Stephanie Kay
Oct 13, 2007, 10:38 pm
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/4images/details.php?image_id=10240" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/covers/marvel/axmv3-18t.jpg" align=left alt="Astonishing X-Men #18" hspace="5"></a></a>Reviewer: Jason Grasso, Desperad07@aol.com
Story Title: Torn (Part 6 of 6)
Unraveling the ball of string
Writer: Joss Whedon
Artist: John Cassaday
Colorist: Laura Martin
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Assistant Editor: Sean Ryan
Associate Editor: Nick Lowe
Editor: Axel Alonso
Editor In Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Published By: Marvel Comics (www.marvel.com)
Astonishing X-Men #18 picks up right after last issue’s exciting cliffhanger, with Cyclops unable to access his powers yet with a greater amount of chutzpah than ever before. He quickly dispatches the Hellfire Club one by one, eventually exposing them as manifestations of Emma Frost’s psyche, itself being manipulated by Cassandra Nova. (Nova planted a seed in Frost’s mind right as she was placed into Stuff’s body at the end of Grant Morrison’s Imperial story arc.)
Interspersed with the main scenes are Danger and Ord’s destructive arrival at the mansion in pursuit of Colossus. Their warpath is interrupted by Wolverine and Beast, both of whom have finally reverted to their normal psyches and utilize their disparate talents to put a hold on their adversaries (albeit temporarily).
Cyclops quickly brings the team together and unveils the truth behind the Hellfire Club. The story climaxes with their attempts to save Emma which are in turn cut short by S.W.O.R.D’s whisking of the team, as well as Danger and Ord, from the mansion and off towards the Breakworld.
Whedon does a great job at truly affecting the characters, except for perhaps Marvel's most overaffected character, Wolverine (who is nicely planted on the periphery of this storyline). The White Queen and Cyclops get some much needed characterization. Cyclops has been a sort of jack-of-all-comic-books lately, having been drafted over to other creative team's sandboxes during House of M, Decimation and Civil War, as well as to other X-titles. Unfortunately, most writers have a hard time breaking Scott Summers from his cardboard mold. (And some just flat out make a mockery of him. Witness the misuse of Cyclops in the recent Apocalypse debacle in adjectiveless X-Men.) On the other hand, White Queen is so ridiculously overcharacterized by most recent X-title creative teams that she's become impossible to buy as a heroine no less the lover of one of the Marvel Universe's greatest boy scouts. Whedon does a great job tinkering with their templates and delving into the depths below the surface stereotypes of these characters.
Most importantly, Whedon wants to truly make a mark on the characters. Shadowcat isn't quick to block out the psychic tinkering that was done to her because it truly affected her. It makes you wonder how poorly some of these titles are written when characters have their minds' invaded and seem to recover so quickly from it. It would be in Marvel's best interests to recruit a writer with a similiar focus to the fold when Whedon departs. But let's not get ahead of ourselves...
Cassady continues to have fun with the confines of the storyline, never wasting a frame on what other artists might not put a lot of detail into. The entire sequence of feral Beast's reversion to normal is clever and befitting the nature of the character. On the surface, Whedon's ball of string plot device might come off as a silly way to get out of danger but coupled with Logan's similar reaction to the beer can, it makes for not only much-needed humor but actually exposes an even more silly premise: that the team would NOT be prepared for the constant tinkering of their minds by adversaries like Cassandra Nova.
While the conclusion explains the White Queen's seeming duplicity, her character nor the team is neatly reverted to a happy family again. (A natural fear when a good guy goes bad.) The ending catapults the story and the team into the next story arc where lingering questions and mysteries will still need to be explained. The White Queen still appears to be under Cassandra Nova’s sway. Cyclops has only just become, ummm, a bi-clops so there is still some discussion to be had about this mystery. A new puzzle to solve will be Colossus' involvement in the fate of the Breakworld. So in essence, this isn’t a proper finale to the story arc as only a few questions were answered and the ramifications should be significant.
Whedon and Co. presented a psychological thriller under the guise of mutant mystery and mayhem. The entire storyline was contained to the mansion and was entertainingly claustrophobic. Now the team heads into an expansive and wide open storyline, involving S.W.O.R.D. and the Breakworld (which in itself, as a subplot to the last six issues, was an interesting dichotomy to the main plot). It’s the perfect time for the story to be unleashed and for Cassady to play in a galactic sandbox again.
OVERALL:
http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xhalf.jpg
Buy Astonishing X-Men online now from X-WORLD and save! (http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopexd.asp?id=20972)
Story Title: Torn (Part 6 of 6)
Unraveling the ball of string
Writer: Joss Whedon
Artist: John Cassaday
Colorist: Laura Martin
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Assistant Editor: Sean Ryan
Associate Editor: Nick Lowe
Editor: Axel Alonso
Editor In Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Published By: Marvel Comics (www.marvel.com)
Astonishing X-Men #18 picks up right after last issue’s exciting cliffhanger, with Cyclops unable to access his powers yet with a greater amount of chutzpah than ever before. He quickly dispatches the Hellfire Club one by one, eventually exposing them as manifestations of Emma Frost’s psyche, itself being manipulated by Cassandra Nova. (Nova planted a seed in Frost’s mind right as she was placed into Stuff’s body at the end of Grant Morrison’s Imperial story arc.)
Interspersed with the main scenes are Danger and Ord’s destructive arrival at the mansion in pursuit of Colossus. Their warpath is interrupted by Wolverine and Beast, both of whom have finally reverted to their normal psyches and utilize their disparate talents to put a hold on their adversaries (albeit temporarily).
Cyclops quickly brings the team together and unveils the truth behind the Hellfire Club. The story climaxes with their attempts to save Emma which are in turn cut short by S.W.O.R.D’s whisking of the team, as well as Danger and Ord, from the mansion and off towards the Breakworld.
Whedon does a great job at truly affecting the characters, except for perhaps Marvel's most overaffected character, Wolverine (who is nicely planted on the periphery of this storyline). The White Queen and Cyclops get some much needed characterization. Cyclops has been a sort of jack-of-all-comic-books lately, having been drafted over to other creative team's sandboxes during House of M, Decimation and Civil War, as well as to other X-titles. Unfortunately, most writers have a hard time breaking Scott Summers from his cardboard mold. (And some just flat out make a mockery of him. Witness the misuse of Cyclops in the recent Apocalypse debacle in adjectiveless X-Men.) On the other hand, White Queen is so ridiculously overcharacterized by most recent X-title creative teams that she's become impossible to buy as a heroine no less the lover of one of the Marvel Universe's greatest boy scouts. Whedon does a great job tinkering with their templates and delving into the depths below the surface stereotypes of these characters.
Most importantly, Whedon wants to truly make a mark on the characters. Shadowcat isn't quick to block out the psychic tinkering that was done to her because it truly affected her. It makes you wonder how poorly some of these titles are written when characters have their minds' invaded and seem to recover so quickly from it. It would be in Marvel's best interests to recruit a writer with a similiar focus to the fold when Whedon departs. But let's not get ahead of ourselves...
Cassady continues to have fun with the confines of the storyline, never wasting a frame on what other artists might not put a lot of detail into. The entire sequence of feral Beast's reversion to normal is clever and befitting the nature of the character. On the surface, Whedon's ball of string plot device might come off as a silly way to get out of danger but coupled with Logan's similar reaction to the beer can, it makes for not only much-needed humor but actually exposes an even more silly premise: that the team would NOT be prepared for the constant tinkering of their minds by adversaries like Cassandra Nova.
While the conclusion explains the White Queen's seeming duplicity, her character nor the team is neatly reverted to a happy family again. (A natural fear when a good guy goes bad.) The ending catapults the story and the team into the next story arc where lingering questions and mysteries will still need to be explained. The White Queen still appears to be under Cassandra Nova’s sway. Cyclops has only just become, ummm, a bi-clops so there is still some discussion to be had about this mystery. A new puzzle to solve will be Colossus' involvement in the fate of the Breakworld. So in essence, this isn’t a proper finale to the story arc as only a few questions were answered and the ramifications should be significant.
Whedon and Co. presented a psychological thriller under the guise of mutant mystery and mayhem. The entire storyline was contained to the mansion and was entertainingly claustrophobic. Now the team heads into an expansive and wide open storyline, involving S.W.O.R.D. and the Breakworld (which in itself, as a subplot to the last six issues, was an interesting dichotomy to the main plot). It’s the perfect time for the story to be unleashed and for Cassady to play in a galactic sandbox again.
OVERALL:
http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xhalf.jpg
Buy Astonishing X-Men online now from X-WORLD and save! (http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopexd.asp?id=20972)