Astonishing X-Men #13: Grr! Argh!

Well, it’s Reading Week for University of Windsor students. Unfortunately, Reading Week was last week for like 80% of the other universities, which means I’m here in Toronto alone while everyone returns to their academic institutions of non-Windsorian origin. Tomorrow, I’ll probably hit up Paradise Comics and stock up. In the meantime…

ASTONISHING X-MEN #13

I feel kind of bad reviewing five Marvel books in a row, but hey. The only DC I was able to get my hands on this week was Batman, and I already reviewed that.

Anyways, issue 13 marks the return of Joss Whedon and John Cassaday after a however-many-months-long hiatus, and is none too shabby. While the latter six issues of the previous run was pretty meh-to-fair, they did leave us with a fairly intriguing cliffhanger, and I was worried that Whedon would wait a few issues before re-addressing it. But such was not the case. Whedon launches the new storyarc Torn with an opening that answers a lot of our questions regarding issue 12’s cliffhanger, but of course doesn’t give everything away.

Being the first issue of an arc, it’s hard to judge how good the series will be, but judging from the quality of this issue it certainly has potential. I really enjoy Cassandra Nova, and Whedon’s certainly adept enough to write her.

However, there are two things that bugged me (aside from this issue’s ending, which wasn’t as shocking as I think it sought to be):

1) The dream sequence. I’m guessing it will have some weight on later events, but still, it’s been done quite a lot recently in X-books. Seriously, they’ve been popping up all over the place. What’s more, this one, while trying to be creepy (and okay maybe achieving it quite a lot thanks to Cassaday’s artwork), has its creepiness undermined by its inherent goofiness. I paraphrase…

Kitty’s Dad: Kitty?

Kitty: Dad? Is it you?

Kitty’s Dad: Yes, it’s me.

Kitty: It can’t be!

KD: Seriously, it’s me.

K: But how? It’s impossible.

KD: Trust me. It’s really me.

K: Wait, this is impossible.

KD: Believe me. It’s true. It’s me.

K: Oh Daddy…

KD: PSYCH IT’S A DREAM! GRRR! ARGGH!

2) Whedon, while still being respectful to the work Grant Morrison has done, has a tricky job of altering a few details while not contradicting New X-men. He does this relatively okay-ly, except that he resorts to a tactic I’m seeing pop up more and more: Mind Wiping. It’s a very convenient tactic, but holy shit has it been used a lot. Need to explain why Dr. Light went from killer to patsy? He got mind-wiped. Need to explain how Professor X apparently re-united Cyclops with his brother years ago? Cyclops got mind-wiped. Need to explain how the Sentry could possibly have been an established super-hero for the past 30 years? THE ENTIRE FUCKING MARVEL UNIVERSE GOT MIND-WIPED. Anyways, it’s not nearly as drastic here as that last example, but COME ON. Let’s go a week without mind-wipes, if you please.

Otherwise, Cassaday’s art is almost as Beautiful -with-a-capital-bee as it was way back in issue 1. Almost. I’ve sort of noticed his faces can look sort of goofy sometimes (last page being a good example). I’m not really one to talk, though. All the faces I draw look like feet.

8.5 out of 10