Ellis wrote Planetary and Authority and I love them both, but that’s it. I’m not gonna be picking up Astonishing after Whedon/Cassaday leave. And That image sucks. Did Beast join a gang while I wasn’t looking?

But the third X-book, be it New X-Men or Astonishing, hasn’t done any of that. Morrison tried, but Casey, Austen, and Claremont couldn’t keep up with what he was doing (the “simple and conservative” idea), and New X-Men became nothing more than a ditched experiment and ultimately a failure in its role as flagship (irrelevant of its quality). Whedon’s failure comes from the erratic schedule — to go back to the fleet metaphor, your flagship is no good if its sitting at the dock while the fleet is sailing. Again, quality is important, but a flagship can’t get hung up on trying for perfection at the sacrifice of its leading role. And then the “stretched too thin” thing compounds it: the headlining characters of the line are locked into a floundering title, while the other titles have to make do with C-listers.

I’m really not trying to judge Ellis and Bianchi before they even see print, but past precedent has to give pause. Bianchi has what must be a time-consuming style, and while he has thus far proven his deadlines, I do wonder if he can keep up over the long-haul — which then makes me wonder how Marvel will handle it if he doesn’t. Last-minute Van Sciver rush-jobs didn’t help Morrison, nor did delays help Whedon and Cassaday. Ellis, meanwhile, is sort of the worst of both worlds: like Morrison, he has a capacity to overwrite a flagship, and because of his hefty workload, runs the risk of falling behind like Whedon. On top of that, Marvel wants Astonishing to be the flagship without actually editing it like one.

The shame is, Carey and Brubaker actually are writing flagship titles, akin to how Lobdell and Nicieza split the job in the ’90s. Both seem to have a goal of re-stabilizing the line at the moment, with Messiah Complex forthcoming to be the envelope pusher. Essentially, they’ve made Astonishing irrelevant. The worst thing that could happen to them is if Ellis came along, took the spotlight off them, and he starts going in a completely different direction with the headliners. Which is why I say cancel Astonishing. It’s running the risk of inadvetently sabotaging the rest of the line.

Besides, it’s not like the third title is really pulling in overwhelming sales. Morrison’s sales weren’t, ahem, astonishing, and there’s a question of whether much of that was due to New X-Men’s flagship designation and characters (IOW, if Marvel had treated X-Treme X-Men like the flagship and given Claremont Wolverine, might its sales have been high?). And Astonishing pulls in huge numbers, but does it matter if it isn’t monthly? Austen pulled in about half of Whedon’s numbers, but did it about 3 times as often; Whedon’s salary-to-sales ratio ends up being a negative. From an economic standpoint, the third title might not even be worth it.

How is Astonishing’s lateness “bringing down” the rest of the line?

So new readers aren’t moving on to Uncanny and Adjectiveless…how does “Cancel Astonishing” follow from that? Shouldn’t it be A) Cancel one of the other books (y’know, the ones that aren’t selling quadrillions), B) Put better talent on them and make THEM more new-reader friendly, or at the very least C) Cancel Astonishing, but graft its model (big name talent, new reader friendly) onto one of the other books?

I like Ellis fine enough, even a lot on some projects, and Bianchi can wow a page like the best of ‘em. But ASTONISHING just needs to die. Its scheduling problems are bringing down the rest of the X-line and it doesn’t appear that the “hook the newbies on ASTONISHING, let them trickle to UNCANNY and ADJECTIVELESS” is working. I don’t see a slightly less lateness-prone team with dimmer wattage than Whedon/Cassaday or Morrison/Quitely improving anything. Just kill the third X-book, Marvel. You’re stretching too thin.

And normally I’ll but anything Bill Sienkiewicz does, but the fact that most of his upcoming projects seem to be collaborations with Steve Niles is sorely testing that policy.

“Final Crisis,” no matter who’s writing it? Crap.

Ellis and Bianchi on AXM? That’s a bit more like it…

Superman/Batman continues to suck? Not surprised at all.

But about that art…is Emma telekinetic now? And is X-23 actually on the team, or just being used in the promo art?

I’m pretty sure that’s a promo piece since Ellis said he’s yet to settle on a cast.

Bill Sienkiewicz FTW!

But about that art…is Emma telekinetic now? And is X-23 actually on the team, or just being used in the promo art?

Still, the Astonishing X-Men team looks good. Hopefully each issue will take more than two minutes to read and not leave me disappointed like Whedon and Cassady have done since pretty much issue 6.

Ah well. At least Ellis is writing it.

I am more excited by the announcement that Morrison is writing Final Crisis.

I have no idea who Michael Green is or what he has worked on in the past or what his writing is like, but on the bright side, he will definitely be an improvement on Jeph Loeb.