X-Men Reviews - Page 1

"Mutants -- feared and hated by the world they have sworn to protect. These are the strangest heroes of all!"

The Astonishing X-Men: Dangerous

Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5)

Number of readings: 2

see me review here (My then new editor at UGO had decided to be a bit more, um, hands on when it came to editing, the result is he stuck in a reference to the Brood in my review that I didn't write and I'm not sure what it's relevance is. The sentence in question should just read "this month it's a giant monster, this month they're battling the mansion's rogue security systems" (referring to sequences depicted in this story arc).

The Astonishing X-Men: Gifted

Rating: * * * * 1/2 (out of 5)

Number of readings: 2

see me review here

Astonishing X-Men: Torn 2007 (SC TPB) 144 pages

Written by Joss Whedon. Illustrated by John Cassaday.
Colours: Laura Martin. Letters: Chris Eliopoulos. Editor: Mike Marts.

Reprinting: Astonishing X-Men #13-18 (2006)

Rating: * * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 2

This is the third of, ultimately four, TPB volumes collecting the Astonishing X-Men series by A-list creators, writer Joss Whedon (better known for TV and movies) and artist John Cassaday. The first volume, Gifted, I thought lived up to its adjective -- it was astonishingly good, mixing Whedon's witty, smart dialogue and a genuine feel for these long standing characters, with Cassaday's beautiful, almost photo-realist art. The second volume, Dangerous, was okay, but no longer astonishing. Whedon, who seems to have blocked out his run rather miserly as four multi-issue story arcs, had fallen into something of the hubris -- or laziness -- of modern comics writers, with their penchant for so-called "decompressed" storytelling: turning a story that would've been better served as three or four issues into six.

And now we come to Torn.

Again, a story that warrants a few issues is expanded to six, but instead of getting a richer, deeper story, we just get a lot of repetition, a lot of wordless panels, big panels, and poker-face reaction shots.

The premise has the X-Men being attacked by members of the Hellfire Club in their own mansion -- their foes attacking them psychically as much as physically. Cyclops ends up in a coma, the Beast regressed into an animal, Wolverine retreats into his naive, Victorian-era childhood, etc. It's an X-Men story where most of the X-Men aren't really involved, or in character. And though it can make for some interesting, even amusing scenes -- the erstwhile ferocious Wolverine running around wide-eyed and frightened, talking like Little Lord Fualteroy, is quite funny -- but does get a bit repetitious.

The X-Men are sidelined partly to allow for this to be Kitty Pryde's show. Whedon, having returned the character to the team at the beginning of his Astonishing X-Men run and having claimed Kitty was the inspiration for his Buffy the Vampire Slayer heroine, clearly feels a lot of affection for her.

And what you also notice about Torn is the plot is rather similar to Dangerous -- a foe with insights into the team attacks them in their own mansion. It was fine once -- but the hoary old "arch foes attacks heroes" seems a substitute for a real plot. To be fair, it does turn out the villains have more of a goal than simple revenge. And that's where my biggest problem with Torn comes in.

With a hot "outsider" talent like Whedon, you have to wonder whether Whedon fans, unfamiliar with the comics, will follow him, and how these stories will read for them. I really dug Gifted, but did wonder how it would read for people less familiar with the X-Men mythos than was I, as Whedon was calling up some past continuity.

Well, here, I'm the outsider. I've read many X-Men comics over the years, but I'm not up to speed on every aspect of their history, and I found much of Torn just...bewildering. The story is peopled with cryptic references that meant little to me, coy allusions (apparently) to past events, and an arch villainous, Cassandra Nova, with whom I was unfamiliar. And given that much of the story is supposed to be concerned with psychologically exploring the characters, you really need to understand the roots of their motivations. It isn't that Whedon shouldn't tell this sort of story -- I've read comics before where I knew little about the characters, but the writer deftly got me up to speed with a few extra lines of dialogue, or a thought balloon or two. Whedon, though, clearly isn't interested in anyone but a hard core fan reading his stuff.

And you aren't really sure when you're supposed to be confused or not. The story has scenes that are meant to be surprise revelations. But it's hard to tell when is which. When we learn that the villains seek to get something hidden in the mansion, and what it was, I had no idea whether that was supposed be a surprise, or whether regular readers were supposed to already know.

And, of course, even within the Astonishing X-Men series Whedon has set up his own sub-plot, involving an alien race convinced one of the X-Men will be responsible for their world's destruction. So that just adds to the confusion -- though not if you've read the earlier Astonishing X-Men stories. Though it does mean that this TPB ends something on a cliff hanger. The plot involving the Hellfire club and Cassandra Nova resolves (I guess, but it's really muddily presented) but then the X-Men are whisked away for the climactic story arc of Whedon and Cassaday's run.

And, of course, there's the irony that bringing in an "outside" talent like Whedon should entail injecting some fresh ideas into this forty year old franchise. I like that Whedon knows these characters and isn't reinventing the wheel just to suit his whims. But there is something a little...familiar about it all. And this story seems to be referencing (sometimes deliberately) the Dark Phoenix saga -- what with a battle with the Hellfire Club, the team's resident psychic seeming succumbing to her dark side, and, just when the battle seems won...they're teleported away to an alien world because one of their number must face alien justice. Of course, an image of Kitty in the sewers is meant to be an obvious homage to a classic shot of Wolverine from that earlier story arc.

Cassaday's art also didn't seem quite as impressive as it had. I'm sure part if that is just my becoming blasé about it -- after all, it's still very, very good. Just not as striking, not as crisp. Maybe the use of repeated images made me wonder if Cassaday was having trouble meeting his deadlines and was cutting a few corners here and there (the comic was plagued by delays between issues).

So I found Torn a bit hard to follow at first, finding it too cryptic and vague, but I started to enjoy it more as it went along, as the action and running about kicks in. But even then, the climax, rather than being satisfying, seemed a little messy and confusing. And, as mentioned, for a six issue, 132 page epic...the plot seems a bit thin.

BUT...after a second reading, I liked it a bit more, particularly reading it in bigger chunks (like a single story rather than a serialized six issue epic) and in the context of the overall Whedon-Cassaday run. But as a stand alone story, it's the most problematic of their run.

Cover price: $__ CDN./ $14.99 USA.

Astonishing X-Men: Unstoppable 2008 (SC TPB) 188 pages

Written by Joss Whedon. Illustrated by John Cassaday.
Colours: Laura Martin. Letters: Chris Eliopoulos, with Joe Caramagna. Editor: Mike Marts, Nick Lowe.

Reprinting: Astonishing X-Men #19-24, Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men #1 (2007-2008)

Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5)

Number of readings: 1

Unstoppable collects the final story arc from writer Joss Whedon and artist John Cassaday. At six regular issues, plus the double-sized conclusion, it's the longest of the duo's four arcs, and the most narratively complex.

I was a fan of Whedon's TV work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (etc.) and it's hard not to appreciate John Cassaday's striking, realist art. The first story arc of their Astonishing X-Men run, Gifted, blew me away. And though a subsequent re-reading muted some of my initial fanboy idolatry, it still remains a strong, engaging effort. But with each of their subsequent arcs, my enthusiasm was being chipped away at.

Still, Unstoppable would prove the final arbiter on the Whedon-Cassaday run...particularly because it becomes clear this really is meant to be viewed as a 25 issue saga, as threads introduced throughout the earlier arcs are all played out here.

The background from the previous issues is that aliens from the planet Breakworld are convinced, through prophesy, that X-Man Colossus will destroy their world...and will prevent it, whether by killing the X-Men, mutants in general, or the whole planet earth. A U.S. government organization -- SWORD -- specifically mandated to deal with extraterrestrial matters, is determined that won't happen. The previous TPB collection ended with the X-Men being transported aboard a SWORD space ship as it blasts off into space...

All of this is explained at the beginning of the TPB so you can get the gist of what's going on, even if you haven't read the earlier issues (but there remain various secondary threads and character bits that'll be a mite confusing).

This is the most complexly-plotted of Whedon's stories. The X-Men must run a gauntlet of Breakworld vessels, crash on the Breakworld, separate into smaller pairs, reunite, and follow various threads (including discovering a rogue movement on the Breakworld opposed to their planet's militaristic culture). There's a lot going on, room for machinations and surprise revelations, nice character bits, and Whedon's patented witty quips. It was proving to be a great epic, and going a long way towards justifying the excitement I first felt reading Gifted.

And then it kind of doesn't.

There are some plausibility issues that, though not crippling, chew away at its legs a bit. From simple spacial geography (where is this Breakworld that it can fire missiles at earth?) to the very notion of SWORD, a basically Star Trek-like organization with intergalactic travel and a network of alien contacts. Then there's the Breakworld. It's supposed to be a savage culture that doesn't even have a word for "hospital"...yet somehow has such advanced medicine they can revive people our science would declare dead.

Whedon layers on the twists and surprise revelations -- which is good. But (at least after a first reading) there's a nagging feeling that some of the double crosses don't really make sense. As if Whedon was trying to come up with what would be surprising...more than what would be logical. And there's a major twist that does worse than threaten logic...it rips the guts out of an aspect of the story that initially was making it seem like a deeper, grander, more richly profound saga...in favour of just a cheap movie serial twist. (More on that in a bit).

As much as I really like Whedon's stuff, the down side to his having a distinctive style is that it can get a bit repetitive. Although he doesn't lose the essential core of the characters (Cyclops as the master strategist), they do tend to all talk like characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Strangely, this is more distracting with some characters than others. Cyclops, not really being a traditionally witty character, who can say how he'd talk if making witty quips? But later in the saga, Whedon throws in appearances from various other super heroes, including Spider-Man, and maybe because we do know what Spidey sounds like being witty, having him talk like Xander Harris just seems like Whedon has too few character types to draw upon.

It's hard to explain some of my reactions without giving too much away, so I'll do my best, but there'll probably be some spoilers, if only by implication.

For one thing, Whedon goes for the downbeat ending of having one of the X-Men sacrifice themselves in the end. I could say that that's needlessly depressing. I could say it leaves a bad taste. But really, I'll just say what has to be said. It. Is. Trite. It seems everytime a "hot" talent takes over a comic, the first thing he does is kill somebody off (or else reveal a hitherto dark and sordid secret one of the characters was concealing...which Whedon did in the second TPB collection). One suspects Whedon was influenced by the classic Dark Phoenix saga -- weren't we all? -- and there are obvious echoes and homages of that saga throughout Whedon's run. But the reason the Dark Phoenix saga had an impact was both because it was a long building story arc, and a natural resolution of the themes...and because killing off a major character was then still seen as an unusual thing to do (not unheard of, but unusual).

Here it just feels tired and creaky. And maybe that's why it leaves a bad taste: Whedon sacrifices the character in order to shock us with his "gritty edge"...and it just feels humdrum (not to mention killing characters kind of lacks impact when Whedon begins his run...by resurrecting a previously dead character!)

So it's sad...but instead of being sad/tragic...it's more sad/annoying.

And there's just a whole overall tone to this arc that is...unpleasant. Actually, let me step back a bit and say that, well, there's a whole tone to the last few years -- even decades -- of comics that is unpleasant. At best, there's a moral vacuum -- at worse...well, I don't want to think about worst. It's not a big deal, just breezing through the story as an adventure. It's more once I close the final page and let the story percolate with me that it starts to bother. The whole "heroes don't kill" philosophy that was at the core of super heroes for so many years has long since been discarded, so there is just a kind of cavalier approach to violence throughout. There's no longer even token angst or soul searching when a hero finds himself obliged to use lethal force. And half the "heroes" are of the morally pragmatic stripe!

The Breakworld itself is one of those brutal, warrior worlds that seem to be about the only kind sci-fi writers can imagine these days. And though that can make for an intriguing dilemma, as the heroes work to save a world that, in a way, almost doesn't deserve it (ala Thor: Alone Against the Celestials) it does make the whole environment kind of unpleasant. But by the end of the story, we are basically given to understand that the warriors of Breakworld are honourable people who can be negotiated with...so long as the heroes embrace the same brutal, savage techniques. While Liberals are explicitly likened to Adolph Hitler! Is that Whedon's philosophical intention, or is it just an unintended result of his desire for a plot twist? Probably the latter. But it still doesn't change the result.

Heck, the fact that Whedon would craft an arc which, by the end, has eliminated one character whose powers were kind of atypical and passive, while re-introducing Colossus, and introducing a new character who creates psycho-kinetic armour -- in other words, characters whose main attribute is they can hit things -- makes its own statement.

As I mentioned earlier, the story arc seemed to be on track to be some grandly profound saga, as the X-Men come to the Breakworld as enemies, then are presented with the challenge of possibly redeeming it -- but by the end, that's tossed aside.

Admittedly, that's all if you try to take the story seriously, as something deeper than just a gee whiz, rock-'em-sock-'em adventure. But if you aren't expected to take it as anything deeper, then what's the point of going for the melancholy ending?

I did like Unstoppable...for the most part. The beginning and middle were highly entertaining...but it's just the pay off that doesn't really pay off. As Whedon tries to tie his plot threads and story themes together and ends up with a tangled ball rather than a beautiful tapestry (including leaving some awkwardly dangling threads, like a promise Emma makes to the newly minted arch foe, Danger). It remains the paradox with some stories I've read where I've suggested the less you demand from it, the more you'll enjoy it. And this too, I suspect will read better a second time through. But, really, there's nothing wrong with wanting more.

There's no doubt Unstoppable is funny, with plenty of Whedon's distinctive quips and wisecracks. There's no doubt that it's exciting and ambitious, as Whedon finally presents a story that demands the page count, with lots of characters and machinations. There's no doubt it has some effective twists. And there's no doubt it's beautifully illustrated.

But though those are all the attributes you appreciate while reading it, Strangely, once the book is closed, and you're left with just the lingering after taste, what kind of stays with you is a vague sense that Unstoppable...is kind of Unsavoury.

Cover price: $__ CDN./ $19.99 USA.

On to X-Men reviews - Page 2, Back to X-Men Reviews - Page 0

Back to