I’ve said over and over again, that my problem with Fraction’s Uncanny X-Men run is that he’s got fantastic plots, but no sense of character.  Ellis’s run on Astonishing is the antithesis of that.

I’ll have to reread it in trade to see if the plot makes any sense.  Due to the eleven years between issues 33 and 34, I have no memory of the beginning of the story.  I don’t remember where/how the aliens came into the story, I don’t know where this takes place, and for a panel or two I thought the villain was supposed to be Cassandra Nova.

But the plot seemed pretty secondary to Ellis’s handling of the characters, and I thought his execution of their interaction was flawless.

Jiminez caught a little case of the Liefelds.  All the characters were in a constant state of grimace, and most of the feet were obscured.  But everything else about the art was perfect.  The layout was very simple but effective, and Lanning’s finishing were really effective.