You’re setting yourself up for a fall when you launch a book with the word ‘Astonishing’ in the title. When it’s written by Joss Whedon, a man who has probably written more genuinely great hours of television than anyone who isn’t Aaron Sorkin, you’re (if I can extend the metaphor a bit too far) just inviting people to trip you up.
Sadly, Whedon and (artist John) Cassady fall flat on their non-literal faces near the end of this issue. Sadly they’re (I’ll stop this metaphor soon, promise) slipping, one suspects, on a banana skin placed in their way on the insistence of someone they work for.
‘Gifted’ begins well. The creepy opening page, and subsequent page four resolution, are interesting, human and set up the last page of the issue very well. Whedon then takes us on a guided tour of the re-built Mansion and tells us something of the history of the X-Men through the eyes of Kitty Pryde.
These scenes are superb, Whedon’s trademark ‘broken up’ dialogue and ability to build vast emotional constructs in very few words serve him well. The arguments and counter arguments that start once Logan arrives build effectively on each other leaving one anticipating a grand new direction.
Eventually that’s what we get. We get it on the killer-dynamite-oh-my-gosh final page of the issue (which sort of echoes Morrison’s, in an odd way). Before that, thought we get something eyeball-searing dreadful. Something which takes the force out of the brilliant final page. Something which looks like it’s been forced on Whedon.
Scott’s silly ‘argument’ about why the X-Men should all wear costumes is designed to reverse Xavier’s from ‘New-X-Men’ #114 – but it doesn’t counter it, it merely contradicts it. Scott doesn’t win the argument he raises and it leaves you thinking ‘Yeah, okay Summers, whatever, but I still agree with the Professor’.
Perhaps more important is the fact that I still agree with Grant Morrison and this – along with the Austen and Claremont books which I, frankly, have not the slightest intention of reading – seems to be designed, in part, to fillet out the concepts of ‘New-X-Men’. Removing the ‘New’ in both word and deed. The problem with that is that it leaves us with many of the inherent problems of the same-old, same-old.
I’m not one of the those people who derides ’spandex’. I love The Flash. I love Golden Age heroes. I love Hourman for God’s sake. I’m currently reading ‘Captain America’. I have no difficulty looking at pages of people wearing big collars and capes. This, however, I have a problem with.
Face facts: The original designs for the X-Men were terrible. Wolverine’s design has always been ghastly. That stupid, awful face-mask and that stupid awful colour. ‘We have to astonish them’ says Cyclops. Astonished? I sniggered. And then I started squinting and turning the page sideways, trying to work out what it was meant to look like and wondering how any sane person could be impressed.
The desperate poverty of those ancient designs is compounded by a sad fact. John Cassady can’t draw superheroes. Who knew? I didn’t. Were this Mike Allred or Frank Quitely or Howard Porter these scenes might, might just work. But it doesn’t: because the X-Men look terrible. Stupid. Really, really bad. And I use that gender specific term above advisedly, by the way. Emma looks fine (but then she’s not dressed like a scuba diver) and Kitty looks okay, but Beast looks like he’s auditioning for a Barry Manilow video and Scott and Logan look appalling. Scott looks like a Halloween prank and Wolverine looks like a beefy stygian dwarf in an elasticised banana. And he’s got that awful bloody helmet-thing on again.
Astonishing? No. X-Men? Sadly, yes.
I reluctantly return the X-Universe to the hands of the Marvel Zombies. Thanks for letting me stay for a while.
