GIANT SIZE ASTONISHING X-MEN #1

Review by: flapjaxx

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Size: pages
Price: 4.99

After reading Morrison’s New X-Men in trade a few years ago, Astonishing X-Men was the ongoing series
that got me back into caring about comics on a weekly basis again,
after nearly ten years away. When I first started collecting this
series, buying the single issue of #14 after reading 1-12 in trade, I
was working under the assumption that I’d just buy this series until it
concluded in a year or so and that would be it. Astonishing X-Men would
be the one comic series I’d collect, for fun, until Whedon and Cassaday
were off it. What happened, instead, was that it took about a year
longer to conclude than I thought it would (groan), yet in that time
I started reading quite a few other ongoing series in the
process. So I really have to thank Astonishing X-Men for quite a bit. I had no idea so many
mainstream comics had gotten this good in between 1998 (when I stopped
reading the first time) and 2006 (when I came back). (I had no idea the publishers now allowed their creators to take 5 months between issues either, but that’s not really the point.)

To me this was a great giant-sized issue, yet it didn’t have
quite enough resolution as the ending of the past 24 issues from this creative team. If the next
arc was (is?) going to address 1) “How do we get Kitty back?” and 2) “Was
that Cassandra Nova who sidelined the heroes?”, then fine. But as the
long-delayed conclusion of a great SELF-CONTAINED A-list project? Nah,
it was definitely a little lacking. I would have wanted more pages of resolution at the end, a few more closing vignettes. That’s kinda a
nit-pick, though, and should even be considered a compliment in a way, because I liked what I saw and wanted more of it. I wanted another scene with each of the characters that Whedon knows so well and Cassaday draws so well. I wanted Scott and Emma waking up together again. I wanted a scene of a stoic Colossus painting. I wanted Beast and Wolverine maybe talking about their opposite natures; if Beast can find a girl, why can’t Logan? (If there’s one character I didn’t get enough of in this series, it was Wolverine. I didn’t see as many sides of his character as I saw of the others.)

This is not to say that I’m disappointed at all, though.
A few fans are, but I’m not. Maybe because I never thought Joss Whedon could ever be anything more than
“only” the 3rd best X-Men writer ever… a very distant third behind Claremont
and then Morrison (who is far behind Claremont). Which is still saying
something for Mr. Whedon, because I couldn’t even pick a #4 (Roy Thomas? Stan Lee?).
So I am pleased with this series overall. Very pleased. (But I think I’m the
only one in the world who doesn’t fawn over the oft cutesy-ness of
Whedon’s dialogue. For instance, the 11th Wolverine/beer joke
fell flat for me.)

And I love Cassaday’s art, as always. It’s perfect for what it is, and what it is…is nearly perfect.

Story: 3 - Good
Art: 5 - Excellent

Comments

  1. I think Kitty’s going to be left in limbo for awhile.  Also, I think the drooling comas were a defense mechanism of the bullet rather than anything to do with Cassandra Nova.

  2. But the bullet was way across the universe when that happened…? I just don’t understand. I don’t have to understand it to like the book, but it seems strange to leave this unexplained. It’s like all of a sudden this very conventional comic turned into a David Lynch movie for a few pages, and none of the other characters care to resolve it.

  3. Yeah, defense mechanism in the bullet.  The "Magic" that Peter was talking about last issue (in 2004, or whenever that came out).

    I think Kitty comes back from space having been transformed in some way by her experience. Because that’s totally what Warren Ellis would do.

    And I can understand the initial puzzled/frustrated reaction, but give it a chance to sink in and take another couple reads or two.  This comic has *always* worked that way, I think.  Something about the combination of Whedon’s writing and Cassaday’s visuals (because Whedon’s other comics aren’t like this) requires some processing.  It’s nothing new.  I remember staring at issue 14 going WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED.  That’s actually why I started reading other comics in the first place (including Dark Phoenix Saga and most of Morrison’s run).  So I could figure out what Joss and John were doing.

     

  4. umm, never mind the last paragraph, I was responding to the wrong review :)).

     

     

  5. I don’t want to sound like a whiner, but just to be on record for posterity: 1) I don’t see how the "magic" of the bullet could work across the universe. 2) Even if it is magic, I can see how that might make the bullet "unstoppable" (like the Juggernaut is unstoppable by magic; also the title of the #19-24 story arc) but not how it can pinpoint dozens of conscious lifeforms lightyears away, none of whom (besides Strange) had even done anything to it, and then put them all in locus-eater daydreams. 3) I’ve seen this pointed out on another board, and I should have added it to my review as well: Where was Danger?

    Just about 2-3 too many loose ends. It’s almost like the x-editors told Whedon, "Okay buddy, you’ve had your great little auteur run, but now we’re going to make Astonishing X-Men a regular in-continuity x-title. That means every issue has to have a few unresolved, even un-commented on, plotpoints.

    It’s still going to be hard for me not to buy the collected edition of this.

  6. I mean, if the bullet’s "magic" can effect people’s minds like that, why couldn’t it have just gotten into Kitty’s mind and prevented her from phasing? …Oh, because technically she wasn’t trying to "stop" the bullet like the heroes are? Ugh, too many stipulations. They didn’t even need to do the magic on the heroes (if that’s what was effected them, not Cassie Nova). The bullet is magically unstoppable–FINE, just leave it at that. RRRAAAHHHUUUHHHhhhh!h!h!h!

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