Joss Whedon

Part 2 of Peter’s look at Joss’s X-Men.

June 25, 2004 - In a recent TV Guide interview (June 13-19, 2004), Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, jokingly complains about the title of the new comics series he is writing for Marvel, Astonishing X-Men. "I kinda wish they hadn’t saddled me with that title. Does it have to be astonishing every month?"

As his interview in the first volume of Fantagraphics’ new Peanuts reprint series reminds us, Charles M. Schulz hated the title his comic strip was saddled with, but not even with all his tremendous success did he ever get to change it. Despite all his clout, Whedon is similarly stuck. (Would he have found it easier to be "uncanny" every month?)

When I left off in my last column, halfway through Astonishing X-Men #1, Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Emma Frost (the White Queen) were in bed together when suddenly Logan (Wolverine) appeared at the foot of the bed and accuses Scott of unfaithfulness to the memory of his deceased (yet again) wife Jean. Royally pissed off, Scott fired one of his optic power beam, blasting Wolverine through the window.

Last time I mentioned that Astonishing X-Men #1, perhaps inevitably, carried echoes of some of Whedon’s past work. Here I am reminded of the way Spike would needle Angel about their past sexual relationships with Buffy.

In fact now the similarity between Wolverine and Spike comes clear: each is an outsider with a violent past, a former outlaw, a rebel by temperament, and an observer with an ironic perspective.

I wonder whether anyone at Marvel is really happy with the Scott-Emma relationship. Rachel in Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men #444, Kitty in Whedon’s Astonishing #1, and Wolverine in both books seem to be voicing not only their own but the writers’ dislike of this relationship. It was other writers who turned Scott and Frost into a couple; Claremont and Whedon have inherited the situation. I wonder how long it will last.

If Wolverine resembles Spike here, then Cyclops is the Angel analogue, reacting the way that Angel might to Spike’s taunts: though he resorts to violence, Scott’s attitude in talking to Wolverine is - more proper and reserved, but rage is clearly seething beneath. In fact, Scott, beneath the contained facade, seems angrier than Wolverine.

"This is good," Scott says, masking his fury beneath understated dialogue. "The guy who’s tried to steal my wife since the day he met us is gonna tell me all about what’s proper."

Well, to nitpick, Wolverine met Scott before he met Jean: Cyclops helped Professor Xavier recruit Wolverine and the other "new" X-Men while Jean and other original team members were being held captive by Krakoa the Living island in Giant-Size X-Men #1.

It’s more important to observe that there’s also a certain revisionism at work here, and Whedon’s not the only one guilty of this. Chris Claremont toyed with showing Wolverine’s attraction to Jean in his early years writing the series. Later, in Classic X-Men #1, Claremont wrote new scenes set soon after Jean was rescued from Krakoa. In one of these Claremont showed Wolverine making advances towards Jean, and depicted the chemistry between them.

Nonetheless, for decades since those early days, Wolvy did not seem interested in Jean romantically. For one thing, beginning with Uncanny X-Men #118, way back in 1979, he was in love with the Japanese noblewoman Mariko. But since the first X-Men movie revived the Scott-Jean-Logan triangle, the comics have brought it back. Indeed, from what Scott says here, it seems we are to believe that the triangle has been active all along.

Wolverine responds to Cyclops’ accusation with one of his own, claiming that the only reason" Jean and Scott remained a couple is that she was "too strong to give in to what she really wanted" (meaning her attraction to Wolverine), "and you were too scared." Attempting to compliment Jean’s strength of character, Logan actually comes off as presumptuous. What if Jean really wanted Scott? Logan’s egotistical enough to think that Jean really wanted him; maybe Scott isn’t the only one in denial.

Then again, by saying she was "strong enough" to resist him, perhaps Logan is actually admitting he would not be good for her. In that case, Logan’s surface egotism covers over his insecurities.

So there’s a question here as to what Logan’s motives are in challenging Scott this way. Are they still fighting over who should have Jean? Or is Logan angry because he believes Jean and Scott belonged together as a couple, and that Scott betrayed her by turning to Frost, even before Jean’s (most recent) demise?

And what does Logan mean by that last part about Scott being "too scared" to give in to what he really wanted?

Does he mean that Scott really wanted a "bad girl" like Frost all along, and that Scott really didn’t love Jean? No wonder Cyclops replies first with an understated threat ("Hey, Logan. That healing power’s about to come in really handy.") and then an off-camera power blast. For the traditionally introverted Cyclops, actions convey his emotions more powerfully than words.

Notice Scott’s dry wit just before he lets Logan have it with another optic blast: "Hey, Logan. That healing power’s about to come in really handy." Again, this is not the humorless Cyclops of yore. Moreover, though it is hardly a mature response to reply to insults with violence, Whedon is making an important point here: his version of Cyclops is no wimp.

At times in the past one might have wondered just how suitable Scott is to be leader. Claremont once (in Uncanny X-Men #201) even had Storm defeat him in a duel to determine who should lead the team. How could Scott, who could seem to be teacher’s pet, keep a strong-willed, born rebel like Wolverine in line? Certainly Cyclops does not seem to be a strong leader in the X-Men movies: in X2 he is captured and the team members mostly operate independently of him. Viewers unfamiliar with the comics might even wonder why Jean sticks with the bland movie version of Scott instead of giving in to Wolverine. This romantic triangle is sagging on one side.

Whedon’s Cyclops is tough-minded in his own way, perhaps as much so as Wolverine. It now becomes clear why Cyclops outranks Wolverine on the team.

Watching the two men fight over the absent Jean, Frost comments, "Superpowers. A scintillating wit and the best body money can buy. . .and I still rate below a corpse." This is a line so good it puts virtually every other superhero writer in the shade. It is the White Queen’s bitter acknowledgement that Scott still does not love her as much as he loves the (repeatedly) dead Jean. Frost has vanished from the panel in which she finishes the line, as if she has disappeared at this moment from Scott’s consciousness.

How about Frost’s throwaway line that she has the "best body money can buy"? And you may have thought that all these super-people with spectacular bodies had them naturally. Considering how Rachel baits Frost for being older than she is (though Emma is hardly middle-aged) in Uncanny #444, I suppose that this may be another reference to her age.

More likely, in these days when even the young get breast implants and plastic surgery, it’s a suggestion that there’s something false about Frost. (By using the phrase "the best body money can buy," Emma may even inadvertently be commenting on her own sexual morality.) On television Whedon has dealt with heroes self-destructively entangled with lovers who are wrong for them: Buffy with Spike, Angel with Darla. Here’s another such pairing.

The next scene begins with what appears to be a flashback to the reactions of young onlookers watching Cyclops and Wolverine fighting, as the Beast, in the present, is castigating them for battling "in front of the students." Actually, the girl in front seems to be Kitty, who looks grimly, directly at the senior X-Men, while the three students seem shocked. (To artist John Cassaday’s credit, each person in the shot has a different facial expression.) Grouping Kitty here with the students again emphasizes the dual nature of her position: she’s not that much older than the students, yet she is a member of the faculty. Having returned to her former "home" at Xavier’s she can’t be happy about this turmoil among her elders.

Again, the focus is not on the X-Men themselves as youthful students, but as authority figures dealing with the young. The Beast’s speech to Logan and Scott is on that classic Marvel theme of power and responsibility, but in this context it’s not about a teenager learning to take responsibility as he grows older, but about exercising a kind of parental responsibility towards kids.

Having read Uncanny #444 and Astonishing #1, I wonder if the latter will be the series that will be more oriented around the school side of the X-Men.

Though this issue is primarily a talking-heads story, Cassaday and Whedon use imaginative visual techniques to keep it from seeming static.

One of them is the setting for this scene, a meeting of the senior X-Men. At first the setting is a surprise; not for another page does the Beast explain that they are in the Danger Room, in which, in its current version, holograms can create artificial environments. (It’s comparable to the holosuites and holodecks on Star Trek series.) Here the X-Men look like giants, sitting atop the Hawaiian islands, as if they were chairs. Amusingly, smoke arises from Wolverine’s body: presumably he is sitting atop a volcano. Since his hair style gives him devil-like "horns," it’s appropriate that he’s giving off smoke, as if he’s seated in hell.

In a nicely understated bit of staging, Cassaday and Whedon have the White Queen sitting to the side, her face turned away from the others. She does not participate in the discussion for two pages, and then interrupts basically just to try to get them to hurry up and finish. Likewise, the others ignore her. Frost may be a member of the team, but she’s not a part of their community or "family," even though it can contain the feuding Cyclops and Wolverine. Nor, it appears, does she care about being part of the group: Scott is the only one of interest to her.

Scott now begins a long speech. Since the rise of the original Image artists, I’ve been dismayed by the way so many recent comics artists devote huge panels to poster-like images, and then jam action into tiny panels instead. Cassaday and Whedon know how to make the current fashion for such large panels work. They devote a big panel to a shot of Scott uttering a single, simple line: "We’re a team." This lends emphasis to Scott’s idea and to what seems the confident, idealistic way in which he says it (further emphasized by shooting his face from below, so he seems to tower against the sky).

Moreover, Scott continues, "We’re a super hero team. And I think it’s time we started acting like one." Kitty looks towards Scott, interested by this idea. Logan looks forward, away from Scott, listening but not as impressed as she is.

Then Logan turns his face just slightly, looks warily at Scott, and says, as if startled, "Ho. Whoa. Wait. Is this gonna be about tights?"

It’s a funny reaction, perhaps suggesting a certain reflexive homophobia on the macho Logan’s part. It’s also the sort of remark one could imagine Spike saying.

And again there’s a certain revisionism at work here. No one forced Wolverine to wear a superhero costume through many of his past solo adventures. Wolverine’s attitude here reflects the movie version of Logan, who found the idea of superhero names and uniforms silly.

Scott reacts to Logan’s comment by dismissing his insecurity about looking silly in tights and taking the theme to a higher level: "It’s about everything. Truth. Perception. We’ve saved the world - worlds, even - time and again. That’s the truth. That’s what we do. But the perception is that we’re freaks or worse. That we’re Magnetos waiting to happen. We’ve been taking it on the chin so long, just trying to keep from being wiped out. I think we’ve forgotten that we have a purpose. I know the rest of the world has forgotten."

Scott’s speech is about public relations: letting the world know that the X-Men are a positive force for good. But it’s also an effort to put the X-Men back in touch with another aspect of Xavier’s original vision: that the X-Men fight to save the human race, despite the fact that so many of them fear and hate mutants. Hence Scott’s speech serves as a contrast with Frost’s address to the students earlier in the book. Frost asserted that humans will never trust mutants; Scott, following Xavier’s ideas, argues that the X-Men’s good deeds can win humanity over.

I wonder if through Scott’s speech Whedon is also commenting on the direction of the X-Men as a series. Perhaps he feels it’s also the readership who may have "forgotten" the X-Men’s "purpose." Is Whedon asserting that the comics have been spending too much time dealing with the X-Men fighting off persecution - playing defense - and not enough about them taking an active role, protecting humanity from dangers?

Certainly in the movies the X-Men appear to keep to themselves, not asserting themselves publicly as protectors of humanity. In the films the X-Men stay in hiding, not venturing out into battle unless they are fighting against their own kind (Magneto and his Brotherhood in the first film) or are themselves attacked by Stryker in the second).

Despite what Kitty said earlier in the issue, perhaps things have changed at the X-Men’s school. They’ve gotten away from the X-Men’s true purpose, so Whedon plans to put things back the way they were, so that Kitty’s statement that nothing has changed will indeed be true. Again, it’s like John Byrne’s "back to the basics" approach to longrunning comics series. (I would imagine, though, if Byrne were back on X-Men, he would boot his co-creation, the White Queen, out of the team immediately!)

As if anticipating close, analytical readers like myself, Kitty asks, looking at the holograms about them, "Is this like a theme thing, us being so big?" The Beast dismisses the notion with a joke about having misprogrammed the Danger Room. But the metaphor stands: the X-Men as giants. This ties in with the theme of Scott’s speech: superheroes are larger than life, serving a greater purpose, acting as players on the stage of the entire world.

Looking wistful, Kitty says, "Remember when thus place was just flame-throwers and rotating knives. I miss that." Yes, indeed, that’s what the Danger Room was like when Kitty first arrived at Xavier’s school, back in 1978 in our time. Here is more nostalgia for the Claremont X-Men tales of decades past. So yet again we see the duality of Kitty’s role: the girl who has aged only a few years since joining the X-Men, yet who remembers comics from a quarter century ago. She’s a young person who has gone through experiences that make her feel older than she is. Perhaps, too, she embodies the way an older adult might feel that in ways he or she still feels young, not yet the master of his or her life. "Now I have cloud-hair," Kitty says, literally referring to the holograms of small clouds floating around her head, but perhaps metaphorically suggesting her role bearing adult responsibilities in the world at large. No wonder she feels uncomfortable at seeming so "big."

The Danger Room circa 1978 was basically the way that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, its creators, had depicted it in the 1960s. It is appropriate that, as Scott speaks of the original purpose of the X-Men that Kitty should invoke an image that goes back to Lee and Kirby’s original X-Men stories.

Scott began his speech by acknowledging the absurdity of what he was about to propose. Obviously in part he meant that he intends to be part of the same team as Wolverine, despite the current tension between them. Possibly he - or Whedon - also meant the "absurdity" of the superhero concept, dressing up in costumes to fight evil, but Cyclops, and through him, Whedon, are arguing that the superhero, however absurd on the surface, is something positive. even necessary.

"We need to get into the world," Scott declares. "Saving lives, helping with disaster relief. . .We need to present ourselves as a team like any other." pointing out that the public accepts the two leading superhero teams, the Avengers and Fantastic Four. The X-Men would thereby be demonstrating why "baseline" humanity should accept mutants. The idea of "getting into the world" is a fundamental part of Xavier’s vision, which is not about mutants and ordinary humans existing in separate but equal societies, but about racial integration. Grant Morrison, in outing the Xavier and his students, was pushing them to play a more active role in the world, but Morrison’s priority seemed to be turning the X-Men into mutant rights advocates, not as champions aiding the rest of humanity.

Here I wonder how much coordination exists among the current X-Men books. In the final issue of X-Treme X-Men and his new stories in Uncanny X-Men, Chris Claremont has cast team members as official agents of the world’s government in battling mutant menaces. Claremont even has the X-Men refer to themselves as "marshals," evoking the imagery of the Western. (That’s something one might have expected Whedon to do instead, considering that his Firefly series was explicitly created as a science-fiction version of classic Western motifs.)

Whedon seems so far to have a more positive focus: Scott says the X-Men will "save lives," whereas Storm’s "marshals" seem to emphasize combating criminals.

But really, Claremont and Whedon are having their teams of X-Men follow similar paths: as heroes operating in public to protect the populace at large. Each writer is working primarily with a different assortment of X-Men, yet Wolverine participates in both series. And all of them are based at Xavier’s mansion. So it’s odd that in Astonishing Scott does not mention Storm’s "marshals," or that in Uncanny Storm and the others don’t mention Cyclops’ effort to revive the X-Men’s reputation as superheroes.

Once Scott implies that he wants the public to think of the X-Men the way they do of the superhero teams the Avengers and Fantastic Four, Wolverine says, "Here come the tights. . . ," still troubled by the thought.

"Sorry, Logan," replies Scott, "Super heroes wear costumes." Here, through Cyclops, Whedon is recognizing costumes as an important element of the superhero concept. Whedon has stated in an interview that it was not his decision to bring back the costumes. (It seems to have been the idea of Marvel executive Avi Arad, who only a few years ago was publicly disparaging superhero costumes.) But I gets the sense that Whedon is far from displeased about it.

"And quite frankly," Scott adds, "all the black leather is making people nervous." That reminds me of an observation former Marvel writer Peter B. Gillis made to me years ago: didn’t anyone notice that the Blackhawks were a bunch of men who dressed in black leather and lived together on an island? (How did Dr. Wertham miss that?) So there’s irony for you: people think it’s stupid to put the X-Men in superhero costumes, so they dress them up in black leather uniforms instead, seemingly oblivious to the kinky implications.

Then Kitty raises her hand, just as a student would: yet again here’s a sign that she occupies this middle ground between the kids and the adults. Kitty says, "I’m not a fighter, not like you guys." Wolverine replies,: "You’ve been in it plenty, kid. I’d take you at my back any day."

What’s going on here? Whedon says that Kitty was a major influence on Buffy, yet Buffy is certainly a fighter, and Kitty is claiming she isn’t, or at least not in the same sense as the other X-Men. And am I the only one who thinks that Cassaday, especially in this shot, makes Kitty look something like Buffy’s friend Willow?

Wasn’t the point of the "Professor Xavier Is a Jerk!" story (Uncanny #168) that Whedon referenced earlier in this issue that Kitty insisted on being treated as an equal of the older X-Men, and that she could hold her own in dangerous situations (as in her battle against the alien Sidrian Hunters in that story)? It’s difficult to imagine Chris Claremont contending that Kitty isn’t a fighter.

I’d like to think that in this exchange Kitty is being modest and that Logan is subtly reminding her of Claremont’s Kitty Pryde and Wolverine series, in which he taught her to be a martial artist. More likely, Whedon isn’t remembering it. Then again, maybe he is dealing in revisionism here, consciously dismissing that aspect of her past, preferring to present Kitty as a non-warrior.

Here Whedon’s foreword to the trade paperback collection of Fray, a series he did for Dark Horse, is relevant. In it Whedon discusses his boyhood interest in Marvel comics. "At least in the Marvel universe, where I made my nest," he writes, "there were very few interesting girls young enough for a twelve year old to crush on." (Gosh, why didn’t he fall in love with Jean like the rest of us? Then again, my friends and I first read about Jean in 1960s comics, when she was presented as a teenager.) "But it was deeply slim pickin’s," Whedon continues, "Until Kitty Pryde. She was such a figure of both affection and identification, I even forgave her inability to think of a decent name for herself." This explains the White Queen’s disparaging remarks this issue about Kitty’s past superhero names.

"If she could be in the X-Men," Whedon concludes, "then there was no reason a short, skinny, not-overly-hygienic New Yorker whose mutant power seemed to be the ability to whine amusingly couldn’t join up too."

There’s the key. Kitty is the everyman/woman, the reader’s identification figure. Not only is she the kid who gets to hang out with the adults, but she is our representative: through her we get to hang out with the X-Men. After all, that has always been the basic purpose of the "kid sidekick" in superhero comics. It’s not that the adult superhero is looking for an underage homoerotic sexual partner, as Dr. Wertham famously claimed. The "kid sidekick" was meant as an identification figure for the reader, so he could vicariously participate in the superhero’s adventures. This is why Whedon characterizes her as not basically a fighter, since neither are we, the readers, and she is standing in for us. Since Whedon is having Kitty go into action, but downplaying her role as a fighter, she finds herself standing in yet another middle ground. On one side there are costumed teen combatants like Robin or Bucky on one side, and on the other such noncombatants as Rick Jones in Hulk and Captain Marvel or Snapper Carr in the Julie Schwartz-era Justice League.

Contradicting Logan, Scott tells Kitty, "But you’re not a fighter. Your power isn’t aggressive, it’s protective." That actually makes her seem like a throwback to pre-Claremont superheroines like the Invisible Girl, who didn’t actually hit people the way that, say, Buffy would. (In Kitty’s case, she can turn intangible.) "That’s good to show," Scott goes on. "And people like you."

That’s the point. Scott is designating her as a good public face for mutantkind. In that respect she is the best choice among the five X-Men Whedon seems to be working with in this series. (Presumably the large roster of X-Men is being divided among the various books and their current writers.) Scott points out that Hank looks like a Beast, "Emma’s a former villain" (Do people say "villain" in real life?), and "Logan’s a thug." Logan immediately agrees, "Born and bred.": like Spike, he takes pride, at once ironic and defiant, in his outlaw image.

As for himself, Cyclops points out that "I haven’t looked anybody in the eye since I was fifteen." And while that is not technically true (What about that celebrated sex scene on the mesa in Uncanny #132, in which Phoenix stops his eyes from emitting the deadly power beams?), it’s too good a line to object to, too fine a summing up of Scott’s usual situation in life, and another example of the understated irony with which Whedon has him speak.

Looking somewhat annoyed, Kitty asks, "So I’m what - a P. R. stunt?" Maybe she’s right to object. Scott’s intentions are good, but the X-Men will not succeed in gaining tolerance for mutants until "normal" humans can accept mutants who look like the Beast, as well. (I really doubt that anyone connected with Astonishing would make this connection, but Scott has fallen afoul of badly conceived public relations before, in the original X-Factor series.)

Finally, Emma inserts herself into the discussion to take the opportunity to insult Kitty. We’ve already seen she dislikes Kitty, and perhaps now Frost feels provoked by Scott’s praise of Kitty for not being a "villain" like herself.

At long last Scott is exasperated with Frost, too, and tells her to "shut up": Frost looks surprised and possibly hurt by this sign of anger, while Kitty looks warily at him, perhaps sensing his seriousness, and Logan continues to face forward, taking it in stride.

Looking grim, Scott tells the group that each of them may have "perfectly good reasons" for not wanting to act as superheroes. "But you’re the team I chose. So think about it." Not only is Scott acting as a strong leader, but as one determined to get his way. He’s not insisting that they participate, but he seems to be implying that the fact that he chose them to be in his superhero team outweighs any qualms they may have about it. Maybe it’s not so much Kitty who’s like Buffy as Scott is: Scott seems more like the Buffy of the final seasons: the hard-edged leader (in a bad sexual relationship!).

The scene shifts to another example of public relations at work, as people insist on putting makeup on a woman who turns out to be geneticist Dr. Ravita Rao before she addresses the press. "Doc," says one, "you’re about to change the world, you gotta look glam." Dr. Rao and the X-Men are about to compete in the creation of public images for mutants.

I didn’t realize this until my second time reading the issue, but Dr. Rao is the same doctor from page two of this issue. This is my fault: when she addresses a girl as "Tildie," I should have remembered that this was the girl from the opening pages. Then again, whereas in a movie or TV show, the viewer will probably recognize a character on his or her return later in the story, the faces of characters in comics tend not to be so individually distinctive.

This glimpse of Dr. Rao being introduced to the press begins a sequence of cinematic intercutting among various characters and settings that persists to the end of the issue.

From Dr. Rao we go to a brief scene between Kitty and Logan that serves as a reminder of the bond they’ve had in the past, ever since Claremont began pairing them together. In the context of Whedon’s work, it reminds me of the friendship between Spike and Dawn on Buffy. Here Logan appears to be referring to his mourning over Jean; that is certainly in character for him, and also happens to parallel Spike’s feelings towards Buffy when she was (temporarily) dead at the start of Season 6.

Dr. Rao begins her speech, "What is a mutant?" From the start of this quiet discourse by an academic we shift to a scene of violence and chaos, with masked gunmen taking hostages.

Back to Dr. Rao, whose talk at first may seem to fit right in with Charles Xavier’s vision of mutants. "They’ve been called angels and devils," she notes, as if recognizing religious counterparts to the mythic figures of good and evil mutants in the X-Men series.

But Rao’s speech begins to vary from Xavier’s ideas in so subtle a fashion it didn’t register on me at first. She says, "They’ve committed atrocities, and been victims of atrocities themselves." Is she differentiating here between the terrorist mutants like Magneto and those mutants who are victims of persecution? Or does she mean "they" to refer to all mutants? "They’ve been labeled monsters, and not without reason." That implies that all mutants are indeed monsters.

"But I will tell you what mutants are," Dr. Rao says, returning to her theme of defining mutants. At that point Cassaday and Whedon shift to the gunmen’s leader, telling his captives that he plans to rob them, to take (and presumably rape) their daughters, and to "roast" the hostages’ flesh (perhaps for eating?). Cassaday shows us the leader from the back, and then shows him from the front. The leader has green skin: is he a mutant?

Is he defining through his actions what he thinks mutants should be? (And is he the shadowy figure who was watching Tildie in the opening pages?)

Then we shift back to Dr. Rao, seen from the back, addressing the press, in a shot which ominously parallels the gunmen’s leader addressing the hostages. Perhaps Dr. Rao was right to disdain being made to look "glam," but now we see she wears her hair in a rather prim, old-fashioned bun at the back of her head. A hint of her personality? (Is she playing a destructive superego in contrast to the gunmen’s leader’s rampaging id?)

Finally giving the answer to the question with which she began, Dr. Rao concludes, "Mutants are people. No better or worse by nature than anybody else. Just people." That seems fine: just the point that Xavier and the X-Men series have always sought to make.

And then comes the well-timed kicker, in a single balloon: mutants are "People with a disease."

Immediately afterwards we see glimpses of the X-Men changing into costumes, about to appear before the public themselves. These are the people who Dr. Rao claims are diseased.

There follows an impressive double-page spread with the X-Men striding out in costume. Of course, this is designed to show off their new costumes for the benefit of those readers, who, like the Beast, are particularly interested in such things. I find myself more interested in the design of the spread. Most of the space is given over to the wall and floor. Only Kitty and the Beast’s arm and legs make it onto the left hand page.: the X-Men are situated almost entirely in the lower half of the right hand page. Most artists would have had the X-Men figures virtually fill the entire spread. But the use of all the empty space gives an epic feel to the scene, as the X-Men emerge from a brightly lit rectangle, striding out onto this larger stage.

This brings the story to its final page, with rapid intercutting among the three sets of characters - X-Men (taking off in their jet), the gunmen and their hostages, and Dr. Rao addressing the press - as Rao’s words flow through and unite the series of shots.

Dr. Rao tells her audience, "Mutants are not the next step in humankind," thereby dismissing Magneto’s rationale for proclaiming the racial superiority of mutants. But one could also use that idea to assert that humanity is naturally evolving into mutants, that it is humanity’s destiny; she is rejecting this idea, too. She also dismisses the fears of the usual mutant-haters in the history of this series, such as the Sentinels’ inventor, Dr. Bolivar Trask: "They are not the end of humankind."

Instead, she contends, "The mutant gene is nothing more than a disease. A corruption of healthy cellular activity."

Apropos of this, the June 21, 2004 issue of Time has an article titled "Surviving Cancer," which contains a section titled, "Identifying Mutations." The article states that "A tumor is essentially an accumulation of mutations. It grows uncontrollably because its DNA, laboring under the weight of layer upon layer of genetic errors, has become unstable and unable to repair itself. By studying those mutations, scientists can learn quite a bit about how a particular cancer cell became malignant and the molecular pathways it uses to get the nutrients it needs to fuel growth."

In other words, cancer is a form of mutation. Perhaps this is the basis for Rao’s theory about super-powered mutants. Perhaps Whedon got the idea from reading an earlier, similar article.

But this isn’t a new idea with regard to the X-Men. A few nights ago I watched the X2 movie again and was struck by a scene between Xavier and Stryker, who had wanted Xavier to cure his mutant son Jason. "But mutation is not a disease," protests Xavier.

This issue concludes with Rao’s declaration that "And now at last we have found a cure."

Though this is an unusual approach to mutation in the world of X-Men, it too is not unique. I have read one review that asserts that the "cure" idea turned up a short time ago in Marvel’s X-Statix series. More importantly, a few years back Alan Davis did a story line in X-Men wherein the Marvel Universe’s master genetic engineer, the High Evolutionary, "cured" all mutants on Earth.

But the High Evolutionary was motivated by his godlike overview of the course evolution should take. I expect that Whedon is approaching Rao’s movement to "cure" mutants as a new facade for racial intolerance.

Consider that in this issue Whedon shows both Dr. Rao and the X-Men seeking ways to present a point of view to the public. Both sides are dealing in public relations, in image management, and in what politicians call spin. Cyclops wants to "astonish" the public, casting the X-Men as colorfully costumed champions of the whole human race. He wants to make Kitty their "poster child," as Frost cynically puts it. The face of mutants is a pretty and friendly teenage girl, who lacks "aggressive" powers and who looks conventionally human. As noted, this is something of a distortion of the truth.

But it’s not as bad as Dr. Rao’s image of mutants as, in effect, cancer victims. How clever this is. Dr. Rao is not claiming that mutants are evil, but that they are people, no better or worse than other people, but who are afflicted by a disease. It is the disease that must be destroyed, not the mutants.

Compare this with the Church’s attitude towards mutants in Neil Gaiman’s 1602. The chief clergyman in issue 7 appears to regard those mutants ("Witchbreed") who are not human in appearance as "monsters." The clergyman is about to burn the 1602 Magneto, revealed as not only a mutant but as a Jew, at the stake. But the clergyman treats 1602’s Magneto not as a "monster" but as a "heretic" who rejected "God’s mercy." In other words, he differentiates between the sinner and the sin, suggesting the possibility that had Magneto been loyal to the Church, he need not have be executed.

Earlier this week I passed by some demonstrators in an Indian section of the city, who had a sign "Islam is the Only Way to End Homosexuality!" I’m aware of Christians who claim to "love" gays but to "hate" their "sins." Here is the idea of religion as a "cure" for behavior of which other people disapprove.

These are means of demonizing an opponent’s behavior but not the opponent himself. Similarly, Dr. Rao is demonizing the mutation, but not the person affected by the mutation.

But these are false dichotomies. Being a mutant is an essential part of each X-Man’s identity. Being a mutant is each X-Man’s racial identity, just as being black is Dr. Rao’s (It is surely no accident that Whedon and Cassaday "cast" her this way.), or being female is part of her identity.

In each case, that of he 1602 Inquisition or Dr. Rao, differences from the cultural norm are being labeled as disease, heresy, or abnormality, not as an acceptable alternative to the majority lifestyle. It’s like the way King James in 1602 defined any political opposition to him as treason.

Consider the title of this issue of Astonishing X-Men: "Gifted." Each X-Man’s mutant super-power can be regarded as a metaphor for whatever talents any individual in real life has: whatever makes him or her unique, and enables him or her to contribute something to the world that perhaps no one else can. By the issue’s end Dr. Rao is attempting to redefine "gifted" as "diseased."

No wonder Kitty looks so somber in our last sight of her in this issue, perhaps sensing that the X-Men are traveling into big trouble.

So, yes, I’m astonished by this first issue and hooked. After such an auspicious start I’m very much looking forward to the rest of Joss Whedon’s twelve-issue run on this title. And who knows? He did it for Buffy: maybe he’ll be motivated to write X-Men: The Musical.