PWN3R: Those comments are essentially what I've been saying about this book since Kirkman started on it. Date Night was awful, and this whole Magician thing hasn't been that great... not only do I think the idea sounds bad in theory, but it didn't even come out that great on paper. And from the issues I've skimmed in my LCS (which is all of them, since I've not been buying any), it doesn't even look that much like the Magician storyline has served to further the Jean/Phoenix storyline. And the Oliver art didn't help matters.
At least Colossus is starting to be written a bit better. Kirkman's gotten away from making him sound like a Russian immigrant who's trying to learn English, although the dialogue is still off. But Kirkman has gotten some respect and faith from me with, one, the interview with him about UXM (several pages back), two, the Annual (which I did like), and three, what he's said both in that interview and elsewhere about this Cable arc.. Looks promising, so now I don't think Kirkman's going to be to UXM what Milligan was to Adjectiveless. Here's to hoping Oliver doesn't make the Cable arc unbearable.