Astonishing X-men is... Astonishing!
So playing Kitty in XGD has inspired me to find out more about the character... I've considered her my second fav for a long time, but didn't put the effort into researching her that I did (and do) for Nightcrawler.
In the course of looking for zomg!awesome Kitty pics and tidbits about her personality (she loves the Chicago Cubs, Cat's Laughing, and sci-fi movies), I ended up reading a *lot* of Astonishing X-men. (Everything I could scrounge up on scans_daily, in fact.)
I've read Astonishing before. Back when there was that MSN group that had zillions and zillions of comic scans (shut down, sadly, for obvious reasons), I started reading it. I liked it a lot, but circumstances were such that it wasn't high on my priority list to read the rest. I kept up with it as best I could with uxm.net summaries and scans from the wonderful, life-giving scans_daily people. I decided two things:
1. I love Whedon/Cassaday like INSANE and will miss them when they're gone (though I have liked Warren Ellis in the past, and he does write a good Kitty; just so sad to lose Whedon. But I'll get my Whedon fix because starting Friday I am so getting into Firefly.)
2. Astonishing X-men is the best X-book right now, by a long-shot.
Yep - even better than X-factor. (And I looooove X-factor. Also X-factor isn't really an X-book because it's not about X-men, but it's got an X there so, yeah.) Even better than Mike Carey's Adjectiveless X-men. And, of course, ONE HUNDRED MILLION TIMES BETTER than Ed Brubaker on "Uncannily Puke-worthy!" X-men. (Ok, he's been doing... better. I'll give him that. But srsly. Brubaker wins "Best Comic Writer of the Year"? Maybe for his Cap stuff - if they're going by that, okay. But regarding the X-men - WHEDON. Carey is a contender. I pick Whedon because he chaned my opinions of EVER SINGLE CHARACTER on that team soooo drastically, and for the better. Carey is great, awesome dialogue and action, not to mention character interaction. Astonishing just functions so well as its own story though, so I guess that makes me feel like I'm entering familiar territory. One thing that's always been hard for me with comics is the convoluted backgrounds, the "things that will never happen" because some diehard fans would get mad, and the retcons and the OTPs and the washed-out writers, etc. Astonishing avoids all that and pretty much reads like an illustrated book. It gives me this warm, tingly feeling inside, like I've just come home to something I know and understand. Oh good writing, oh perfect plottage, how I missed you!
Astonishing is quirky too. <3 LOGAN. I love Wolverine a million times more since I started reading it. I liked him before, but - Astonishing made him accessible for me. Scott, too. Did you know Scott has a sense of humor!? *gasp* I KNOW!! IT'S SHOCKING!! lawlz. I liked Emma before (Emma > Jean, imho - love Jean, sick of "Jean/Scott is mah OTP") because of her attitude and history. I like her even more now that I have a grip on the incredible dynamic of her and Kitty. Beast? Is made of love and win and chocolate-coated strawberries. I used to despise Piotr. Thought he was dumb and idiotic and useless as anything but a powerhouse, and I don't like powerhouses. Astonishing made me like him - even made me like Kitty/Piotr. It's given me a reason to think they're - sit down for this - plausible as a couple. Have never thought that before, not since they broke up after that debacle with Zsaji. Piotr is... cool. For lack of a better word. I give him props for that and a second chance to impress me. And Kitty? LOVELOVELOVE. She's not Claremonts "Kitty Is Perfect!" Kitty or baby Kitty or big sis Kitty. I like those (except that incarnation of Claremont's) She's an X-MAN. She functions as a member of a time like she hasn't since Excalibur.
And the thing about Astonishing I *really* like is similar to what I adore about X-factor... the humanity of the characters. They have depth and we get wonderful first-person captions (with a lot more attitude and personality than Claremont's exposition) that dig into their brains. And we get to see them being human... Logan has cereal for breakfast and spills the milk, Scott has funky dreams about wearing a tutu, Kitty dresses like one of the guys, Emma has *shockandhorror* emotions, Piotr can be witty, Kitty phases through the floor during sex (okay, that one's not so human, but you see what I mean). A little touch of humor and semi-normalcy is MORE THAN WELCOME, THANK YOU MARVEL THANK YOU.
I mean, it like totally makes up for anything else Marvel's done I haven't liked lately. It's so... <3<3<3
I want to buy the entire run thus far. Is it available in TPBs!?!?!
On another note, I'm really excited about post-MC X-men. It looks awesome. (Way too much angsty Scott in Uncanny, evidently, but hopefully that will pass, and Logan-pranking-Kurt could totally make up for it.) I'm a little worried about Bru *still* being on Uncanny, but... as I said, he has been getting better, and in his interview he said a lot of things that I thought sounded like great ideas. (Really weird, though, that he said Scott is the only X-man to *always* be an X-man, explaining that his absence as leader of the X-men way back when - the time when Storm led - was negligible because it was so short... He sure didn't imply the same thing about Storm's absence, which was *shorter* and a lot more understandable, seeing as she'd lost her powers! And also - what about Kurt and Kitty? They totally would have stayed X-men if they hadn't been *lied* to and told the X-men were dead, which made them form Excalibur in the first place! Of course later they still may have gone off to college/seminary but that's all what-if business now.)
Uhhh yeah, rabbit trail. So anyway, Uncanny sounds promising. X-men: Legacy... not so much. We'll see. It's way too early to judge that. X-force I Do Not Like. Still. Saw some more preview pages, though, and I liked Wolvie's dialogue as he tried to get James and Laura to back out while they still could. Buuut... Not making any promises. It's really going to have to impress me with the THEORY behind it, not even the writing or the characters... because I can't see it ending well. And what was with all the drama at the end of X-men #207? "There are no more X-men" uhhh what? Judging from the previews, they're still around... Interested to see what is going to come of that. Also, Wolverine trying to track down Mystique should be interesting. Question is, what business does he have with her? Is it about the baby, or Rogue? Or does she have some info from Sinny that's important? Can't wait for that.
And Nighty gets a short little mini in X-men: Divided We Stand, so I'm really happy about that. :D
Looking forward to seeing what's going on with Pixie. Don't like her much... she's the type of character that makes me want to puke. Buut she's been tainted in Limbo so I can't wait to see what happens with that. Def wondering where the other NXM are! I don't like the line-up for Young X-men, not if that's all there is. NONE OF MY FAVORITES ARE THERE! Hopefully they'll show up, either in YXM or elsewhere. T__T
And what the heck happened to Kitty? She still hasn't shown up anywhere. INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW!
In the course of looking for zomg!awesome Kitty pics and tidbits about her personality (she loves the Chicago Cubs, Cat's Laughing, and sci-fi movies), I ended up reading a *lot* of Astonishing X-men. (Everything I could scrounge up on scans_daily, in fact.)
I've read Astonishing before. Back when there was that MSN group that had zillions and zillions of comic scans (shut down, sadly, for obvious reasons), I started reading it. I liked it a lot, but circumstances were such that it wasn't high on my priority list to read the rest. I kept up with it as best I could with uxm.net summaries and scans from the wonderful, life-giving scans_daily people. I decided two things:
1. I love Whedon/Cassaday like INSANE and will miss them when they're gone (though I have liked Warren Ellis in the past, and he does write a good Kitty; just so sad to lose Whedon. But I'll get my Whedon fix because starting Friday I am so getting into Firefly.)
2. Astonishing X-men is the best X-book right now, by a long-shot.
Yep - even better than X-factor. (And I looooove X-factor. Also X-factor isn't really an X-book because it's not about X-men, but it's got an X there so, yeah.) Even better than Mike Carey's Adjectiveless X-men. And, of course, ONE HUNDRED MILLION TIMES BETTER than Ed Brubaker on "Uncannily Puke-worthy!" X-men. (Ok, he's been doing... better. I'll give him that. But srsly. Brubaker wins "Best Comic Writer of the Year"? Maybe for his Cap stuff - if they're going by that, okay. But regarding the X-men - WHEDON. Carey is a contender. I pick Whedon because he chaned my opinions of EVER SINGLE CHARACTER on that team soooo drastically, and for the better. Carey is great, awesome dialogue and action, not to mention character interaction. Astonishing just functions so well as its own story though, so I guess that makes me feel like I'm entering familiar territory. One thing that's always been hard for me with comics is the convoluted backgrounds, the "things that will never happen" because some diehard fans would get mad, and the retcons and the OTPs and the washed-out writers, etc. Astonishing avoids all that and pretty much reads like an illustrated book. It gives me this warm, tingly feeling inside, like I've just come home to something I know and understand. Oh good writing, oh perfect plottage, how I missed you!
Astonishing is quirky too. <3 LOGAN. I love Wolverine a million times more since I started reading it. I liked him before, but - Astonishing made him accessible for me. Scott, too. Did you know Scott has a sense of humor!? *gasp* I KNOW!! IT'S SHOCKING!! lawlz. I liked Emma before (Emma > Jean, imho - love Jean, sick of "Jean/Scott is mah OTP") because of her attitude and history. I like her even more now that I have a grip on the incredible dynamic of her and Kitty. Beast? Is made of love and win and chocolate-coated strawberries. I used to despise Piotr. Thought he was dumb and idiotic and useless as anything but a powerhouse, and I don't like powerhouses. Astonishing made me like him - even made me like Kitty/Piotr. It's given me a reason to think they're - sit down for this - plausible as a couple. Have never thought that before, not since they broke up after that debacle with Zsaji. Piotr is... cool. For lack of a better word. I give him props for that and a second chance to impress me. And Kitty? LOVELOVELOVE. She's not Claremonts "Kitty Is Perfect!" Kitty or baby Kitty or big sis Kitty. I like those (except that incarnation of Claremont's) She's an X-MAN. She functions as a member of a time like she hasn't since Excalibur.
And the thing about Astonishing I *really* like is similar to what I adore about X-factor... the humanity of the characters. They have depth and we get wonderful first-person captions (with a lot more attitude and personality than Claremont's exposition) that dig into their brains. And we get to see them being human... Logan has cereal for breakfast and spills the milk, Scott has funky dreams about wearing a tutu, Kitty dresses like one of the guys, Emma has *shockandhorror* emotions, Piotr can be witty, Kitty phases through the floor during sex (okay, that one's not so human, but you see what I mean). A little touch of humor and semi-normalcy is MORE THAN WELCOME, THANK YOU MARVEL THANK YOU.
I mean, it like totally makes up for anything else Marvel's done I haven't liked lately. It's so... <3<3<3
I want to buy the entire run thus far. Is it available in TPBs!?!?!
On another note, I'm really excited about post-MC X-men. It looks awesome. (Way too much angsty Scott in Uncanny, evidently, but hopefully that will pass, and Logan-pranking-Kurt could totally make up for it.) I'm a little worried about Bru *still* being on Uncanny, but... as I said, he has been getting better, and in his interview he said a lot of things that I thought sounded like great ideas. (Really weird, though, that he said Scott is the only X-man to *always* be an X-man, explaining that his absence as leader of the X-men way back when - the time when Storm led - was negligible because it was so short... He sure didn't imply the same thing about Storm's absence, which was *shorter* and a lot more understandable, seeing as she'd lost her powers! And also - what about Kurt and Kitty? They totally would have stayed X-men if they hadn't been *lied* to and told the X-men were dead, which made them form Excalibur in the first place! Of course later they still may have gone off to college/seminary but that's all what-if business now.)
Uhhh yeah, rabbit trail. So anyway, Uncanny sounds promising. X-men: Legacy... not so much. We'll see. It's way too early to judge that. X-force I Do Not Like. Still. Saw some more preview pages, though, and I liked Wolvie's dialogue as he tried to get James and Laura to back out while they still could. Buuut... Not making any promises. It's really going to have to impress me with the THEORY behind it, not even the writing or the characters... because I can't see it ending well. And what was with all the drama at the end of X-men #207? "There are no more X-men" uhhh what? Judging from the previews, they're still around... Interested to see what is going to come of that. Also, Wolverine trying to track down Mystique should be interesting. Question is, what business does he have with her? Is it about the baby, or Rogue? Or does she have some info from Sinny that's important? Can't wait for that.
And Nighty gets a short little mini in X-men: Divided We Stand, so I'm really happy about that. :D
Looking forward to seeing what's going on with Pixie. Don't like her much... she's the type of character that makes me want to puke. Buut she's been tainted in Limbo so I can't wait to see what happens with that. Def wondering where the other NXM are! I don't like the line-up for Young X-men, not if that's all there is. NONE OF MY FAVORITES ARE THERE! Hopefully they'll show up, either in YXM or elsewhere. T__T
And what the heck happened to Kitty? She still hasn't shown up anywhere. INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW!