Astonishing X-Men Volume 1 - Joss Whedon

Astonishing X-Men follows on from Grant Morrison's New X-Men series and features many of the same characters. The key writer in this series is Joss Wheadon of Buff the Vampire Slayer fame and he definitely brings his own flavour to the X-Men saga. The first trade paper back tends to focus on introducing a number of new characters as well as setting up the appearance of several previously known characters. Emma Frost and Scott Summers lead up the team which makes for an interesting dynamic, and sadly puts a slightly emo feel to the team which soon gets old. Hopefully the dynamic will prove to have some rational behind it as the series develops. The ...  Read the complete review

As a keen X-Men and Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) fan when I saw that these comics were being released I was very excited. And I was not disappointed. This new take on the X-Men series shows quite an assorted team of X-Men characters along with ex-villain Emma Frost reforming the Xavier school. It's not long before the X-Men are threatened by the mysterious Ord (no not Magneto this time) and this new X-Men has quite a dark undertone to it. As for the graphic novel in general the illustrations are very good quality, no suprise for a Marvel comic and are very pleasing on the eye. The story progesses very quickly and does ...  Read the complete review

Although there are a lot of X-Men fans out there who really hate this and Joss Whedon in general with a passion, I sure as hell am not one of them. The X-Men franchise has a problem - its fans want to see the same kinds of storylines with the same million characters doing the same things month in and month out with particular attention to character continuity and everything being just so. Also, they want to see some action. Trouble is, when this is what's provided everybody moans that the stories are the same and that nothing could be as great as the Dark Phoenix Saga etc etc Why bother reading then? Well, the monthly comics Uncanny X-Men and adjective ...  Read the complete review