Comics Out Aug 15, 2008

Astonishing X-Men 26. Last month I said I was going to stick with this because of the art and Ellis being high profile, and the fact that I love the X-Men. But this issue just did not do it for me in a big way, and I think I am dropping this. Discussions take too long: Morrison had this scene in his X-Men annual where Emma downloaded Chinese into everyone's brain and I think it was like a single line where Emma is like "Chinese" and Scott goes "Ah." And of course Professor X used to do this all the time in the old days. But Ellis seems charmed by the idea -- and his idea of charming never lines up with mine -- so he spends the first full page discussing it. Ellis's fastball special lacks any kind of fun, and is weirdly repetitive of when it was first used in Whedon's run. Scott says I'm sure he's survived being thrown at a parked spaceship and 500 miles an hour before" and you realize Ellis needs the word parked to distinguish it slightly from the time a fastball special was used to throw Wolverine at a spaceship 20 issues ago. "The Ghost Box" looked awfully interesting, but the labored two and a half page discussion on the morality of killing was really boring, and they guy was not even dead. Plot wise, I just did not get enough. I am dropping this book.

Batman 679. This is maybe my favorite issue of Morrison's run so far. Someone on another blog mentioned how boring so many of these images would be if Batman were in his regular outfit. The crazy day-glow mess is really a lot of fun to watch, and the idea of a back-up personality is one of those really fun Morrison ideas. The Bat-Mite and the talking gargoyle's were my favorite and the crazy black and read roses were brilliant. And I like that Batman gets different speech balloons. Plus, in a stupid joke I am loving, the new Batman fights crime WITH A BAT. A BASEBALL BAT. Hilarious. My only problem is that I do not trust Tony Daniels, because of earlier errors: it is really unclear what "What's that thing behind you" refers to, or even if it is supposed to refer to anything. This causes serious problems in a book where the fun is supposed to be looking for clues. That thing on Bat-Mite's back -- I have no idea what that is, and surely I should not, but it looks different on the next page. And there are weird maybe editorial glitches, like when Batman says "Might!" when he seems to mean "Mite" (which could of course be a pun, but it is very strange to have Batman's speech Balloon contain a pun that is verbal but not written). Tim Callahan has pointed out how strange it is that we are unsure that Bucket-head's name is unclear, and I do not know what to do with that. And let me say that I love how the iconic Alex Ross cover is completely undercut by the iconoclastic writing inside. Name another instance of Ross being used ironically.

Comics Out May 29, 2008 (Final Crisis and Astonishing X-Men Audio-Reviews)

Giant Sized X-Men # 1 can only be reviewed with the power of the spoken word.






Final Crisis #1 ALSO demands an audio review.




Iron Fist 15. A pretty good story overshadowed by this week's other releases. The image on the cover is especially excellent.



Batman 677. Morrison's Batman has been as mixed a bad as his X-Met at least -- probably more. Surprisingly, I liked this issue better if only because I like all the possibilities for the identity of the Black Glove being tossed around: Thomas Wayne, Alfred (Batman's real rather?), Batman himself. The fact that Batman's obscure brother is not mentioned make him the right pick I think -- Callahan had that theory and it seems like a good one. I am still not 100% on board with this because the art is boring and I think the Bad Guy team looks kind of silly and random -- not in a good way. But I do want to see how it continues. And did you read the Morrison interview where he explained about the last page of the last issue, the one I called superfluous? Turns out the colorist got it wrong, and there was supposed to be no blood -- that way you know the last few pages were pure fantasy. Morrison has a history of not communicating with his artists, say on New X-Men or the end of the Invisibles and it is kind of sad. That's why the Quitely collaborations are the best, I think, because they are friends and live in the same city, and really plan this stuff together.



All Star Superman 11. Another perfect issue. The only problem with this series, and it is not really a problem I suppose, is that the tone was established a while back and so some of the surprise is kind of gone 11 issues in. I know what kind of thing to expect now, and 11 is not going to knock me out the way 5 did. From the moment this project was announced I have been looking forward to the inevitable Absolute edition -- 12 issues is the perfect number for a book like that. It will be, for me the definitive Superman. And maybe on a personal level more important: the definitive Luthor. I ADORE the final page of this, with Luthor transcendent in the green and purple. Notice the difference between the line work when he is in the chair in the opening two pages and this final image -- as he becomes more powerful he almost solidifies. I love Luthor. I am this close to shaving my head in solidarity.

Comics Out January 23, 2008

X-Men 207. Bachalo's first panel, a muddy close up of a boring creature called Predator X, is great in its combination of cartoon and abstract art. His faces during the Rogue-Mystique confrontation are also top notch -- even more than Kitson, Bachalo makes talking heads just fun to watch. I want some X-Men action figures based off of his style. As for the story, this concludes the big Messiah Complex thing, of which I only got the prologue and the Bachalo parts. Thankfully Bachalo drew the conclusion so I could see how it all ended and feel glad I did not get the rest of it. From my limited perspective, this is your standard "everything changes -- no wait nothing does" ending. It looks like two characters are killed but upcoming solicits make it clear that they are not. And as for the baby the story revolves around? In the first episode of the fifth season of Buffy, Whedon introduces Dawn, Buffy's little sister, who turns out not to be a real girl but I kind of magical construct; at the end of the season it looks like her sacrifice will save everyone, neatly taking out of play at the end the thing you introduced at the beginning. But Whedon is smarter than that, and makes Dawn a real character who continues on. Messiah Complex, at this point, has gone the more boring route of taking the baby out of play, to the future. There is a whole other Cable series in which she will appear, but as for this story, not such a satisfying ending. And it really did not seem like there was enough material for 13 issues -- certainly I did not feel like I was missing out on anything without those other parts.

Order 7. Turns out this book, which just got better and better, will be cancelled with issue 10, which is lame. This issue is the best one yet, featuring a really interesting confrontation between Namor, and Hellrung, who should be totally outclassed, but figures out how to deal with the situation in a smart believable way. (For people who view every Marvel issue in the context of the Marvel Universe there may be an objection that in a world of shapeshifters and whatnot Hellrung's threat does not make much sense, but I encourage you not to be that guy. You have to view stories in their own right, on some level, and not always as part of a bigger thing).

Astonishing X-Men 24. The fact that Whedon's three other arcs have been six issues and this one is six with a Giant Sized conclusion -- a conclusion that is not just an epilogue or something as I assumed, but very much the other part of the cliffhanger this ends on -- made me feel, perhaps unfairly, that this issue was unnecessary. I guess it was not, I just think Whedon has trained me to expect a conclusion of some kind at issue 6. I thought this Breakworld arc would end here, and the epilogue would treat the fallout, and, say, Nova. I really don't see a reason for a Giant Sized special to conclude rather than a 25th or 25th and 26th issue here, except maybe they want to get the new team on this title faster. I don't have any real complaints about this issue, except for maybe two panels where Cassaday makes Emma Frost's face look like that of a bulky man.

Umbrella Academy 5 (which came out last week but I just got it this week). The introduction of the title card was awesome. There was some over-the-top violence that was pretty surprising. More important, Ba is such a great artist on this book and Number 5's character is advanced in significant ways. This book hits the "monkey's are intrinsically awesome" button too many times (Spaceboy, Pogo, the police monkeys), but it remains strong.

In comics news Newsarama has a six page lettered preview of Millar and Hitch's first Fantastic Four issue, which did not really get my attention, but I suppose I will still buy it; Heath Ledger, the Joker, died; DC's solicits are up and include some awesome action figures based off of their All Star titles, which is to say based off of Miller and Quitely's designs, which I love; Marvel's solicits are up; and there is an interview with Matt Fraction, whose Order is cancelled at issue 10, and who will be doing a Young Avengers Presents book and a Thor special. So good news and bad news.

Review, discuss, recommend.

Comics Out November 7, 2007.

Since the comics out posts are always first impressions, I am going to write them a little faster and use more question marks. Because I am not always sure how I feel about it -- which is why I put my impressions here and wait for the comments. Please comment, even if this post is a few days old.

Hellboy 6. This issue's colors are dominated by red, yellow and blue -- especially in the first two pages 3, 4, and 5. Since those pages are about a hero who cannot die fighting a villain who cannot die, I cannot but think of Superman. Probably an accident, but I have a doctorate in making anything about of anything. You will remember -- and if you do not the post is in the Best of the Blog links -- that I have already discussed Hellboy's relationship to superhero comics. Fegredo's image of Hellboy, with the horns and mannered crown, leading an army, makes me fell like Fegredo has really come home. He points to big things, and I believe him. I cannot believe a book so linked to Mignola's art could survive with another artist, but boy howdy.

Buffy 8. The third part of Vaughan's story is actually not as bad as the last two, though that is not much of a compliment. The art continues to be bad, but in a slightly different way here. Parts seem...thin? Could just be my old pet peeve about removing backgrounds -- this issue is horrible about it. And the bathtub scene -- is that really all you want to do with that? Not a line of dialog about subtext or something. I feel like part of Whedon's world -- part of the modern media saturated world -- is that we perpetually comment on everything. The lack of comment seems, maybe, unrealistic? With one more issue in this arc to go before Whedon returns, I think the crummy-awesome ratio may be 1:1 next month.

The Order. Kitson again SHINES at panel after panel of the same face in slight but hypnotic variations. This small thing is quickly becoming my favorite part of this book, which is weird. You FALL IN LOVE with the character. It is a SERIOUS EMOTIONAL APPEAL that just knocks me out, every time, like a smitten little kid.

Iron Fist. I have to admit to being a little upset that Dog Brother #1 -- I cannot believe the awesomeness of that name -- got beat off screen by a character who seems less inspired, but the book is not over, and I appreciate that Fraction and Brubaker have a story to tell. Maybe he will be back. Aja Rules! Next comic!

Astonishing X-Men 23. I will save my big thoughts on this for the issue by issue posts I am in the middle of. No, I wont. All this Kitty Pryde focus -- her "nothing has changed" -- has been smoke and mirrors for what Whedon is really up to. Cyclops. Whedon has done for Cyclops what Frank Miller did for Batman. Definitive. Morrison set the stage, but was never even close to this. And is it a coincidence that the last page alludes to the last page of issue 10 -- except Morrison's bald surrogate has been replaced by the hero in Whedon's run most emblematic of Whedon's transumptive triumph over New X-Men? BAM!

Speaking of over-reading -- something I probably did twice in this post -- I have said this before but now I want to make it official. I have been arguing in comics out posts that covered Morrison's Batman, All Star Superman and Miller's All Star Batman that Morrison has been trying to trump Miller by going back to a pre-Miller time of fake Batman cops (as Mitch pointed out, an 80s plot that took place in the issues immediately before Year One) and Neal Adams love god stuff. How did Miller respond to this implied threat? He got the ACTUAL NEAL ADAMS. The Adams works for Miller story is on Newsarama.

Also, not really comics news but sort of -- word from the front is that this writer's strike could leave us with an 8 episode season 4 for LOST. Nutz.

EDIT: NEW THING! AGAIN! I have now included labels for all comics discussed in ALL 76 Comics Out posts. That means if you are reading this post for the review of Buffy #8, you can click the Buffy label and all the past "comics out" posts in which I reviewed Buffy 7, 6, 5, 4, and so on will be right there.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 17

[This post is part of a series of posts looking issue by issue at Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men run. For more in this series click the Astonishing X-Men links in the right toolbar.]

First of all, this issue has surely one of the best X-Men covers of all time – a white background and Wolverine’s head, looking around the corner in the lower left hand side like a frightened little girl, one claw the tip of his teeth like someone who bites their fingernails as a nervous habit. When you see a really striking cover like this you realize how little variation is allowed in superhero comic book cover design. It was one of the reasons Planetary was so exciting when it was first coming out. You never knew what the covers we going to look like.

This issue opens suddenly, with no context, into a sequence of more than five pages in which Kitty and Peter have a son, years pass, the X-Men (including Peter) take her son from her (with vague justification about the kid having “terrible power”), and she returns to confront Peter and get her son back. The emotional pitch here is as good as anything Whedon has ever written in any medium. The cutie pie happy stuff (Kitty: “I made him myself”) gives way to the X-Men coming, in uniform to take the kid. The uniforms are a nice touch – when the X-Men visit Kitty in the hospital they are casually dressed like friends – when they arrive in uniform they are much more imposing. In a heartbreaking moment Colossus turns on her and helps his team-mates take his son from Kitty. This could have been handled as a nightmare scenario in which everyone turns on Kitty for no reason, but Casaday and Whedon have Colossus seem very upset by what he is doing. Had he smiled evilly we would have said “Oh, this is all a dream sequence…”. Here we are less sure, which gives the moment more emotional resonance.

We immediately cut to dark and stormy night in which Kitty has the handle of an axe phased through Peter’s temples – “You blink and I let go.” The image is stunning because it is a serial killer tableau (though the axe is being used differently, it would be the weapon of choice anyway). Amazingly the previous four pages make us side with Kitty, even though the image, in isolation, would have us feeling otherwise. When Peter pleads, Kitty says “Don’t talk to me like a person. You’re not a person! Big metal fucking robot and somehow I didn’t see it.” The frighteningly few pages Whedon has for this sequence are all the time he needs to tell this powerful little story. One of the best moment in Astonishing, period.

It is all a mental manipulation – taking up 18 months of her mental time -- to get Kitty to break into a box in the mansion. Kitty is being made to believe her son is in the box, but whatever is in the box is what the Hellfire club is after.

One scene here that maybe got on my nerves. Whedon has had a lot of serious stuff in this issue and he needs to balance it out with some humour. I feel like there are scales on his end, and that the darker he goes the lighter he needs the humour to be to counterbalance. The problem here, maybe, is that he counters with a scene in which Wolverine – brainwashed to act like a Dickensian waif by Nova – gets hit on the head with a can of beer in the explosion of Danger and Ord entering, and remembers who he is. This is funny, but it also feels a little too broad. Barely too broad. You can argue Nova is not paying attention – that this would have worn off anyway -- but it is awfully silly for this story. I do not hate it, but I am also not sure how much I like it.

Kitty gets the thing out of the box thinking it is her son – it is a pile of green goo readers will remember as the alien that Emma trapped Nova’s consciousness in at the end of Grant Morrison first year on New X-Men. Looking at something issue by issue is bound to get a little redundant, but I will just say it again: Whedon draws on Morrison’s run in surprisingly specific ways, and does it very well. Whedon’s use of the Hellfire Club was all a big distraction. It looked, for a moment, like he was using a this set of villains to avoid using a bad guy Morrison used, but it turns out it was all smoke and mirrors for the real story he was telling: The Return of Casandra Nova. The way the story is told we do not feel like we are going around in circles, which is important, as “we are going around in circles” was one of Morrison’s big (and stupid) themes.

In another of the best moments in Whedon’s run Emma is shot in the back, and the ending page reveals Cyclops, in his New X-Men jacket and no glasses, holding the smoking gun. Casaday puts the “camera” low, so Cyclops is even more imposing. Whedon may be drawing on Morrison’s Nova and his New X-Men run, but here he has earned to right to be so bold as to outdo Morrison in the treatment of Cyclops. The difference between Morrison’s Xavier suddenly just having a gun at the start of New X-Men, and Whedon’s Cyclops needing a gun this deep into Whedon’s run is telling – the symbol is the same (Change is Here) but the execution is more convincing, because it is less arbitrary. Cassaday has been stunning throughout this issue (especially in the axe scene) but this last page is where he really needs to come though. And he sells the moment perfectly.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 16

[This post is part of a series of posts looking at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run issue by issue. For more in this series go to the toolbar on the right and look under "Best of the Blog".]

In this issue Ord escapes SWORD custody, Kitty regroups the team and confronts "Perfection" (and we learn who "Perfection" really is), and the mutant who will destroy the Breakworld is revealed.

In the opening few pages you can see something has changed -- Cassaday is firing on all cylinders. Characters are not repeated, and backgrounds are fully drawn with details rather than patterns, for the most part. Even the panel composition is more interesting that it usually is: in the opening splash page a soldier's face is put upside down and screaming in the extreme foreground while the center of the image, Ord fighting, is in the middle ground. ("Middle ground"? Is that the right word?). Later in this issue he draws a great image of Kitty biting her lip as Wolverine babbles at her like a little kid. It is one of the few panels where he draws a cute girl cute. The reason I complained about Cassaday so much in the book is that he is clearly capable of more. Now he has decided to give it to us, which is nice.

Whedon continues his emasculation of Wolverine, who is hiding in a tree from Beast and narrating like a Dickensian waif: fairly funny I think, if a little obvious. When Beast finds him his prayers turn to "I hate you, Lord! I hate you lord!" and in another obvious but still funny joke Wolverine pops his claws and, instead of remembering who he really is, as we might expect, screams like a little girl. I say this is obvious and a little broad, but I do not think anyone has done it before, so Whedon gets points for doing something different at least.

We learn the Hellfire club is trying to get into a mysterious metal chamber in the mansion and that they have manipulated Kitty to be on the team from the beginning so she can open it. For the second issue in a row Whedon continues to set the stage for the ascendancy of his favorite girl archetype at the expense of the team. She is like Batman on the JLA, as I have already pointed out. If you like Whedon you will like this; if not, not.

Finally we get a really great dramatic moment when it appears Emma is confronting some kind of other personality in a mirror: she says to herself "Did you really think you could hide in there." It turns out nicely, that it is Kitty on the other side of the mirror -- it is a nice twist on the moment that you can only do in a story where one character has psychic powers and another can walk through solid objects. As much was Whedon imposes himself on these characters, he is also a master at finding persuasive tensions and scenes. Unlike his standard jokes, I think you can appreciate moments like this, even if you do not like Whedon.

But this scene twists again -- Whedon always finds that extra twist of the screw you did not think could be there. It turns out Perfection, the secret woman in the hood whose face was never shows, is ... The White Queen! So there is a double of Emma after all! Except, as JossWhedon knows perfectly well -- this makes no sense. Rather than belabor us with a long speech about how such a thing could be possible, he simply shows Kitty in wide eyed shock one moment, then squinting and thinking about it (as the reader is) as she delivers the now classic Whedon line "Yeahbuhwhat?" End scene.

There are two kinds of twists. One is the kind where if you were smart enough, you could figure it out because all the clues were there -- The Sixth Sense for example. The other kind of twist is the out of nowhere twist that is there just for the sake of shaking things up -- just for the fun and crazy of it. Raymond Chandler is fond of this kind of twist, as was Alias. (The main problem with the Xorn reveal in New X-Men was that Morrison seemed unclear what kind of twist it was). Hard science comic book fans like the former kind -- because it is more like a puzzle, something they can figure out, like the real-world physics of the light saber. Both can be great, but the nice thing about the unjustified twist is that there is no need for laborious explanation -- because there is not one to be had. Whedon generally does not degenerate into exposition, which is one of the reasons I love him.

(Peter is revealed to be the mutant who will destroy the Breakworld, but I do not have anything to say about that right now. Next time.)

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 14

[This post is part of a series of post looking issue by issue at Joss Whedon's AXM run issue by issue. For more of the same click the label at the bottom of this post.]

In this issue Emma begins her psychic attack on Cyclops.

Whedon does what he does best here -- emotional weight reinforced through some light undercutting. Whedon gets excellent milage out of Scott and Jean's history. He sees without his goggles because of her, and they are comfortable with each other -- and when she asks if she makes him sad, it is a real question and a good one. Whedon's emotional compass here is great right where it needs to be for this issue to work -- he shows us how Scott is too controlled, how he feels inferior to Jean. We know this, of course, but as on Buffy Whedon knows how to give genre fiction serious emotional weight. And so much of the issue is just talking -- but it is such intense well realized talking it is never a defect. The talking is really getting to the heart of these characters here. Many times the "let me know you your dark desires" comes off as staged -- but here you believe this could break him down. Emma's arguments are actually pretty good -- maybe Xavier DID make Scott the leader because he had nothing else. Using Morrison's Black Bug Room is a great touch -- Whedon is deft here -- he does not tell us more than Morrison did about it -- but gets more pack for his punch out of the fact that the reader's know that it is bad news and little else. After demonstrating how well he understands Scott's character Whedon adds his own bit to the mythology -- the day Scott, as a boy, decided not to control his power. Maybe this is a false memory, maybe not, but Whedon has earned our trust with his handling of Scott in this story, and so he earns the right to add something new. People say Morrison did a great job with Scott Summers. He did. But Whedon puts him to Shame with this run.

Kitty and Peter's lighthearted subplot -- also with sex as a theme -- serves just to get us out of all this intensity, and it works perfectly.

A hook for the next issue: Brand knows the mutant that will destroy the Breakworld (though we do not yet) and Beast and Nova meeting again -- and he is out with a great issue.

Whedon is in fine form, but Cassaday fails him here. This issue is especially egregious in terms of Casaday's backgrounds and repeats. Not all are terrible -- some are used for good comic effect -- but there are so many of them they seem lazy, when you see them in aggregate. And I have mentioned this before -- Casaday is a great artist in many respects but Emma and Jean need to be very sexy to make this seduction work and Cassaday, as far as I can think, does not do sexy faces well. Travis Charest is the guy I would want here.

Cassaday repeat/background watch: a zoom on Scott, a zoom on Scott and Jean, Jean is repeated, Jean is repeated twice, we have a triple zoom in, a panel of kids on a couch is repeated, Peter and Kitty get a zoom, Scott is repeated, Emma and Scott get a zoom, Scott is repeated twice, a panel is almost exactly repeated twice. As for backgrounds, again, we have a lot of patterns and blank spaces: Sunset for Scott and Jean, a curtain and a wall, wood paneling, bookcases, blank brown backgrounds, a photograph of earth, grey, red, blue.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 13

[This post is part of a series of posts looking issue by issue at Joss Whedon's AXM run. For more of the same click the Astonishing X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]

This issue functions as a prologue or teaser to Torn, the six part arc centered on Casandra Nova and the Hellfire Club.

Whedon further anchors his story in Morrison's run. I discussed this at length last time, but he always goes deeper than I think he is going to -- here he returns to just before the Genosha attack and reveals that Nova was responsible for Emma's secondary mutation.

In Whedon's first issue I discussed how the "nothing has changed" line that properly opens Whedon's run is an attack on Morrison -- Morrison changed too much (so many people thought) and so Whedon was brought in to put them back, to emphasize continuity. It is important that the "nothing has changed" mantra returns in this issue twice: Wolverine opens a scene with the line, speaking to the kids recovering from Danger's attack, and Agent Brand opens a scene by saying it to the new commander of Shield. There are many layers of irony here. On the one hand Whedon protests too much. First: A lot has changed in Whedon's run. Second, as he dips into Morrison's "dangerous" changes more deeply he needs to assert his nothing has changed mantra more strongly, so he says it twice. Third, quite a bit has changed in the Marvel Universe since Whedon took over X-Men -- Fury is no longer head of Shield, and he has to acknowledge that. Not to mention Civil War. Whedon ironically puts Morrison's changes (which everyone was so upset about) in the context of the larger editorial changes to the Marvel Universe -- with Civil War, are people really going to bitch about all the continuity revisions in New X-Men?

Sebastian Shaw is hard to take seriously. Whoever designed him decided that a male villain should unironically wear a large purple bow in his hair. I am sure it was based on some Victorian fashion design and was terrible accurate, but taken out of context -- as he is in this issue -- keeps poking out at me as unintentionally silly.

Whedon builds some great mysteries here with what the Hellfire Club is after, how they can be in the mansion, how Casandra Nova, who needs no teammates, is involved, and who the person is in the cloak. Particularly smart is when Emma admits to loving Scott "with all [her] predator's heart." It counters a fear that Whedon is just reversing Morrison, that he is going to have Emma just say she was lying the whole time and all of Morrison's changes were an illusion. Point, Whedon.

The issue is not perfect (see the repeat background watch) but it ends with what I am going to call a major flaw -- Whedon, so spectacular at finding ending beats, ends this issue with a "shocking" image we have seen in Morrison's run: Emma in Jean's Phoenix outfit. What is wanted is surprise, and perhaps a revision. What we have is a rerun. Maybe there is something to the fact that it is the green outfit and not the red one. Maybe there is a revision here I do not see. But the first impression is that Whedon screwed up, stealing from Morrison at the end of an issue in which he invoked him as a predecessor: a deadly combination for a writer. "Look at what the last guy did" he seems to say -- "I can do that too."

Cassaday repeat background watch : Emma is repeated, Hisako is repeated, Wolverine is repeated, a student is repeated, Peter is repeated, the woman in the cloak is repeated, Kitty is repeated three times on one page and the background is repeated as well, a second whole panel with Peter and Kitty is repeated. We have a few scenes with either no background or just a pattern as a background -- trees for Nova and Emma, grey for the danger room, sunset sky for Peter and Kitty, grey for much of the mansion interiors, blue sky and white clouds for the Shield-Sword meeting, a single painting on a red wall for a second Kitty and Peter scene. What sucks about this is Cassaday is great when he decides to put work in -- in this issue Hank's lab is full of cool stuff, and the Shield carrier and Sword headquarters are wonderfully rendered. It only highlights where Casaday decides to put less work in.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 12 (Part Two of Two)

[This post is part of an issue by issue look at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run. For more of the same, click the Astonishing X-Men tag at the bottom of this post.]

Finally we come to the last page, the return of the Hellfire club that has been whispering in Emma's head the whole time -- a Hellfire Club that includes Casandra Nova. Emma of course comes from the Hellfire Club, so this is a great choice; it is amazing Morrison never invoked them in any serious way. But to put Morrison's Nova in the club is beyond brilliant. Here Nova appears on Genosha with the super-sentinel -- we are fully drawing on Morrison's first arc. It never occurred to me Whedon would draw on Morrison so directly. Ironically drawing on a predecessor character feels fresh, because I did not know it was in the options box. Whedon's anxiety of influence revisonary swerve is amazingly successful: He will not have to stand against Morrison so starkly if he offers himself up as a continuation of what Morrison began.

If I was talking about the relationship between New X-Men and Astonishing X-Men in How to Read Superhero Comics and Why, I would have quoted Bloom's fifth revisionary ratio, Askesis: "The later poet does not, as in Kenosis, undergo a revisionary movement of emptying, but of curtailing; he yields up part of his own human and imaginative endowment, so as to separate himself from others, including the precursor, and he does this in his poem by so stationing it in regard to the parent-poem as to make that poem undergo and askesis too; the precursor's endowment is also truncated."

But you probably get the idea. A Morrison run separate from the Whedon run demands comparison, and Whedon will lose, just from lack of scope. But if Whedon continues Morrison then his run is a part of a new whole. That means that Whedon's run does not stand on its own, but it does gain power from the connection; and Morrison's run is now retroactively figured as part of Whedon's, the necessary "prologue."

Cassaday repeat background watch: Here and there, but the art is top-notch in this issue.

Comics Out August 22, 2007

Matt Fraction and Barry Kitson's The Order #2. Barry Kitson draws sixteen same size panels of a girl sitting in a chair talking, five more of her sitting in bed talking, and four more in the same vein as the first sixteen. I would not have believed that that could be done without boring me to death, but this guy is good -- the little variations in each panel are thoroughly entertaining. The shots of her at other times in her past have a great rhythm as well. It all works wonderfully to make us care about her before the little bombshell on the last page, which has me intrigued. Also loony Russians go nuts and a bear with a jetpack gets punched in the face, if you want to be so crass as to talk about the meat of the story.

Grant Morrison and J.H. Williams III's Batman #668. I am starting to feel that Morrison's Batman run is gaining on his X-Men run in terms of how is a normally great storyteller screwing up this badly moments. With the exception of some hauntingly designed tableau's -- the black and red autopsy, the bat shaped and claw shaped panels, the painted palm and sunset -- I really want nothing to do with this. The Agatha Christie murder mystery in New X-Men was the worst thing Morrison has ever done. You would think he would not go near it again, but here we are. Meta-comments on "classic" book-case doors and team ups are getting on my nerves. Morrison is not Joss Whedon, and should never try -- he has his own strengths. Idiotic, poorly "re-imagined" secondary characters from a generation long past, like the French and Argentinian Batmen are pissing me off even more, especially in such a serious atmosphere -- not one of these guys has been recreated anywhere near as thoughtfully as the least of the Seven Soldiers. The Indian, as someone here pointed out, is just a stereotype. The Knight and Squire are maybe an exception here, but that is because I liked them so much in my favorite Morrison story, JLA: Classified. In fact most of the Batmen are barely "re-imagined" at all -- they are to stand in, for no reason that I can see (and I am kind of an expert on this), for various moments in comic book history; they are carefully and skillfully rendered to invoke art styles from those periods, but the result is an annoying mishmash on the page. Coupled with the "retro"-style opening, this book is reminding less of Planetary's first fourteen issues, with their careful synthesis of comic book history, and more of a dark age version (oh the irony that Morrison has fallen into the mode he helped work us out of) of Alan Moore's irritatingly "post-modern" Supreme run that had "Superman" analogues from various ages, skillfully rendered, interacting in a bad story.

Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker and David Aja's The Immortal Iron Fist #8. I used up a lot of my energy just now bitching about Morrison, but don't let brevity stop you from knowing -- KNOWING -- that this is a great book. Character names like Dog Brother #1 and the Prince of Orphans, a story broken up into "round 1" and "round 2" rather than "part 1" and "part 2" (aren't all great comics basically fights anyway) and a to be continued panel that looks like a Mortal Kombat menu are only a few of the reasons to get this book.

Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men #22. I will save this for my issue by issue analysis, except to say, it turns out Whedon had a reason Danger does not kill (sorry Joss...), and, for reasons I cannot quite put my finger on just yet (but may have to do with shipping delays) this issue was a bit of a letdown. Maybe. I have to think about it. And you can be assured I will. That's kinda my thing.

Nothing in comics news hit me, but the DC and Marvel solicits for November are out. I did not find anything worth a mention, but if there is something I need to be paying attention to, please let me know.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 12 (Part One of Two)

[This post is part of a series of posts looking issue by issue at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run; for more of the same click the Astonishing X-Men label at the bottom of this post].

The X-Men and Xavier defeat Danger and Casandra Nova's super-sentinel, Xavier gets in trouble, and the hook for the next arc is revealed.

In a breathtaking page Whedon must have been drooling over Kitty Pride saves everyone from the super-sentinel blast. If I love seeing Xavier be a bad-ass, Whedon must love seeing Kitty be a bad-ass. "Is that all you got ... bub" she says, exhausted. Cassaday's super-sentinel is gorgeous.

Whedon tries to outdo the climax to his first arc in this arc by simply doubling the number of Fastball Specials that will not be named as such, and deflating the device with Emma's "You can't just throw people at all your problems." It's pretty funny, I guess, but not the most successful "do it and deflate" Whedon moment. But you can see why he wants it: he wants to replace the big male powerhouse Wolverine with his little geeky girl fighter in the Fastball Special and in the book as a whole. He wants to put her front and center always. That is his revisonary swerve and always will be. Smart girls replace dumb men: Buffy, Firefly, Sugarshock. Even Runaways already has this in the concept.

Emma simply wanders off in the middle of the fight. Cyclops says "Honey...? War?" which is not exactly in character, but I do love me some Whedon dialogue, so I will forgive it. This is all to build toward one of Whedon's best hooks, the hook to end year one -- one more bit of tension before the reveal of who has been whispering in Emma's head since issue 6.

The fight scenes here are beautiful and pretty fun I guess, though maybe this one is a bit of an anti-climax compared to the last two. Henry drops the professor to attack Danger and defends himself by saying when you deal with computers you have to work on instinct: that is a repeat of what Colossus did with Emma, but without the joke. Whedon may be running out of fight ideas after four issues of fighting.

Kitty says "I promise to come back" to Colossus after she asks him to throw her into the sentinel. It is a nice moment because it cuts immediately to what the issue is in the scene. Economical is what I would call it. This kind of thing, and not the jokes, is why Whedon is great.

Once inside she gets the sentinel to unlock a program Danger has closed - its memory of the Genosha attacks from Morrison's second issue. It flies away in grief, taking Danger with it since she has uploaded herself into it. This is a little tricky. What you want to do in a story is establish a rule, then adhere to that rule in surprising ways. In Sixth Sense we establish that the kid can talk to dead people to help them; at the end we figure out Willis is one of the dead. Here I was unclear on the rule -- I did not realize that the machines Danger brought to life were capable of emotions like grief. I know the old school sentinel from earlier in the arc talked religious nonsense, but I thought she was screwing with the X-Men by remote control, not giving a sentinel religious feelings; the blackbird jet, I notice, did not care that it blew up a base in China in Morrison's X-Men annual (if it is the same jet and if she did not lock that memory away as she did with the sentinel). All this is to say that the defeat of the super sentinel is maybe a little unsatisfying. It was not clear to me why Danger could not re-program the sentinel and return right away. But again, replacing Wolverine with Kitty is the point -- Wolverine's violence will not save the day; the day requires a woman to unlock an emotion. Alright. Fine. I can live with that as a theme or whatever.

In the last post I mentioned that Whedon's Xavier is as persuasive as Millar's Xavier. Here the comparison sinks Whedon. In the denouement to this issue Xavier, it turns out, knew he was oppressing an AI intelligence when he created the Danger Room. The Xavier of Astonishing X-Men 11, like the (for me) definitive Xavier of Millar's Ultimate X-Men is morally questionable, which is wonderful. I like Xavier to have a creepy post-human sheen of beyond-good-and-evil about him. But Xavier in this issue is less like Millar's Xavier and more like Brubaker's Xavier in the "sort of dreary but maybe sort of well written I guess" Deadly Genesis: he is not beyond good and evil so much as he is just guilty, in a crummy please forgive me kind of way. In Millar's Xavier and the Xavier of just last issue he knows he breaks merely human law and does not care -- he is writing mutant law. Here, as in Deadly Genesis, he is just a bit of a fuck-up, and pitifully accepts the censure of the team he created. This is a big step down. It is sad, and lame, to see they guy who took apart Danger with an axe hanging his head in shame over his bad behavior like a wounded puppy.

I will talk about the last page next time, in a short post.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 11

[This post is part of a series of posts looking issue by issue at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run; for more of the same click the Astonishing X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]

In this issue Xavier squares off against Danger, while the X-Men regroup and join him.

This issue opens strong, continuing the excellent framing story from the last issue -- even panels paced and sized for maximum tension, and great, terse exchanges. After the initial setup, Xavier simply plows into Danger with the cab of an 18-wheeler (rigged to allow him to work the pedals with his hands, a nice, unremarked detail by Cassaday). "What did you think? That I'd save myself with reason?" As I mentioned earlier, Xavier is one of my favorite characters, and I love it when he gets to be a bad-ass -- this surely has to be the most bad-ass Xavier issue ever. Danger was so collected fighting the X-Men; it is a god-damned sight to see, when Xavier riles her to the point where she degenerates into "Kill this fucking cripple!" He even gets her into a mind-space and throws philosophy at her ("If no one had limitations what would God do with his time?") before the reveal that this is all a distraction so he can hack her robot body to pieces with an axe. Best Xavier issue anywhere. At the end she just looks at him and says "They don't have the slightest idea of what you are, do they?" to which he replies calmly "I like to think Jean knew." Mark Millar came up with a serious bad-ass Xavier in Ultimate X-Men -- probably the best investigation into the character I know and the most persuasive Xavier to me -- but this is as good as anything Millar came up with. This is my Charles Xavier: aloof, brilliant, in control, zealous to a fault, and not incapable of violence and coercion.

But this issue is not without its flaws. Early in their fight Xavier tells Danger that he has had "a friend" shut down all machines in the area so that she cannot bring any to life; he adds that "this is not his battle." I find it unpersuasive that THIS Xavier, a guy who has done some morally questionable things (as we will find next issue), and who takes her apart with an axe knowing what she is, would feel so honor bound to establish this kind of artificial proving ground, and not just have his friend, obviously Magneto, atomize her. That would be the practical thing to do -- as far as he knows she may have just killed all of his X-Men, and the whole truck-axe thing suggest he wants to be practical, violently and ruthlessly so. You can argue that given his responsibility for her (I do not want to get into the next issue here), and given that he thinks he has lost everything, and given that he is an ego-maniac, he would just want to do it himself, personally, but invoking Magneto in this half-assed way is just not doing it for me. The explanation is lacking, and raises more questions than it answers. Whedon should have avoided it altogether. I don't really see why is is needed in the first place. I bet editorial insisted on it.

And finally it turns out EVERYONE -- all the X-Men and all those children -- are alive. That is lame ass. The explanation in the issue: Danger only cares about Xavier, they mean nothing to her. Well that fails on a couple of levels. One, it takes self-control to incapacitate but not kill a bunch of trained fighters -- if she really did not care about them I think she would have simply killed them all. She did throw a giant spike through two of them and it must have been easier to have it kill them than to calculate a way to make that not instantly fatal. Two, if she hates Xavier so much surely killing the students that mean so much to him would be a great way to strike at him. And don't give me that "Robots cannot understand human emotion" stuff; she is out for revenge and we see she gets very angry. Also she understands enough about humans to make detailed religious metaphors, and that is way more advanced than emotion.

Finally, at the end of this issue, in its cliffhanger of the giant sentinel from Morrison's run -- nice to see that again -- we see Whedon's structure in total for this arc: (1) a prologue, (2) a sentinel attack, (3) a sort of locked in a haunted house thing, (4) the X-Men versus Danger, (5) Xavier versus Danger, and (6) Danger and Casandra Nova's giant wild sentinel against the X-Men and Xavier. You can understand why the famously talky Whedon might err on the side of action, and people did call it an error. (Whedon lamented that fans complained the first arc had too little action and the second arc had too much). But I admire the attempt to give us such a sustained series of action set pieces set off by sweet character moments like Peter and Kitty talking in this issue.

Cassaday repeat/background watch: Danger gets a zoom, Kitty gets a repeat, and there are quite a few panels at the mansion where everyone is in a grey matrix. Overall, not bad.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 10

[This post is part of a series of posts looking at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run issue by issue; for more of the same click the Astonishing X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]

I am just going to say that the cover to this issue is bad; I can see what they were going for but a black and white blurry zoom on Professor X's weird cranium on a white background is not really working for me.

In this issue Danger beats the crap out of the X-Men, and then Professor X shows up, ready to put her down.

The frame story with Danger and Xavier is perfect. Professor X is one of my favorite comic book characters, and I love it when he gets to be a bad-ass. Cassaday keeps the tension high by showing a series of even sized close-ups until the final page; Whedon keeps the exchanges almost Western in simplicity, and ends with Xavier's wonderfully confident "I am incalculable ... You've fought the X-men a thousand times, a million in your mind. But you've never fought me." Maybe one of the great Charles Xavier moments. The shot of him in efficient black combat gear, in a giant stone wheelchair, is awesome.

The main part of the issue itself has some problems, however. I am not in love with Danger's "The thing I have in common with every dimestore villain these X-Men ever faced: I want to be understood." That is maybe too on the nose, or something, too clear a justification of the villain speech, I think. Eventually, in his old age, Whedon will just have stories where all the characters sit at desks, scripting their own lives complete with stage directions they can say out loud.

And oh dear, you have to be very careful about allusions, intentional or otherwise. Danger is a robot with big boobs and a shapeshifting hand. Where have I seen that before? Oh. Yeah. Terminator 3. When invoking other works a good rule of thumb is to stick to the ones that do not suck outright. Especially if your bad guy already has design problems.

We get a shot of how Danger is thinking, how she processes the fight. This is admittedly not an easy thing to do -- comics, like film, are not great at showing internal states (as novels are). So I have no idea how this could have been improved. But I have no patience for things like text superimposed over Cyclops that reads "92% probability of early frontal attack." Cause computers think like this. No, that is just annoying, and reminds be of Ziggy on Quantum Leap, in a bad way. Danger is a combination of the Fem-Bot from T3 and Ziggy Quantum Leap. Scheesh.

And Danger throws a spike through Kitty and Colossus. The way Cassaday draws this -- and people can say I am wrong about this -- but it seems to me it would be instantly fatal, just because of the size of the spike. And yet you know Whedon is not going to kill off these characters, so the moment just feels like a mistake, a cheap attempt at making me think you are doing something only to take it away next issue. And no I do not care that a healer has already been established in the mansion -- instantly fatal. He would have to be Jesus Christ Man or something to bring back the dead.

But back to the good: There is a great moment when Brand makes fun of a psychic alien, who "senses destruction" when the mansion is clearly blowing up; Whedon reminds us of Brand, Brand's mole, Emma's secret, and of Ord -- this is all going to come together soon, where a lesser writer would have left Ord behind for five years until a dramatic return. There is also a pitch perfect joke in which Cyclops throws Emma at Danger just to do something Danger would not expect.

Cassaday repeat/background watch:Danger gets a double take, then another. Emma gets a triple take; there are maybe 25 panels here with just no background, but there are a lot with background; it is only a little annoying in spots.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 9

[This post is part of a series of posts looking issue by issue at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run. For more of the same click the Astonishing X-Men link at the bottom of this post.]

In the danger room Wing gives weird speeches, and the X-Men attack, releasing the Danger Room in humanoid form.

"This being has power we can't fathom, and all it has ever known in violence." This is a persuasive point, and justifies Whedon's idea of a sentient danger room. Whedon adds some stuff about consciousness and contradiction and finding yourself in the contradiction which is actually pretty good, I think, though I do not know much about the science of consciousness and language. It sounded pretty good, which is all that matters here. And the contradiction Whedon imagines makes sense: we thought the danger room was programed not to kill, but Whedon's idea is that is was programed to kill and then had a separate parent program that prevented it from killing -- hence the anger, aggression, and the feeling of being trapped. This is pretty good stuff, well thought through.

Two problems here, though. The first may not really be a problem, and I need to check it to be sure, but Chris Bachalo drew an arc of Uncanny in which Cerebro became sentient, then came back to kill the X-Men. I expect, and like, major plots like Return to Weapon X and Days of Future Past to be returned to again and again in different versions. That is inevitable, and good, as I explained in the context of Morrison. I am less sure what to say, and what to think, about a doubling of a minor earlier story with no real acknowledgement. That seems to leave allusion and revision behind for less reputable modes of memory. Or is could just be inevitable that stuff like this happens in a comic book that has been around for more than forty years, and it is no big deal.

Problem number two? As everyone pointed out at the time the Danger Room -- Danger from here out -- has dreadlocks. Now the word dreadlocks refers to the dread of god Rastafarians have; they do not cut their hair because of a biblical commandment. This fits in with the religious stuff the religious stuff Danger has been spouting. But it does not do much about the fact that Danger is a bit of a design disaster. She is at boring and a bit silly when something awe-inspiring is needed. It has other problems too, which I will talk about next time, as it comes up.

Cassaday repeat/background watch. Wolverine gets a zoom, the X-plane gets a double take, Wing gets a double take. The X-Men spend time in a blank grey space, much of the danger room is a blank red space, which morphs into blank blue space. Enough of the panels have a background, or assorted details, to make the empty ones acceptable. Cassaday does some cool stuff here, before the reveal of Danger.

Comics Out July 25, 2007 (The Week Late Review)

[Last week was an awesome week to go to the comic book store, but I only got these yesterday, because I was in Oxford and found out that the only comic book store in town closed. Oxford University is amazing but Oxford the town is not great. Case in point: A University town that cannot keep a single comic book store in business. Ridiculous. Anyway I wanted to do bullet point reviews of last week comics.]

Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert's Batman #666. Last week in free form comments James wrote:

"Geoff is right. Once again, Morrison puts himself up against Miller's Batman, with a tale of an uncompromising, ultra-violent Batman of the future. We seem to be back in New X-Men territory here, with Morrison admitting defeat in the face of what can't be changed/escaped. Morrison's fun, "bare-chested love-god" Batman has literally fathered a violent, anti-heroic Batman of the future (see: The Dark Knight Returns), exactly what Morrison wanted to get away from. Furthermore, the only way Morrison's Batman can defeat the last of the dark, violent, impostor Batmen* and gain primacy/immortality is to sell his soul to the Devil (Miller). Try as he might, Morrison couldn't replace Miller, and it is Miller's Batman that has assimilated Morrison's, and not the other way around. The silver-lining here, is that (hopefully) Morrison can now concentrate on doing his own thing, and stop worrying about Miller. J. H. Williams III and The Batmen Of All Nations seems like a perfect opportunity to do just that.

*I quite liked that just as the last one was a version of Bane, this next one was a version of the Azrael-Batman, with his orange face-plate and flamethrower."

It is freaky how much James is on my wavelength here. He has said all I would have said, exactly. I would also add that the Yeats quote is lame, and reminds me of Morrison's bad use of Milton in Batman: Gothic. (It may serve only to call up that book as another alternate Batman).

Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo's Hellboy: Darkness Calls #4. There is a great moment in which a guy catches his own severed head a split second before it hits the ground and a perfect weird little girl character in this issue, one of the best I have seen. But her speech about her story exemplifies what bothers me about Hellboy -- chunks of Mignola's research just sit on the page, undigested, and Hellboy just sort of walks around it, doing very little. The art is great though, and keeps me hooked.

Joss Whedon and Paul Lee's Buffy the Vampire Slayer #5. The art is not perfect, and there are moments that do not quite work (the out of control truck), but I thought this issue was very moving, and also dialed down Whedon's silliness, which in three running comics now is getting to be a little much, even for me. Newsarama thought the issue failed to make us care about the main character enough, but I thought the intriguing jarring story structure kept us from quite following everything until the end, at which point it is too late to really know this girl. I thought that was genuinely sad, and well done.

Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker's Immortal Iron Fist #7. I have heard complaints that the narration takes the reader out of the story, that the narration is too dissonant. I disagree. It turns out that the narrator of this issue is a character, but for much of it I just heard Fraction's own voice, the voice of his blog. It felt a bit like a Mystery Science Theater experience; I imagine this is what Fraction sounds like if you were to watch a serious kung-fu movie on his couch with him. "She beats people up. For money!" This is a different kind of harmony, and it is also different from Joss Whedon's ironies, which is nice.

Frank Miller and Jim Lee's All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #6. I love this book: everyone is right about what is wrong with it but it all works on another level, as I have argued (hit the Frank Miller link below to see what I said). In this issue Miller continues to do ABSURD things with story structure, warping it sideways. I double dog dare you to read Jack Kirby's introduction of the Black Racer in New Gods and tell me that Frank Miller is doing something fundamentally different in his use of Black Canary or the introduction of Batgirl. In both the story is absurdly interrupted by some new character the writer felt like introducing. Goddam Batman became an Internet catch phrase for how absurd this book is, so what did Frank Miller do? -- he used it twice in one issue. Blake said it best: Exuberance is Beauty.

Mike Carey and Humberto Ramos's X-Men #201. Humberto Ramos does not suck, but he is not the artist for me. I had to order this without seeing it, and did not know Bachalo would not be drawing it.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 8

[This post is part of a series of posts looking issue by issue at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run. For more of the same click the Astonishing X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]

The team deals with a reactivated Sentinel and discovers the Danger Room is the new enemy just after the children are locked inside with Kitty.

Three separate beats, three different scenes, on the first page, perfectly handled. A shot of the danger room on the second page foreshadows the conclusion. Whedon is good at foreshadowing. Within this issue we hear more of the dark voice that speaks to Emma without learning anything. This is important because this will not bear fruit until the next arc like 8 issues down the line. Set this stuff up early and do not lose track of it, and your story will stand better when the time comes. Brand gets a page here as well -- there is a mole in the mansion. She might get a page every issue in this arc. Ord takes out Wing, Wing releases Danger, Ord Danger and Emma's voice come to get revenge at the same moment and they all end up on the Breakworld. 24 issues tied tightly together.

Whedon does some cool stuff combining a classic sentinel with religious talk -- he crawls toward the mansion with "I come... I hear you, Lord...Praise be to you...my Lord is watching you... she tells me the children will pay for the father's sins and I must not fear death." The classic Sentinel "Destroy" is revised by Whedon into the intriguing "Destroy the oppressors." "I want this thing off my lawn" says Scott and one amazing large red panel later it is down. If Cyclops gets a better moment in Morrison, or anywhere else, I cannot think of it. Even Wolverine says "Sometimes I remember why you are in charge." Whedon rehabilitates Scott much better than Morrison did, though Morrison layed the groundwork.

Wing is back as a twisted zombie ready to murder the children locked in the Danger Room with him. That is a great moment and I am hooked.

Unfortunately that is not where the issue ends. Two twists can be even better sometimes. But here, Whedon's second twist is a mess. Emma says "Our enemy is not in the danger room." Beat. "It is the Danger Room." The "its not IN x it IS x" is such a cliche, one devastated by the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode about Mothman (the third episode): Mothman parks a school bus in front of the house; Shake, scared out of his mind by nothing but his own fear thinks (for little reason) that there is a vampire in the bus, before shifting into "It's not IN the bus! It IS the bus! The bus of the undead!" When Sara and I read this issue together in a coffee shop in Oxford when we went to turn to the last page, before we even saw it, we were already saying together in our best Master Shake voice "It IS the danger room." That is not good. That is not the effect that is wanted.

Cassaday repeat/background watch. The farm guys get a triple take zoom, Emma gets a triple take, Cyclops gets a triple take zoom. Backgrounds are solid throughout. No problems here.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 7

[This post is part of a series of posts looking at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men issue by issue. For more of the same click the Astonishing X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]

In this issue the team does a stand alone thing, taking down a monster with the Fantastic Four; meanwhile Wing dies in an ominous way suggesting that it means bigger things.

We are hooked immediately by a mysterious voiceover -- change is coming -- and Wing on the edge of suicide because he has been depowered. Cassaday does an amazing job with the background for a specific reason -- this will turn out to be the danger room. If Cassaday skimps here people will go back and say Oh that's why it was so empty. And someone will suggest many scenes were in the danger room. Before we know this is the danger room, we are shocked to discover Wing's friend Hisako suddenly wants him to commit suicide; after we will have to completely reevaluate what we have seen: a great fake-out. Someone with fortelling powers confirms that this death is a big deal. Something is coming, and whedon knows how to make us care, in part because we have spent time with Wing. He matters to us.

The title page spread is fantastic and elegant: Colossus surfs on top of the X-jet; below is the title. below that the team discusses how he seems psychologically. They are literally below him, and so their panels are below him, discussing what is going on beneath the surface of their friend.

Colossus, Kitty and Wolverine each get a page fighting the monster. Each page has an internal monologue. This is Whedon's thing: action reflects psychological states. Colossus and Kitty are disturbed. Wolverine is pure concentration, thinking only, after three panels of silence "I like beer." Action reflects psychology can be a bit of a cliche -- Whedon makes light of the device, and so it stands well. We get some great banter between the X-Men and the Fantastic Four: The Thing making fun of Wolverine for being Canadian; Wolverine messing with Johnny (who responds "Reed, can we be evil now?").

Brand gets an amazing character moment, standing up for herself at her performance review. This character gets our respect from now on. She is a bad-ass. Whedon is building for his final story. Again -- if we like a character early, they will matter more when they play a bigger role.

I have not been talking about themes. I do not have much to say in this department. Weigh in. These Whedon posts may be too thin to continue with, though I like that they are easy to do.

Cassaday repeat/background watch. Wolverine's face is used twice, Emma and Scott are doubled in separate panels. This is better than his last issues. Worse is the use of photographs for backgrounds: photos of New York fill in for New York for pretty much no reason; they tank the aesthetic integrity. It is especially bad because no where else in this issue does Cassaday skimp on the backgrounds as he has a tendency to in earlier issues, as I have pointed out.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 6

[This post is part of a series of posts looking at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run issue by issue. For more of the same click the Astonishing X-Men label at the bottom of this post].

In this issue we learn that Ord is from a planet he believes is destined to be destroyed by a mutant; that is why he is trying to destroy all mutants. He tries to get away, and the X-Men stop him.

Wolverine goes nuts with a string of censored curse words. His "Diplomatic #%$@ *#%$@ *#%$@*#%$@ *#%$@* immunity?" starts the issue, and is a nice piece of exposition. You just pick this conversation up in the middle and know what is going on, and are also entertained by it. When Fury calls Wolverine "tiny" you simply KNOW, with a single word, that this guy is in control of this situation. You can never have read a comic book before and you will get the power dynamic in a single word. Whedon knows what he is doing. The guy tells a solid story.

Whedon told an interviewer he spent more time coming up with the acronym SWORD (Sentient Worlds Observation and Response Department) to match SHIELD than he did writing the issue. That is an exaggeration to be sure, but he did a great job.

Cassaday draws some really funny mutants who attack Benetech looking for the cure. Look in the background -- I think one of them might be Rorschach from Watchmen.

There is also a nice chiming of SHIELD knocking the mutants outside out with sleeping gas dropped from ominous flying contraptions and Agent Brand's story about how the Breakworld is destined to be destroyed. It actually took me a moment to realize the image was not of the Breakworld's future she described. Whedon does this to make the conversation more visually interesting and he succeeds well. Whedon is so talky that it is important that he does this kind of thing (as he has done before in the two danger room scenes) so it is not all talking heads.

Also elegant in this issue is the fastball special. The fastball special -- in which Colossus throws Wolverine -- is a classic, but dated and corny. Whedon gets to eat his cake and have it too by having Wolverine give a knowing look to both Colossus and the reader; turn the page and you get the two page splash image of Wolverine in the air and Colossus finishing the arc of the throw. Cassaday draws swirling clouds to show how the air is effected by Wolverine flying. The moment is possibly the best in the run.

Whedon will not wrap up his arc without that Whedonesque final beat, the hook to keep everyone on board (it is any wonder Whedon fans are so rabid: he made us like this): a voice tells Emma that when the time comes, they will deal with Kitty first.

With a few problems here and there Whedon's first arc is in the final analysis very good.

Cassaday repeat/background watch. Fury gets a double take, Emma gets a double take, Fury gets another double take, Brand gets a double take. Ord and Rao have a two page conversation in a white matrix, much of the conversation between the X-Men and Fury takes place in green matrix, Brand and the X-men have a conversation in a blue matrix, and in the end Kitty and Peter just get blue sky white clouds. That last one is fine with me; the other ones not so much.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 5

[This post is part of a series of posts looking issue by issue at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run. For more of the same click the Astonishing X-Men link at the bottom of this post.]

In this issue, the team rallies back against Ord and Dr Rao and the newly returned Colossus saves everyone before SHIELD shows up and stops the whole thing.

Cyclops wakes in a dreamscape caused by him being knocked out; Whedon uses the opportunity to make fun of code names (Ability-to-hop-man) and busy nineties costume design (all those pockets). This is all good fun, as is Kitty's demand to know if Colossus back from the grave is "a clone, or a robot or, yeah, a ghost or an alternate universe thingie .. a shapeshifter or illusionist." The switched body explanation makes no sense, but I do not really care about continuity stuff that much. Emma has a nice bit where she mentally controls two guards to vomit uncontrollably for 48 hours every time they hear the words "parsley," "intractable," or "longitude" which is awesome; Cyclops says in small letters "my girlfriend is very weird." And funny. Emma putting Dr. Rao between her and Ord is also a nice character moment. You can read comic book after comic book and have nothing like this. It is simple and small, but it is important. Comics should be fun, and a little silly goes a long way.

But there is a mistake brewing here -- I could talk about it later, but this is as good a time as any. At the end of issue three Hank says the problem they face is about the bodies Benetech is running tests on; Hank says "why does nothing ever stay buried" and Scott ends issue 3 with a muted "Jean?" In issue four they go looking for bodies at Benetech: Cyclops says "we probably won't find anything conclusive" and Emma says icily "Like a warm body?" Then Wolverine and Hank smell something: "Female. Dead." When they find the body, someone they don't know, Cyclops says "This can't be the only body." Then Colossus shows up. Issue four or five was promoted with an image of the Phoenix and the promise of a return; it may have been the same image as Cyclops's hallucination, but even if it is not that image serves as a parody of what we were expecting.

A fake-out can be great fun -- I loved the Ultimate/Regular-universe fake-out that led to the first appearance of the Zombie universe. But there the Zombies were pretending to be something that looked like the regular Marvel universe. Reed was tricked as we were. Similarly in Ocean's 12 much of the film is a fake out -- we are tricked as the Nightfox is. But here, we are led to believe the X-Men are looking for Jean for one, maybe two issues (depending on when you figure out you should give up on her return) -- and we have no surrogate in the narrative being tricked in this way, nor anyone in the narrative doing the tricking. All of those lines I quoted above are part Whedon's plan to make us think they are looking for Jean; but they must have known they were not looking for Jean moments after the final panel of 3 but before the first panel of four. Whedon is tricking us directly with no narrative surrogate of any kind. I am going to be bold and call this a reasonably sized gaff on Whedon's part, a full-on error.

I would like some debate on this point, if you are up for it.

Cassaday Repeat/Background watch. Cassaday reuses an image of Cyclops, a zoom in on Kitty and Colossus, a double take on Colossus, another double take on Colossus, another double take on Cyclops, a double take on Emma, a double take on Ord's weapon, a double take on Wolverine, and a double take on Ord. Many panels of Cyclops have no background, which is ok-- he is on the floor for those scenes, and a few panels are in a dream scape. Cyclops and Kitty have a conversation in an interesting space -- a red alien area underneath Benetech, but for much of that conversation and a whole page of the kids back at the school there is no background of any kind except for the shaded color. That, to me is a mistake, especially since early in those scenes a background is established. Cassaday just decides not to continue to draw it. Many panels in the fight with Ord have no background for a reason (that bold yellow is used again to communicate a strike), but many have no background for no reason, and then some do have a background -- it is all pretty random. You may think this lack of background is for emphasis. But it is not. I checked panel after panel for that kind of explanation. It works sometimes, but it is in no way consistent enough to call it a technique.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 4

[This post is part of an issue by issue look at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run; for more of the same, click the Astonishing X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]

In this issue we find out more about Ord's background, his origin on a warrior world. The team goes to Benetech to find out about the mutant that Rao has been experimenting on, and Ord shows up at the school, fighting two children and de-powering one.

Cassaday is dead on in this issue: the opening shot of Ord on his home world, Ord confronting the two children in their pajamas (the girl drops her toothbrush which is pictured in mid air, a nice touch), and the tall vertical panels for the ascent of Kitty and later the descent of Wing and simple and effective. He reuses a shot of the children, which is ok, and he does a triple take of Kitty for great effect -- as she realizes Colossus has returned.

Whedon's authorial voice here is noticeable and likable: "As deaths go, its not the funniest" Kitty says. The conversation between the kids is great -- Whedon has Wing do a funny mid-sentence shift that is wonderfully not signaled with any punctuation. Classic Whedon is the awkward conversation between Ord and the kids at the X-Mansion. Ord is looking for a fight and he ends up putting a hand to his forehead in frustration and saying "And you're sure they're not here ... And you don't know where they went ... This is very frustrating." Also quintessentially Whedon is how this foolishness suddenly becomes something very serious, as Wing is de-powered just to sent the X-Men a message.

Having brought Kitty back to the X-Men, he brings Colossus back. Fans had a big thing over this -- Colossus died in a very heart rending issue (so they say -- I have this issue on my CD-ROM of all the Uncanny issues, and it is bad). Lots of people thought he should stay dead. But like Morrison's New X-Men Whedon's run is relatively self contained (with the exception of drawing on Morrison's run), to the point where I simply do not care. This is why fans love and hate these auteur comic book writers: they bring a new level of quality at the expense of continuity and sacred cows, and also at the expense of that editorial voice that can last decades no matter who writes -- Whedon always sounds like Whedon; Morrison always sounds like Morrison. Many fans angrily dismiss this as ego. I think it depends on the quality of the ego -- Morrison and Whedon are great writers.