Joss Whedon

Writer: Joss Whedon
Artists: John Cassaday (p&i), Laura Martin (c)
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Ratings: 4 1/2 Bullets

It’s a testament to the quality of this series that, despite having held a longstanding aversion to X-Men comics due to their impenetrable continuity, huge casts and (to me) fairly uninteresting characters, I read this hardback straight through from cover to cover the very same morning it arrived in the post. In Astonishing X-Men, Joss Whedon and John Cassaday have accomplished that rare thing: to produce an accessible, well-structured, well-written new take on long-established characters which is as accessible to new readers as it is respectful to longtime fans, and looks beautiful to boot.

Most of these characters I’ve met before, through guest-appearances or (in Wolverine’s case) occasional issues of their own solo title. However, I’ve never seen such a fun, cohesive depiction of the characters working as a team before, and Whedon - well-schooled in writing the team dynamic for television after years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the under-rated Firefly - nails them here. Whedon doesn’t resort to clumsy exposition or excessive wordiness to help us to understand his characters, but chooses their words and the cadence of their speech so carefully that we get a strong sense of their personalities simply as a by-product of the way they talk and act. That may sound painfully obvious, but it’s so rare that a writer has such a self-evidently perfect grasp of their characters, and for Whedon to pin down so many X-Men so well is certainly no mean feat. Of course, you could argue that he’s already been writing them for years. Buffy has always owed a huge debt to Spider-Man and the X-Men, and it’s nice to see Whedon begin to successfully repay that debt here.

But I won’t spend the whole review writing a love letter to Whedon: we know he’s a good writer of dialogue and character, but does his style of storytelling an plotting fit in with the X-Men’s corner of the Marvel Universe? The answer is yes, as although there are a couple of fumbles in his revelation of a sentient Danger Room and his subsequent retcon of Charles Xavier’s character, the majority of Whedon’s story plays out very well. His handling of the discovery of a “cure” for mutation is layered and delicate, and the way he re-introduces Colossus to the X-Men universe is just as elegantly simplistic and hard-hitting as all such character resurrections should be when done right.

Whedon’s writing, though, can only be given partial credit for the success of this series, as his artistic collaborator John Cassaday really makes the book shine with his realistic, fine and detailed linework. I can’t believe that I’ve missed out on his work in the past - I really must check out Planetary - but he strikes me as one of the few pencillers who could truly challenge Bryan Hitch for the title of perfect comicbook artist. He marries the fantastic to the mundane in exactly the right measures, even making the team’s gaudy spandex costumes (a significant element of Whedon’s first arc) look somehow fitting and un-silly. His cinematic choices of framing and perspective are instantly attention-grabbing and frequently reflect the subject matter on more than one level: check out the birds-eye sequence which opens issue #7, concentrating on a mutant who has been robbed of the power of flight. It’s elegant visual storytelling like this which helps to elevate Astonishing X-Men above the usual, assuring a truly special reading experience. It’s such a reliable collaboration (for which much credit must also go to expert colourist Laura Martin of Ultimates fame - why isn’t her name on the cover?) that I’ve already added Whedon’s second year on the book to my ever-shrinking pull list. Like Ultimates, I’m sure it’s going to be worth the wait - I just hope that it reads as well on an issue-to-issue basis as it does in the collect format, especially on a bimonthly schedule.

This being a Marvel Hardcover, we also get a slew of extras, and this book’s selection is better than most. In addition to the expected character sketches and cover variants, there’s an in-depth interview with Cassaday and some tongue-in-cheek e-mails which shed some light on Whedon’s writing approach to the book. Coupled with a genuine-feeling foreword from Brian K. Vaughan, it’s a great package, and one which demands to be read by X-Men fans, Whedonites and lovers of great superhero comics alike.