Joss Whedon

Astonishing X-Men wraps up its first year - and I use the term loosely, since it’s running hopelessly late - with the final part of "Dangerous." And boy, that did nothing to restore my interest in the book.

The official line on Astonishing X-Men is that it’s the most wonderful thing ever. I rather think not. At its best, Astonishing has been a technically excellent superhero book revisiting some of the key ideas of the book. The Cure was an interesting idea that hit some of the X-books’ core themes. Bringing back Colossus... well, it made for a nice moment, although the follow-through left a lot to be desired.

"Dangerous", though... this is weak. The core idea here is that the Danger Room was sentient all along and is out for revenge on Professor X. This issue finally gets around to explaining why Danger is so angry - Professor X knew it was sentient but just left it there. I’m in two minds about that idea. Xavier has been a bit of a git at times, but fundamentally the character is a bleeding heart. The idea of him simply keeping the Danger Room as an unwilling prisoner seems wildly out of character. It makes for a good scene with Colossus, but would Xavier really do such a thing? The story just doesn’t convince me. Xavier needs a far better motivation than "my teams needed to be prepared whatever the cost" if we’re to accept that he truly sees this as a necessary sacrifice for the greater good.

Besides, on the more mundane plotting level, if Xavier can sense the Danger Room’s mind, why couldn’t any of the many, many other telepaths who’ve been through the building over the years that it’s supposedly been trapped there?

Back at his Emma Frost subplot, Whedon reveals that she’s been in league with the Hellfire Club - or rather, yet another version of it, because there’s a completely different line-up over in Claremont’s book - all along. I suspect she’s probably faking, since if she isn’t it’ll be a drearily boring story, not to mention one that wouldn’t make any sense. (Surely Phoenix would have noticed, for example.) But even so, I can’t summon up much enthusiasm for this story. Even as a feint, it’s teasing a story that sounds utterly tedious. Does that make me interested to see where this is going? No, not really, other than to hope that this isn’t going to be another exercise in riding roughshod over other people’s stories for the hell of it. Beyond that, I frankly don’t care. Of all the things that Emma’s secret could have been, what could possibly be less inspired than "she’s a villain after all"?

On the upside... it’s very pretty. John Cassaday could illustrate the phone directory and it would get at least a B-. But god, Xavier fighting his robot spawn for six issues is just not interesting. This is a concept that merits three or four issues at the most, stretched far beyond its natural lifespan. Some good moments and some gorgeous art can’t make up for an extremely weak premise, a story littered with plot holes, and an utterly uninspiring direction. Thoroughly disappointing.

Rating: B-