Protagonist at his best, but Archangel has been a psychotic murderer before, Fantomex constantly feels an urge to kill, and Sabretooth still has an incredibly high body count. The team is much darker than any previous incarnation of the X-Men. See In Name Only.
- Elixir was already going down this route, but he cranks it up a notch here, doing things like torturing the Dark Riders by continuously killing and resurrecting them with his powers.
- M's characterization is also given a Darker and Edgier turn. Unlike the above characters, she has not been a particularly dark character before, but here she is written as being perfectly willing to risk a mutant's life by going into his mind "like a bull in a china shop" to get information Magneto wants, although this is played as being due to the influence of her brother.
- Dirty Business: Is what the team focuses on.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Monet with Creed. She usually responded defensively or dismissively whenever he showed protectiveness or concern for her.
- Enemy Mine: Magneto's X-Men form an alliance with the Hellfire Club.
- Everyone Can See It: Creed x Monet. Psylocke, Callisto, and Emplate make comments about their relationship regarding their behavior toward each other.
- Evil, Inc.: Someday Corp, a company that is capitalizing on the mutant-killing Terrigen Mists by offering desperate mutants a chance to be put into stasis until the Mists pass. Predictably, their motives are anything but benign.
- The Fellowship Has Ended: As of issue 19 Magneto's X-Men have scattered to the four winds, broken up partly by Erik's ruthless leadership style and partly by external forces.
- Flirting Under Fire: Goes straight into Get a Room!. As part of the Ship Tease, Psylocke calls Creed & Monet out on seemingly flirting while fighting enemies.Psylocke: Are you two still bickering? Why not just get a room.Monet: Why Psylocke, do I detect a hint of jealousy?Psylocke: Not hardly. But if you two have time to squabble...or flirt -if that's what you two are doing...then I can't be convinced we were all needed for this mission.
- Funny Background Event: While technically a foreground event, when Angel renews his sense of purpose, Magneto stands up to state the fact, letting Angel fall to the ground.
- The Heart: Stated by
Word of God to be Sabretooth -noting him as possibly the most heroic member on the team. - Hoist by His Own Petard: Magneto thinks it is a cruel irony that his preparations for the possibility that Psylocke would try to kill him is the very thing that led to her deciding he must die.
- Hypocrite: He doesn't make it an accusation as such, but when Psylocke is hunting him, Erik muses that it's odd that it was his ruthlessness that would turn her against him.Magneto: Psylocke is nothing if not the embodiment of those pitiless traits.
- Idiot Ball: The trained assassin Psylocke inflicts a fatal wound on Magneto and then leaves him to die slowly rather than finish him off. Of course help arrives for Magneto moments after she leaves in the form of the two omega-level mutants who feel indebted to him.
- In Name Only: Many have noted that the series sounds and looks like it has more in common with X-Force than a traditional Uncanny run. Specifically, it's almost a carbon copy of the third X-Force volume in both its premise and scope.
- Irony: Magneto feels it is this that the sword that kills/mortally wounds him, despite being a psychic blade feels like it is made of metal.
- It's Personal: Psylocke takes this attitude towards Magneto after telling him she'll kill him if he goes too far in the name of mutantkind and Erik of course going on to do exactly that.
- Mind Rape: Mystique's encounter with Exodus does not end well for her.
- Morality Chain: Monet for Creed. Near the run's end, he knows his inversion is wearing off and thinks about needing to fight for something to stay on track. That something was his desire to help Monet & keep his promise to her.
- Reformed, but Rejected: No one really trusts Sabertooth and Callisto tries to out and out kill him when he and M arrive to help the Morlocks.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Magneto puts Exodus into stasis after defeating him, referring to him as a "failsafe" when asked by Xorn about him. As of issue 19 he's back, making that one of his shortest sealings ever.
- Sequel Series: It's basically a continuation of Bunn's Magneto run.
- Ship Tease:
- The series brings back the Psylocke/Angel relationship, which was previously shelved once Angel lost his memory in favor of Psylocke/Fantomex. It also helps that Bunn outright told fans in an X-Position that Betsy would not be paired up with Fantomex this time around.
- M and Sabretooth are attracted to each other. Psylocke makes two comments on them -calling out their Flirting Under Fire & comparing them to Starkweather & Fugate. Callisto refers to Monet as Creed's girlfriend at one point.
- Bunn mentioned that Creed would have a romance later in the story -and not with Psylocke. When asked about Mystique -Creed's off-and-on love interest, Bunn replied that they weren't on good terms. Both statements hint at Monet being the love interest. Most recently, he all but confirmed it when he notes them as a torturous love.
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- The series brings back the Psylocke/Angel relationship, which was previously shelved once Angel lost his memory in favor of Psylocke/Fantomex. It also helps that
- Shoot the Medic First: Apocalypse's Dark Riders are attempting to expedite what they believe to be the oncoming extinction of mutants by hunting down and killing any mutant healers that could ameliorate cases of M-Pox from the Terrigen mists.
- Shout-Out:
- Magneto will have you know he has no intention of being either Moses or Ra's al Ghul.
- In an annual, a couple of guys are talking, one telling about a guy he was beating up who turned out to have a mother sharing a name with his mother.
- Smug Snake: The characterization for Exodus here seems to draw from his use as a smirking heel in the 1998 Quicksilver series, as opposed to most of his other appearances. Perhaps not coincidentally, the aforementioned Quicksilver run (which was a rather low seller in its day) was released in trade paperback form just a year earlier.
- Taking the Bullet: Sabretooth does this for Monet when the Dark Riders attack in chapter two. He pushes her & Elixir out of harm's way but he lets go of Elixir to continue holding on to Monet, shouting in pain while he's shot in the back repeatedly.
- Token Evil Teammate: Everyone on the team is an anti-hero to a degree, but Archangel is the closest to this trope.
- Tsundere: Monet is Type A with Creed. She's flirtatious with him one minute and snubbing him the next.
- Women Prefer Strong Men: Monet shows this attitude with Sabretooth when he's unpacking the Blackbird◊.
- The Worf Effect: Seems to be the sole reason for the appearance of Exodus, who is given a sound thrashing by Magneto in issue #14 to show that Mags is back on the Creep end of his perpetual Power Creep, Power Seep. Cullen Bunn even hints via Word of God that Exodus threw this fight, harkening to this trope's earliest roots.
