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ASTONISHING X-MEN VOLUME 1: GIFTED TPB
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Marvel Comics
Writer: Joss Whedon
Artist: John Cassaday
Colors: Laura Martin
Letters: Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Mike Marts
Price: $14.99 US/$24.00 CAN |
There has been, unsurprisingly, a fair amount of hype around Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. It sounded like pure fannish wish-fulfillment that genre TV god Joss Whedon and detail artist extraordinaire John Cassaday would be on the same comic book, and even moreso that they would be taking on the much beloved X-Men, and all eyes, both industry and mainstream, were on the pair. After a bit of a stumble off the starting block, they quickly got up to a good run, serving up action-packed old-fashioned X-Men stories with Cassaday's modern style and Whedon's trademark quippy dialogue and bringing back a fan-favorite character in a move that surprised some quite a bit. Has Astonishing X-Men been overhyped? Almost certainly. It is not the second coming of Claremont and Byrne (if anything, Grant Morrison's ground-breaking New X-Men run has a better claim to being that fresh and exciting), it is not the unpredictable shocker that Wizard and others would have you believe (c'mon, I had pretty much guessed around issue three who was coming back, and I know I wasn't alone) and it is not the best run the X-Men have ever had. What it is, however, is a damn fine superhero comic that brings fun and action back to the pages, and if not Marvel's best series of the year, certainly a runner-up for that title. By the way, I'm going to spoil the X-Man brought back to life in the next paragraph, so if you have somehow missed that bit of information in your travels so far, steer clear of this review until you read the book.
Whedon's approach to Astonishing X-Men is an impressive blend of staying absolutely true to the characters and their stories and giving them a fresh, approachable shine. Devoted X-fans can thrill to the tension between Emma Frost and Kitty Pryde, built on relationships that go back to the Claremont days in the '80s, while new fans will just find their adversarial relationship delightfully acidic and funny. Devoted Marvel Universe fans will dig on seeing Nick Fury and SHIELD interacting with Marvel's usually insular mutant team, while newcomers will just have their minds blown by Cassaday and Martin's depiction of the Helicarrier. Whedon brings a look at the characters that is based upon a love of their essences, their classic period, rather than the soap operatic continuity nightmare that they have become. And speaking of soap opera continuity nightmare, I hated what they had done to Colossus before they killed him, to such an extent that his death didn't really have much effect on me. However, if Whedon can be credited with one thing alone in Astonishing, it is bringing Colossus back in such a way that reminds us how cool the character was, why he was such a favorite and why it would have been better to fix him rather than kill him in the first place.
The moment to moment writing, as you'd expect, is terrific. Kitty Pryde returning to the school as a teacher and liaison between older faculty and the students is such a natural role for her character that it should have been done years ago. The bickering relationship between Kitty and Emma is fantastic, and is second only to Whedon's take on the Cyclops and Wolverine relationship, which is more interesting here than it has ever been, even during the Claremont and Byrne days. There's a memorable showdown between Beast and Wolverine that gives Beast back a little bit of his rough-and-tumble action persona, lost a bit in Morrison's more brainy, philosophical version of the character. For that matter, Cyclops's showdown with Nick Fury goes a long way to a much-needed de-wussifying of that character too. And Whedon's Emma Frost is the lovable superbitch of Morrison's run with a touch more humanity and vulnerability, with the delightful tease that maybe some or all of it is just an act. In addition to nailing the characters, the dialogue throughout just crackles, with Kitty Pryde coming off as the most "Whedon-esque" of the bunch and delivering several very funny lines. If nothing else, Astonishing X-Men is an argument for keeping the cast of these books small, because Whedon makes these characters more human and real than we've had them in quite some time.
The really big selling point of this book, however, is not Whedon's famous flair for dialogue and characterization. Oh, it's there, to be sure, but the big selling point is the action, which is generally pretty spectacular. The fight against Ord and his mercenaries in the second issue is beautifully choreographed, giving a sense of the X-Men as seasoned warriors, the battle between Beast and Wolverine has some really memorable panels in it as well as a terrific flow, and Colossus's revenge against Ord carries a lot of power to it as well. The last battle scene, a cacophony of chaos in which Ord almost makes his escape, is too random and hard to follow for me, but it is salvaged by a two-page spread that will no doubt be one of the moments of delight for long-time X-fans in this volume.
Which brings me to the art, and to what John Cassaday brings to the table. Cassaday is a guy who, to me, has always seemed better suited for non-standard superheroic projects, because his work is so photorealistic that it doesn't always work with the spandex set. Planetary, yes, Captain America, not so much. I was a little worried right off the bat because I thought the costume designs he came up with were either boring or downright ugly, and certainly didn't compare well to the stylish, simple black leather that Frank Quitely outfitted the team with. However, as the book went on, I quickly changed my tune, and saw that Cassaday was capable of really nailing the action scenes, of bringing the backdrops home with startling clarity and verisimilitude (even when we're talking about something as outlandish as the Helicarrier) and of providing these snapshot moments that will remain in the fans' minds for a long time. There's at least one in every issue, a visual moment that will stick with any X-Fan who reads Astonishing, and I've got to give Cassaday and colorist Laura Martin credit for that.
I have any number of small quibbles with this book, including an ending that feels a bit rushed in comparison to the pacing of the rest of the arc and my continuing complaint that the costumes are kind of bland, but I can also pinpoint any number of truly great moments out of each and every issue. To my mind, Astonishing X-Men: Gifted is not a great comic, but it is an exceptionally good one, and it is going to leave impressions on the memories of X-fans like myself for years to come. Also, kudos to Marvel for listening to retailers and moving up the release date of this comic so that it hits a week before Christmas instead of a week after, making it the perfect gift for former fans of X-Men, Buffy or Angel who don't know about Whedon's ventures into four-color territory. 8/10
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