Astonishing X-Men 1-6: a review

Astonishing X-Men 1-6
by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday

Thus far, the Whedon/Cassaday run on Astonishing X-Men has been the best Marvel comic book work I’ve seen since… at least since the Dark Phoenix saga. While Grant Morrison can be credited with revitalizing a group of characters who had been written into the ground by previous authors, I always felt that his take on X-Men was a bit, well, off. Interesting to read, perhaps, but it was as if he was writing The Invisibles with an X-Men skin. For instance, even though it was built gradually, painstakingly through his run, I never really felt the Scott/Emma vibe. Yes, Jean and Scott were pretty horribly boring together, but they were destiny incarnate – the introduction of Emma into the mix always felt forced, and their instant coupling after Jean’s death bothered me particularly (even if Jean’s Phoenix-force self somehow transwarped and told him it was okay).

Joss Whedon has not only forced me to accept their relationship, but he’s made me truly enjoy it. Over the past six issues, the banter between Scott and Emma, as well as their ‘discussions’ of their relationship with other characters, have created a depth to the bond between them that all of Morrison’s slow build-up never could. Furthermore, the fact that he has Kitty (and us, and even Scott himself) questioning Emma’s exact role in the relationship makes it so much more real – having skipped most of the late 90’s, I never did accept her conversion from super-villain to X-Man.

Kitty Pryde is also written better here than anywhere else I’ve seen. Whedon has said many times that she’s the one character he really wanted to write, and it shows. While all the characters have their share of witty dialog, she is truly the high point of the books. Her confrontations with Emma are particularly stunning:

EMMA: Do you know why you’re here, Miss Pryde? Because I asked you to come. I’m in love with Scott Summers. And I’m grateful to Professor Xavier for his trust. Being an X-Man means a lot to me.

But it doesn’t always agree with me.

I don’t have a family famous for moral fiber. I like to think I’ve evolved… but I wanted someone on the team that I hadn’t really fought alongside. Someone who would be inclined to watch me, if I…

KITTY: The first time I ever met the X-Men, the first day… they were ambushed. And captured. And caged. By you.

I learned more about good and evil in that one day than I ever have before or since. I was thirteen. When I think about evil, whenever I think about the concept of evil, yours is the face that I see.

I don’t have to watch you, Miss Frost.

I can smell you.

And, a smaller quip that says it all, from issue 3:

EMMA: Three students were missing from my ethics class. Seventeen overall. Logan had to break up two fistfights and a mystical swordfight. And that dreadful Guatemalan crab-boy is at Benetech telling reporters this is every mutant’s chance to avoid burning in everlasting hellfire. This is eating us from the inside out.

KITTY: Oh my God. You teach ethics?

Dialogue like this is what made Buffy and Angel so wonderful to watch; the amazing part is how Whedon is able to tailor it to these characters. You can tell Whedon is behind the pen, but it doesn’t feel like mutant Buffy at all.

The story is a relatively simple one, particularly compared to Morrison’s convoluted stories that only cleared up after multiple readings. Ord, of the Breakworld, has come to Earth with basic plans for a ‘mutant cure’. The newly formed team of Cyclops, Emma (why do Scott’s girls never have decent codenames?), Wolverine, Beast and Shadowcat investigate. Ord makes mischief, X-Men plan to destroy cure, because it’s potential as a weapon is too great. In the process of said destruction, they stumble upon Colossus, the reports of whom’s death who’s miraculously alive. Hijinks ensue.

Bare bones, that’s it. But this story works on so many levels. On the surface, it’s a straight X-Men formula story: menace to mutants, X-Men take out menace, dead X-Men resurrected. But these characters are so nuanced; Whedon manages to give Cyclops personality! Despite the fact that he’s always been my favorite character, he’s always been written boringly – yup, he’s a good leader, that’s it. But here, he’s questioning himself and his actions in some instances, and truly being a leader without the crutch of Xavier that he relied on for so long. It’s amazing.

Colossus’ return is similarly beautiful. When Kitty finds him, he’s been trapped for years, used as a lab rat, yet his response is so multi-faceted: rage, pity, resolution, and love all make appearances within the first few frames.

Furthermore, Whedon and Cassaday have their continuity down, particularly when it comes to Kitty. She and Logan’s prior relationship (from the Kitty Pryde/Wolverine mini way back in ’84) is apparent in multiple instances, but is made accessible to new readers. In fact, that’s how the whole run seems to work: Kitty is the POV through which new readers are introduced to decades-old character development.

John Cassaday, whose work I’ve not really seen before, is astonishing. His covers do an incredible double-duty – they fit the current Marvel standard of pin-up-ness, while also encapsulating that issue’s contents. Even the cover of issue 3, which features Wolverine flying into a rage, with no context, sums up the berserker-style drastic Logan that appears inside that issue.

His interiors are equally stunning. His panel layout makes the story easy to follow, his drawings are all crisp, and if he had trouble with the Beast early on, he had him down by issue 3. The characters truly appear to act out their roles, instead of just appearing in panels with dialogue, as it is in most comics. Furthermore, Laura Martin deserves special kudos for her mood-inducing use of color throughout the books, which compliments Cassaday’s drawings incredibly.

Were I a first-time reader, I would be hooked after this six-issue run. As someone who has quit collecting comics due to horrid writing again and again, this is where I recommend everyone to come back to the X-Men. As the last issue of the first arc was released today, the trade paperback can’t be far behind will be released January 12, according to Amazon. Come back to the X-Men here; you definitely won’t regret it.

(This review is echoed here from my personal site Shadowbot.)