{"id":2226,"date":"2013-10-13T20:39:24","date_gmt":"2013-10-13T19:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2226"},"modified":"2013-10-13T20:39:24","modified_gmt":"2013-10-13T19:39:24","slug":"astonishing-x-men-68","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2226","title":{"rendered":"Astonishing X-Men #68"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, farewell then,\u00a0Astonishing X-Men<\/em>. \u00a0You will be back next month with a shiny new adjective.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to believe now, but when it was launched in 2004,\u00a0Astonishing X-Men<\/em> was the main book of the line. \u00a0Now it’s the runt of the litter that doesn’t get invited to the crossover, as if all the other books were whispering to one another to for christ’s sake not mention the party in front of Astonishing, <\/em>because it’d be really awkward. \u00a0The book was created as a vehicle for Joss Whedon, and while it proved to be something of an absentee flagship, it was a flagship nonetheless. \u00a0Its regular absence from the shipping schedule didn’t deprive it of that status, so much as leave the line floundering for direction without it.<\/p>\n

After Whedon left, the book was rebranded as a place where writers could do their own thing without worrying about the broader X-Men continuity, which isn’t really a premise, but at least allowed it to be defined by the style of the creative team of the day. \u00a0Whatever you may think of the creators assigned, though, few could deny that the star power has eroded rather drastically over the years, much as occurred with the Ultimate line. \u00a0For the last while we’ve had Marjorie Liu and Gabriel Hernandez Walta – hardly industry stars, though they were certainly allowed to bring their own voice to the book.<\/p>\n

Still,\u00a0Astonishing X-Men<\/em> is a comic without a concept. \u00a0“The X-Men” is not a concept when you have so many X-Men comics. \u00a0Most of the X-Men books right now actually do have something more distinctive to them. \u00a0All-New<\/em> is about the time travellers. \u00a0Uncanny<\/em> is about Scott’s splinter group. \u00a0Wolverine and the X-Men<\/em>, despite the name, is really about the kids. \u00a0X-Men Legacy\u00a0<\/em>isn’t an X-Men title at all. \u00a0But\u00a0Astonishing X-Men<\/em> and\u00a0X-Men<\/em> are just Other X-Men Titles, and for all we’ve seen so far, it sounds as though\u00a0Amazing X-Men<\/em> will be the same. \u00a0This will happen when you try to stretch a brand to this degree.<\/p>\n

After a bizarre two-issue detour into fanfic – which the recap page dutifully recounts even though it has no bearing whatsoever on this issue – this issue is an attempt to wrap up Marjorie Liu’s remaining storylines. \u00a0The focus is on Warbird, and the character arc that Liu picked up from Jason Aaron, in which she turns out to be a frustrated artist in denial beneath her psychotically violent exterior. \u00a0The story also checks in with Dark Beast (still a baddie), Northstar’s immigration status (a storyline which, to be fair, was kind of kneecapped by the Supreme Court anyway), and Iceman. \u00a0The Iceman stuff, incidentally, really doesn’t work at all, for reasons we’ve touched on before; in looking for a suitably operatic take on the emotional story she wanted to tell, Liu has ended up turning Iceman into a mass murderer, and then has to disregard the consequences of that because they would wreck the character if followed through. \u00a0Maybe she would have pursued it further if the series had continued, to be fair.<\/p>\n

Warbird’s arc was more of a general development of character than a plot-driven story, and that’s reflected in the central threads of this story, which largely consist of people encouraging Warbird to pursue her art, and not to take refuge in her old personality when faced with a crisis. \u00a0This is all fine; it gives some resolution to the series, and Liu is able to leverage it into making a point about how the X-Men have helped her to discover new sides to her character just as they helped so many others before her. \u00a0So a restatement of Warbird’s character is made into a testimony to the power of the X-Men as a quasi-family, which works for a final issue.<\/p>\n

You couldn’t call it subtle, mind you. \u00a0There’s some excruciatingly direct dialogue here, such as Warbird’s narration (“Once, it would have bene easier to touch a star than have a friend”), or Karma’s claim that Warbird’s paintings “will save more lives than your sword ever will.” \u00a0Because they’re so beautiful. \u00a0Or something. \u00a0Incidentally, there’s something more than a little unedifying about artists making absurdly exaggerated claims for the power and importance of art (i.e., of artists), but it’s amazing how often otherwise sensible writers do this kind of thing.<\/p>\n

Still, the core ideas are good, and you can’t really complain about an X-Men story pitching its emotional content as operatic; that much comes with the territory. \u00a0It does mean that Walta earns his money on this issue by softening and humanising the characters, and making it a little more believable than it might otherwise be, but that’s what he does best on this title. \u00a0Walta’s art is probably the thing I’ll miss most about this series; his earliest forays into superhero comics were a little awkward, but now that he’s found a way of keeping his own style while still hitting the big dramatic moments, he’s become a real asset to the title. \u00a0Hopefully we’ll see plenty more of him in future.<\/p>\n

For those who’ve stuck with the series to the end, this is a satisfying wrap-up issue; it seems an odd call to have gone on the two issue diversion that preceded it, but the book gets back to the point here and delivers on what readers will want from a final issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, farewell then,\u00a0Astonishing X-Men. \u00a0You will be back next month with a shiny new adjective. It’s hard to believe now, but when it was launched in 2004,\u00a0Astonishing X-Men was the main book of the line. \u00a0Now it’s the runt of the litter that doesn’t get invited to the crossover, as if all the other books […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2226"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2228,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226\/revisions\/2228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}