Joss Whedon

BOOK OF THE WEEK - ASTONISHING X-MEN #17

Joss Whedon (W)/John Cassaday (A)

RYAN: "This issue is so good it will make your face explode."

BRIAN: "Right from looking at the effectively sparse cover composition, you can tell this is no ordinary X-Men issue. Flip to page one, and I’m slightly disoriented, asking myself, ’Huh? Did I miss an issue? Or 10 years’ worth of issues?’ Kitty Pryde and Colossus have just had a baby, then the other X-Men go all evil and steal it from a crazy defiant Kitty, she returns all hell-bent on rescuing her infant son. Now, this is all in the first FIVE PAGES."

KIEL: "Scary display of what Kitty could do with her powers if she was feeling evil. That one panel with her holding an intangible axe through Peter’s head..."

KIEL: "Kitty’s always been the ’nice’ X-Man, the ’safe’ one, but it just goes to show it’s because of her girl next door personality, NOT her power. If she wanted to go all Dark Phoenix, there’s nobody safe from her."

RYAN: "Cool insidery bit in that hospital sequence... Peter and Kitty’s son is named "Michael," after Colossus’ brother."

JON: "I was just blown away by the dialogue here, which I shouldn’t be since going in you know it’s what Whedon does best. But the back-and-forth between the characters, the different emotions, the sense of warmth and family, familiar joking... if you’ve never read these characters before, you love them. If you’ve been reading them for years, you’re reminded why you love them."

BRIAN: "We’ve still only talked about the first five pages of the issue. On page six, the reader is yanked back into reality as you learn it’s all happening in Kitty’s head, picking up right from the previous issue. Turns out, all this headtripping is thanks to the Hellfire Club. White Queen, Emma Frost (since there’s now two Emmas, it’s still a mystery why), uses her telepathy and cons Kitty to free what the phasing mutant believes is her son inside a box in the basement. But what’s really inside the box...?"

RYAN: "A topic that has been driving fans crazy."

BRIAN: "It’s Cassandra Nova’s imprisoned consciousness, salivating at the possibility to murder another 16 million people."

[Editor’s Note: Cassandra Nova is the villain from New X-Men’s "E is for Extinction" storyline, where she murdered nearly the entire population of the country of Genosha.]

RYAN: "Her biggest crime is that she’s the creepiest bald granma in the history of art. Seriously, would you let this thing near enough to pinch your cheek...?"

RYAN: "Ugh. Mix that visual with old person smell and you have the most terrifying granma/villain ever. And her presents probably suck at Christmas."

BRIAN: [in Katherine Hepburn voice] "Here you are, dearie, I’ve knit you a sweater with ducks on it. Also, I killed China."

[laughter]

KIEL: "I liked the reveal at who the spy is within the X-Men. Was it the White Queen? The occasionally wishy-washy Beast? The back-from-the-dead Colosuss...? Nope. It’s Lockheed, and he’s working for S.W.O.R.D."

JON: "And he talks! Granted, it’s in an indecipherable alien language, but he talks."

RYAN: "Fans who have been feeling gypped that Wolverine has been out of the mix just let out a collective ’Oh, sh-t...!"

KIEL: "After being regressed mentally to a parody of the nine-year-old boy he was in Origin, Logan is knocked flat, a beer can rolls off a counter and hits him in the face. He picks it up, stares at it for a moment, and in two panels you see that switch flip..."

JON: "It’s a total Popeye/spinach moment, and it’s fantastic."

BRIAN: "When this sequence plays out next issue, no way does Wolverine not go berserk and remind everyone in that mansion-and in comics-that he is the biggest badass on the planet."

RYAN: "Cool nod to current X-continuity... wait, where was it..."

[flips through issue]

RYAN: "Here! S.W.O.R.D.’s Agent Brand-sick of alien crap-says she wishes someone would ’...prophesy the end of the Shi’ar.’ Readers of the current storyline in Uncanny X-Men just felt a douche chill since things are looking pretty grim for the Shi’ar over there. Man... it is such a good time to be an X-Men fan. Astonishing, Uncanny, Adjectiveless, New X-Men... the editors over at Marvel’s X-offices all deserve a giant cake."

JON: "Or duck sweaters."

[laughter]

BRIAN: "Things take yet another left turn on the very last pages when Emma is shot three times in the back by a gun-toting... um, who’s that?"

JON: "Yeah, it took me a moment to figure out that was Cyclops."

BRIAN: "It takes an extra second to register because Cyke is so non-descript. The art, which still rocks 99.9% of the time, could have benefited from a visual cue like his visor hanging from his neck or in his other hand, something."

KIEL: "I enjoyed the issue, but I have to admit I’m curious to see how all this gets wrapped up in next issue’s finale. The return of Cassandra Nova, Wolverine unleashed, the dual attack of Ord & Danger, S.W.O.R.D.’s move against the team, the mystery of the two Emma’s... Whedon is a skilled writer, but it’s a tall order to wrap this thing with a bow by next issue."

RYAN: "The series that owns the summer up next..."