CSBG Archive
Astonishing X-Men #31 Review
I did not have a big problem with Ellis’ first Astonishing X-Men arc (besides the way he handled Forge, which was pretty silly at times, my only complaints about Ellis’ first arc were with Simone Bianchi’s art – both the actual art and the fact that we had to wait so long for art that ended up not being all that great), but his second arc opens up even stronger than his first, with an action-packed first issue with strong artwork from Phil Jimenez.
Ellis sets out to basically achieve three things in this issue…
1. Give us a glimpse at the work that the good folks at SWORD (including their leader, Abigail Brand) do
2. Show the X-Men showing off their skills in action
3. Give us an intriguing cliffhanger which sets up the overall storyline
For #1, we actually have preview pages for that aspect of the story…
Jimenez seems to almost be saving up a little extra “oomph” for this first issue, and inker Andy Lanning and colorist Frank D’Armata do a nice job backing him up.
It’s a nice explosive introduction to the basic plot of the issue (Brand is in a spaceship hurtling towards Earth – can the X-men save her?) and the action really does not stop over the next 15 or so pages, as Ellis gives us a cool introduction to the X-Men (US Space Command calling Cyclops on the special “Code X” protocol? That’s awesome) and then he and Jimenez just ratchet the action up more and more as the issue progresses.
Each member of the team gets their little “spotlight” moment, and it is all handled quite well.
It all leads to a finale that is bizarre, twisted and all sorts of awesome (I love the notion that Emma Frost would instantly reconginze any of her former students – that is so Emma).
I think this issue goes a long ways toward getting folks to forget about the problems of the first arc (which, as I noted above, were almost entirely art-related – including the annoying delays and fill-in mini) as Jimenez does a great job with this issue – my only “fear” is that I have no idea what kind of deadline he produced this issue on – if he had more time to work on this one than future issues, well, that could be an issue. I hope not.
Recommended.
5 Comments
Mario
October 8, 2009 at 8:04 am
Definetly a step up from the previous arc. But it’s like you said, can Jeminez keep up the pace? It does have me a little worried because this issue was very well done and it would suck for the series to continue to be held back by the art crew. It’s almost as if Marvel planned this since issue one. Awesome stories with terific artists…who work to slowly.
Jeff Holland
October 8, 2009 at 8:24 am
Has Jiminez ever had deadline problems? I really can’t remember any instance.
In any event, I’m just happy to have him on the book – Bianchi’s work was pretty, but completely baffling from a storytelling perspective, which really wounded Ellis’s story – both because the sci-fi stuff needed more of a visual grounding, and because seeing Forge’s crazy would’ve been more effective if Bianchi didn’t have a habit of drawing EVERYONE looking a little half-mad.
Neal K
October 8, 2009 at 10:48 am
I was so excited to pick up this book yesterday. I love Ellis, but the first arc was pretty much mortally wounded by the horribly stilted Bianchi art. In fact, if Bianchi had stayed on, or if they had replaced Bianchi with a lesser artist, I would have dropped the book.
Jiminez, on the other hand, is one of my favorite artists, and has been since at least his days of working with Morrison on the Invisibles. Excellent choice to see him on X-Men again, and to see him working with Ellis.
I think Marvel had to do something with this title, because, at least at my LCS, people were starting to avoid this book like the plague, with sales plummeting throughout the last arc. That also explains why Marvel released that free sketchbook — sort of like, hey, look, this book still exists and will now actually ship on a regular schedule, and feature wonderful art by an artist who knows how to tell a story sequentially!
FunkyGreenJerusalem
October 8, 2009 at 4:21 pm
There was some for Infinite Crisis I think, but pretty sure we can put that down to it being a big event, and thus probably getting tinkered with by writers and editors every five minutes…
Only other instance I can think of would be with The Invisbles, where he didn’t do more than an arc or two straight…
Jeremy
October 10, 2009 at 5:09 pm
He was suppose to do the whole “American Son” arc in ASM, but family issues came up so thats reasonable I guess. The solicitations for the next couple issues look monthly to me…we’ll find out. And I hope it is, because this will be the first X-men team book I pick up regularly since…well Whedon/Cassaday actually.