Astonishing X-men Review: Issues 1-24, plus the annual.
Surprisingly, my reaction is not as completely hate-filled as I was expecting it to be now that I've read it all together. There's still an insane amount of crap here, and it suffers from all the issues Joss' works usually suffer from. But, there are bits that I don't hate, and even parts that I actually like. And then there are the parts that fill me with a hatred that burns with the intensity of a million raging supernovas, as was expected.
So here it is, from beginning to end, my review of the entire Astonishing X-men run by Joss Whedon. Mostly arc by arc, but it's sort of all over the place with reactions to character arcs, relationships, and ongoing plot arcs.
"Gifted" - I have to say that even having read all of it now, I still kind of like the opening arc. Some of the stuff, however, takes on new meaning in retrospect. For instance, Kitty's opening monologue is a whole new thing now that I'm reading after having seen the utter mess Joss turned my beloved Kitty into. So these days, of course, I'm all about the Emma love. But when I went into Astonishing (which was four years ago, people!), I was a total Kitty fangirl and was very much indifferent to Emma, and Joss' run has contributed to that to a great degree. Not so much to my Emma love (which is inspired mostly by her miniseries and Morrison) but rather to my annoyance with Kitty.
Kitty's opening monologue is all about how things have not changed a bit, and this seems to be Joss' whole take when approaching Kitty's characterization. She's exactly the way she was when she first came to the X-men, and that grossly disregards any and all character development Kitty went through in her time away from the X-men. As Joss himself has said, he didn't read any X-comics after Inferno until Morrison's run. Which means that he missed out on all of Excalibur and that is tragic in terms of Kitty's character development, a large part of which occurred during her stay in England. Kitty *grew up* during Excalibur. And Joss' arc here is also about Kitty growing up in a way and coming into her own, and that just feels so very, very wrong to me. Kitty is already a grown woman, and I *liked* the person she became during Excalibur...and Joss's version of Kitty is still very much a girl. As she herself says in the opening monologue, "I'm a kid again, out of my depth -- completely overwhelmed by everything here." And the Kitty from Excalibur? Would never feel this way coming back to the X-men. And as overwhelmed as Kitty is, she apparently manages to kick all kinds of ass in a self-righteous way all over the run. As someone said, Kitty is Buffy with all of her bad qualities multiplied by ten and lacking all of the little quirks and nuances that make Buffy an actually likable character despite her occasional self-righteous assholery.
Emma/Kitty: The subtext is still fun and interesting in the first arc, back when Emma's antagonism was awesome and Kitty was being snarky and not self-righteous with her insults. In some ways, the Emma/Kitty relationship is the most important one in the run because Joss' whole run, in many ways, rests on the Emma/Kitty duality, which is one of my biggest issues with the run. While the duality starts out mildly and makes sense, Kitty's blind hatred of Emma gets to be a bit much later on. For instance, one of Kitty and Emma's first argument is over Emma wanting to kill Dr. Roa, to which Kitty objects. I'm not even sure that Emma was dead serious about killing her...she seemed to just be throwing that out as an extreme option, just in case. But Kitty goes off on that and accuses Emma of mind-controlling Scott, and by implication the X-men. Which, I didn't mind. It's a valid concern coming from Kitty at this point in the run. And I like the Emma/Kitty snarkery because it makes me ship. However, compare this view of Kitty's to the later events in the book: When Emma's break-down is revealed, Scott has to stop Kitty from shooting Emma. So Kitty's, "X-men never kill, not even genocidal assholes" turns very quickly into "The X-men don't kill, unless it's me and my personal happiness with Colussus has been threatened by unintentional mind-control induced by someone who is going through a mental breakdown." And, you know, this plot? Would completely be okay if that was actually the point of it: That Kitty and Emma are not very different.
Kitty and Emma are my two favorite X-women, and I'm completely biased in my favorites. I have a type, and I never really stray far from that type when picking favorites. I think Emma and Kitty are very alike. Kitty turns into the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club under different circumstance during "Mutant X" and some random verses explored in "Excalibur." And miniseries!Emma is very Kitty-like. They're both extremely strong-willed, have a fondness for teaching, and they're both survivors. And I wanted the run to get to that at some point, but instead, Joss is only interested in how he can replay his Dark Heroine/Light Heroine obsession through Kitty and Emma, so Kitty becomes some weird combination of Willow, Fred, and every other character of that type that Joss pens , while Emma's otherness is played up through her ambiguous motivations. A lot of the suspense of the series lies in the reader's perception of Emma as shady and Kitty as good, and that's problematic on several different levels. Kitty's mistrust of Emma is justified rather than challenged, and therein lies my whole issue with this dynamic.
Having read the annual, I'm glad that this dynamic was somewhat resolved in a positive manner, but that doesn't really make up for all the oddness that came before. But there were still bits there that disturbed me, which I'll get to in the review for the "Gaint-Sized Astonishing X-men" bit.
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"Dangerous" - I had forgotten the general mediocrity of this plot. This is where I initially lost interest and sort of dropped the book for a while before morbid curiosity and newfound Emma love brought me back. I was still reading mostly for the Kitty-ness of it then, and this? Is where the Kitty plot started going to hell, starting with the hints of Kitty/Piotr. Kitty being all clingly and odd about finding Piotr just seems so wrong, and it only gets worse as the series progresses. I would've been okay with the depth of her feelings if these feelings weren't being portrayed as romantic feelings. Excalibur!Kitty? Generally too smart to be entertained by the dullness of Piotr for more than about five seconds, much less date him and actually have a relationship with him.
Also, this sequence of all of them fighting and their thoughts? "The X-men didn't find [Piotr]. I did! I can't explain how that feels." Way to put the "I" in team, Kitty. You found him, you're an X-man, therefore, the X-men did find him. Anyway, the whole monologue of thoughts seems to be working towards the punchline of Wolverine thinking, "I really like beer!" while fighting. The joke is very similar to the one seen on Buffy, where everyone has deep, fun thoughts, and Cordelia's thoughts are not deep and are pretty much exactly what she says out loud. It worked on Buffy because it *got* Cordelia, and the humor was in how accurate that was. But I very much doubt that Wolverine actually thinks about beer while fighting monsters. So it's mis-characterization for the sake of humor, which Joss does a lot with Wolverine throughout the run. During the "Torn" arc when everyone is broken down mentally, Joss had promised that what he was going to do with Wolverine would revolutionize not only his character but the entire X-verse. This revolution consisted of Wolverine acting like a scared little boy who came back to himself when he was hit by a can of beer that fell on his head. So, in a way, Wolverine's entire character development in "Astonishing X-men" revolves around his love of beer. Which, I suppose, is new because I never realized that beer was that important to Wolverine.
The whole Kitty/Piotr drama with the misunderstanding and the unneeded angst is just so...juvenile and feels forced. Kitty acts all childish, whiny, and insecure when she's with him, and it's really painful to read. And there are random moments where she sounds like Willow, and that alone fills me with burning hatred. I've scanned the fight here for your viewing displeasure. And then Piotr says, "It's good to know that no matter how long I'm gone, you do not grow up too much." Of course it is, Piotr, you creepy pedophile. And, um, yeah...their whole relationship disturbs me on so many different levels. I thought it was cute, pre-Pryde/Wisdom when she was crushing and he was unattainable, but when he started returning her interest and wishing he could take her to Russia and marry her when she was fourteen? It got a bit creepy, and it hasn't stopped. And see, their relationship can be written in an adult way, but Joss isn't interested in that. Joss wants to bring back the exact dynamic they used to have when he was reading, and that sort of requires Kitty to act like an insecure 13-year-old, which she does throughout their interaction.
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"Torn" - Kitty's willingness to kill Emma really bugs me, and my sister pointed out that it's a bit like Buffy's willingness to kill Faith, which I have never gotten over. Buffy is all about the "We don't kill humans" thing until it gets personal. Then not only is she willing to kill Faith, she's so okay with it that it never becomes an issue for her. And I get that Faith doesn't die, but it's not from the lack of trying on Buffy's part. And this is what Kitty's issues feel like, "The X-men don't kill! Unless I'm personally being mentally tortured, in which case, it's okay to kill a mentally disturbed TEAMMATE who is not evil because I have *personal* issues with her." To be fair, however, Kitty wanting to kill Emma came immediately after the mind-warp and wasn't pre-meditated like Buffy's killing of Faith. On the other hand, in "X-men: True Friends," Kitty actually talked herself out of killing freaking Hilter all on her own. But Kitty's issues with Emma must trump her issues with Hitler, apparently, because Scott has to talk Kitty out of killing her.
In retrospect, I don't completely hate this arc (although there's still a lot of hate). Honestly, if not for the delays, Joss' whole run would've probably annoyed me a lot less. But, as has been mentioned before, I have much Roswell trauma in my past. I don't think rationally when there's a possibility that a favorite character is possibly going to be retconned into having been evil all along, because Katims totally went there with Tess. Logically speaking, my brain knew where this plot was going, and when it was revealed, I was disappointed by the predictability of it. But mostly? I was relieved that Emma's whole characterization in the last few years hadn't been retconned.
The whole Hellfire club thing is revealed to have been in Emma's head, triggered by a suggestion Cassandra Nova put into Emma's head before Emma ticked her into a human shell of a body. Which the whole fandom kind of saw coming. There was really no other way this could've gone if Emma weren't going to be retconned completely.
One of the biggest things revealed in this arc is that Scott's inability to control his powers is a choice he made. He created a condition for himself to ensure that he'll always have to be in control of his powers/emotions/etc. So, I know that some of you have issues with Scott's power retcon, and I completely agree with all your objections to it. But I'm ashamed to admit that I sort of like it for newness' sake and for the shippage it brings. Because apparently, I'm blinded by the Emma/Scottness of it. I doubt, however, that Xavier, who is very hardcore these days, would've ever given the team to Scott out of pity. So I wonder if Emma is speculating on Scott's view of it, and not actually stating a fact when she talks about why Xavier made Scott the leader of the X-men. Scott does have control issues, so I could see him doing that. The issue here is that Xavier and Jean never saw it despite being more powerful telepaths than Emma is.
Xavier, at least, would've had something to gain from Scott's issues, so he might have willingly not said anything, considering that he's just that kind of an asshole these days. Jean's motivations would have to be a bit more complicated, but Jean has always had disassociation issues going, so even if the Phoenix were aware of it doesn't mean that Jean was. I mean, Jean has to be, at the very least, suppressing the Madelyne Pryor parts of her psyche if she's not burning with raging hatred for Scott and is actually apparently in love with him. Who knows what else she's blocking out for sanity's sake? So, yeah, it's a total retcon, but it's possibly a plausible one. Not to say that I don't have issues with it still, but it's nowhere near the worst part of the series.
The worst, unfortunately, is yet to come in the very last arc.
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"Unstoppable" - Themes from the last arc sort of bleed into this one because it wasn't properly resolved. Emma/Scott issues being one of them. I'm still really meh on Scott's, "I'm in love with you now." So Emma and he are discussing Emma's break-down and misguided attempt to kill the X-men while actually trying to get them to kill her, and Emma says, "Don't pretend that everything is the way it was." Emma realizes that something has changed in their relationship, and Scott agrees. And the difference is, apparently, that he loves her now. Which implies that he didn't love her before. I don't mind that so much, because I don't see Emma and Scott as completely in love at the end of the Morrison run. Emma is, yes, and while Scott sort of picks Emma over Jean in a way, my feeling is that it's because at this point, he sees more of a future with Emma than he does with Jean and not because he's actually more in love with Emma. But...I'm uncomfortable with Scott's confession because he doesn't say that he realized that he loves her, but rather, he actually fell in love with her during "Torn." Which makes some of his dismissive behavior towards her earlier come off more as general assholery than just their usual snark towards each other.
So let's take a look at what happens during "Torn" that might've made Scott love Emma when he apparently didn't before: 1). Emma has a mental breakdown and tries to kill all the X-men. 2). But she's actually just wanting them to kill her, so she's suicidal. 3). She's suffering from survivor's guilt, some post traumatic stress, and possibly some serious disassociation what with creating a whole new set of evil friends to play with. 4). Emma mentally breaks down Scott and fixes his issues.
So, either Scott has a thing for mentally unstable women or he's incredibly selfish. He has to see Emma completely broken down and messed up before he'll fall in love with her? That's dark and interesting, but I don't exactly see where Scott would have to be coming from for that to happen. Another possibility is that what makes him fall in love with her is that she "found" him the way Jean never could and made him deal with his issues. And that's always been sort of their thing. Jean and Scott are happy and in love and they like each other the way they are. Emma and Scott have to work at liking and loving each other and that includes pushing each other into places where they would normally not go, which is what makes them more interesting for me. Emma throws Scott's issues at him, which he apparently likes. And the more she challenges him/messes with him, the better he loves her. Which is kind of amusing. But it also implies that he doesn't love Emma but rather loves what she did for him. Which is a bit selfish and odd. So, mostly? It's the use of the "now" that disturbs me, which highly implies that the love (and not the realization of it) is sudden and happened after Scott woke up with control over his powers.
This is probably my biggest issue with the Emma/Scott arc of this series. This revelation, despite all its issues, might not have been odd if Joss had been putting his issues out on time. But he didn't, and by the time it came along, we had already had several confirmations of the fact that Scott does, in fact, love Emma. Emma is a telepath; he doesn't have to tell her he loves her and I don't think she would put up with all the X-crap if he didn't. Which brings me to another issue I had with this: Emma's total shock at Scott's confession, which seemed odd considering that, well, she reads minds.
The Breakworld parts of this arc started out intriguing, got confusing, and then got really boring and I stopped caring. I'm not sure I actually got all of it and I don't really care enough to reread.
The Piotr/Kitty bits in this were painful. Kitty's seducing Piotr in space? Yeah, like my mind didn't go back to the Brood arc where she tried that and was 14 and Piotr was, like, 20 and wishing that they could go there. Creepy. And...I just don't see Kitty regressing back to a point where she would want to have a relationship with Piotr after everything they had been through since their break-up.
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"Giant Sized Astonishing X-men" - I think I actually liked this run better before I read this. As Joss finales go, this one rates pretty high on the level of suckage. There are some good bits, yes, but they're so grossly outweighed by the crappy bits that it's hard to care. The whole Superhero party? No idea why they brought them all in anyway. Because, really, it makes the ending seem without logic because there's no way they wouldn't have been able to figure out a way to fix this if they had really gotten everyone involved. I mean, Magneto could've just...melted the bullet or something, no? And if he's dead or depowered these days, there's Lorna. And where's Rachel while the love of her life is about to sacrifice herself for humanity? She could've helped?
Kitty bonding with the freaking metal bullet has to be one of the most ridiculous things ever. How does it make sense? And any emotional impact it might have had is sort of lost in the hilarity of "She's a bullet now!" Of course, it's not a Joss finale unless people are dying completely unneeded deaths. At this point, it would actually be surprising if he *didn't* off someone unnecessarily in a finale.
But, I guess, better Kitty than Emma. Which pains me to say because I've loved Kitty a lot longer, but Joss made her into someone I wouldn't have minded losing. Especially if I had to suffer through Kitty/Pitor in all her appearances. I know that Joss feels the need to tear apart a relationship in everything he's written, and I was hoping it was going to be Piotr/Kitty and not Emma/Scott, but why couldn't Piotr have bitten the dust instead?
I didn't think I would mind Kitty dying, after the way Joss reinvented her, but I'm actually filled with rage over it. It's possible that I'm a bit too attached to Kitty - she's the reason I started reading comics, and it feels odd to lose her. Especially now when Warren Elllis would be writing Astonishing. All through the crappy Joss stuff towards the end, I kept thinking that Ellis would redeem Kitty because Ellis!Kitty is still my favorite Kitty. And now? He wouldn't get a chance because Joss couldn't leave without fucking it up for everyone else. And I'm especially bitter about this because I was really, really looking forward to some Kitty/Pete Wisdom interaction now that they were both slated to be written by people who ship Pryde/Wisdom. And, yeah. I know she'll be back eventually, but it would probably be a while and by that time, who knows if Pete would even still be around? I'm so sad for the tragic separation of my OTP. Sigh.
I liked the Emma/Scott bit at the end. Ah, how I love them and hope that Marvel never, ever takes them away from me. In fact, I kind of would've liked the entire Scott/Emma arc of it if not for the whole "I'm in love with you now" bit. If only I could find a way to fanwank that, I could ship without bitterness.
The Agent Brand/Beast stuff was odd. I liked her a lot, but the last arc made her kind of 'meh' and her badassery was considerably diminished, and the Beast love contributed to it.
More on Kitty/Emma: The last bit with Emma and Kitty was nice, but I still kind of hate the assumption behind it. Emma tells Kitty that it wasn't Kitty who was supposed to die, and Kitty agrees that she was brought here to kill Emma instead. And then Kitty asks if Emma is surprised at this turn of events, to which, Emma says that she's, um, astonished. My interpretation of this is that Emma's astonishment has to do with the sacrifice Kitty is making, so Emma is surprised by Kitty's powers/abilities/self-sacrifice? But, see, the way this arc is set up, Kitty isn't the one who needs to prove herself to Emma. Emma has kind of believed in Kitty's awesomeness, in her own messed-up way, since their first appearances in Uncanny X-men back when Kitty was 13, and Emma was evil and randomly trying to seduce Kitty over to the dark side. Kitty, however, doubted Emma's intentions since the beginning of the run, so I can't help but feel that the last exchange should've had more to do with Kitty acknowledging Emma's awesomeness. Okay, yeah, that'd be pushing it, but there should've been some sort of a positive affirmation from Kitty's end. The way it stands now, everyone is all, "It shouldn't have been her." That combined with Emma's own surprise at Kitty's death (rather than her own) resulting from these events sort of implies that Emma is, somehow, more deserving of death. Which? Totally ridiculous. Emma's arc is an important one in the series, but Kitty's arc is all about heroism while Emma's is about her mental breakdown. Kitty is being built up during the entire run as Emma is being broken down (in terms of characterization at first and then mentally), which is an interesting contrast to note. So even though Emma didn't turn out to be evil as had been feared and predicted, Joss's arc is still very much about his perception of Emma as human, fragile, and fucked up and Kitty as girlish, innocent, and heroic. Emma being human and jaded is what makes us love Emma, but Morrisons's Emma was heroic despite those flaws. As was Morrison's Jean, IMO, despite the fact that Jean and Emma were being played against each other in terms of their relationship to Scott and in having similar powers and roles to perform. But in Joss's run, Kitty's heroic nature is in direct contrast with Emma's plot because of the way Joss has set them up as being antagonist towards each other. So the Kitty/Emma duality and Kitty's characterization remain my biggest issues with Joss' run.
All in all, it's sort of an entertaining read when read all together (as opposed to a hair-pulling read when read with delays) and there are some good bits. The plot is mostly okay, and I think that it's the characterization that sucks the fun out of it. I also think that, for me, the constant mindless praise of his run affects my opinion of it. This is supposedly the best X-men run ever, according to a large number of fans. And I think it's only mediocre approaching good with some ridiculously hateful bits. Which, in itself, isn't so horrible, but my opinion of it is probably harsher because in my mind, I compare it to what the best X-men run would actually be like, and it falls horribly short. Honestly, with the amount of crap being put out by Marvel, it's not that surprising people like it this much, but there's just no justification for this being the best X-men run ever. Not even looking at the past runs like "Excalibur" and "New X-men," the current X-Factor run is consistently awesome and better than Astonishing. The only reason it gets no love it because it's not filled with A-list characters.
So here it is, from beginning to end, my review of the entire Astonishing X-men run by Joss Whedon. Mostly arc by arc, but it's sort of all over the place with reactions to character arcs, relationships, and ongoing plot arcs.
"Gifted" - I have to say that even having read all of it now, I still kind of like the opening arc. Some of the stuff, however, takes on new meaning in retrospect. For instance, Kitty's opening monologue is a whole new thing now that I'm reading after having seen the utter mess Joss turned my beloved Kitty into. So these days, of course, I'm all about the Emma love. But when I went into Astonishing (which was four years ago, people!), I was a total Kitty fangirl and was very much indifferent to Emma, and Joss' run has contributed to that to a great degree. Not so much to my Emma love (which is inspired mostly by her miniseries and Morrison) but rather to my annoyance with Kitty.
Kitty's opening monologue is all about how things have not changed a bit, and this seems to be Joss' whole take when approaching Kitty's characterization. She's exactly the way she was when she first came to the X-men, and that grossly disregards any and all character development Kitty went through in her time away from the X-men. As Joss himself has said, he didn't read any X-comics after Inferno until Morrison's run. Which means that he missed out on all of Excalibur and that is tragic in terms of Kitty's character development, a large part of which occurred during her stay in England. Kitty *grew up* during Excalibur. And Joss' arc here is also about Kitty growing up in a way and coming into her own, and that just feels so very, very wrong to me. Kitty is already a grown woman, and I *liked* the person she became during Excalibur...and Joss's version of Kitty is still very much a girl. As she herself says in the opening monologue, "I'm a kid again, out of my depth -- completely overwhelmed by everything here." And the Kitty from Excalibur? Would never feel this way coming back to the X-men. And as overwhelmed as Kitty is, she apparently manages to kick all kinds of ass in a self-righteous way all over the run. As someone said, Kitty is Buffy with all of her bad qualities multiplied by ten and lacking all of the little quirks and nuances that make Buffy an actually likable character despite her occasional self-righteous assholery.
Emma/Kitty: The subtext is still fun and interesting in the first arc, back when Emma's antagonism was awesome and Kitty was being snarky and not self-righteous with her insults. In some ways, the Emma/Kitty relationship is the most important one in the run because Joss' whole run, in many ways, rests on the Emma/Kitty duality, which is one of my biggest issues with the run. While the duality starts out mildly and makes sense, Kitty's blind hatred of Emma gets to be a bit much later on. For instance, one of Kitty and Emma's first argument is over Emma wanting to kill Dr. Roa, to which Kitty objects. I'm not even sure that Emma was dead serious about killing her...she seemed to just be throwing that out as an extreme option, just in case. But Kitty goes off on that and accuses Emma of mind-controlling Scott, and by implication the X-men. Which, I didn't mind. It's a valid concern coming from Kitty at this point in the run. And I like the Emma/Kitty snarkery because it makes me ship. However, compare this view of Kitty's to the later events in the book: When Emma's break-down is revealed, Scott has to stop Kitty from shooting Emma. So Kitty's, "X-men never kill, not even genocidal assholes" turns very quickly into "The X-men don't kill, unless it's me and my personal happiness with Colussus has been threatened by unintentional mind-control induced by someone who is going through a mental breakdown." And, you know, this plot? Would completely be okay if that was actually the point of it: That Kitty and Emma are not very different.
Kitty and Emma are my two favorite X-women, and I'm completely biased in my favorites. I have a type, and I never really stray far from that type when picking favorites. I think Emma and Kitty are very alike. Kitty turns into the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club under different circumstance during "Mutant X" and some random verses explored in "Excalibur." And miniseries!Emma is very Kitty-like. They're both extremely strong-willed, have a fondness for teaching, and they're both survivors. And I wanted the run to get to that at some point, but instead, Joss is only interested in how he can replay his Dark Heroine/Light Heroine obsession through Kitty and Emma, so Kitty becomes some weird combination of Willow, Fred, and every other character of that type that Joss pens , while Emma's otherness is played up through her ambiguous motivations. A lot of the suspense of the series lies in the reader's perception of Emma as shady and Kitty as good, and that's problematic on several different levels. Kitty's mistrust of Emma is justified rather than challenged, and therein lies my whole issue with this dynamic.
Having read the annual, I'm glad that this dynamic was somewhat resolved in a positive manner, but that doesn't really make up for all the oddness that came before. But there were still bits there that disturbed me, which I'll get to in the review for the "Gaint-Sized Astonishing X-men" bit.
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"Dangerous" - I had forgotten the general mediocrity of this plot. This is where I initially lost interest and sort of dropped the book for a while before morbid curiosity and newfound Emma love brought me back. I was still reading mostly for the Kitty-ness of it then, and this? Is where the Kitty plot started going to hell, starting with the hints of Kitty/Piotr. Kitty being all clingly and odd about finding Piotr just seems so wrong, and it only gets worse as the series progresses. I would've been okay with the depth of her feelings if these feelings weren't being portrayed as romantic feelings. Excalibur!Kitty? Generally too smart to be entertained by the dullness of Piotr for more than about five seconds, much less date him and actually have a relationship with him.
Also, this sequence of all of them fighting and their thoughts? "The X-men didn't find [Piotr]. I did! I can't explain how that feels." Way to put the "I" in team, Kitty. You found him, you're an X-man, therefore, the X-men did find him. Anyway, the whole monologue of thoughts seems to be working towards the punchline of Wolverine thinking, "I really like beer!" while fighting. The joke is very similar to the one seen on Buffy, where everyone has deep, fun thoughts, and Cordelia's thoughts are not deep and are pretty much exactly what she says out loud. It worked on Buffy because it *got* Cordelia, and the humor was in how accurate that was. But I very much doubt that Wolverine actually thinks about beer while fighting monsters. So it's mis-characterization for the sake of humor, which Joss does a lot with Wolverine throughout the run. During the "Torn" arc when everyone is broken down mentally, Joss had promised that what he was going to do with Wolverine would revolutionize not only his character but the entire X-verse. This revolution consisted of Wolverine acting like a scared little boy who came back to himself when he was hit by a can of beer that fell on his head. So, in a way, Wolverine's entire character development in "Astonishing X-men" revolves around his love of beer. Which, I suppose, is new because I never realized that beer was that important to Wolverine.
The whole Kitty/Piotr drama with the misunderstanding and the unneeded angst is just so...juvenile and feels forced. Kitty acts all childish, whiny, and insecure when she's with him, and it's really painful to read. And there are random moments where she sounds like Willow, and that alone fills me with burning hatred. I've scanned the fight here for your viewing displeasure. And then Piotr says, "It's good to know that no matter how long I'm gone, you do not grow up too much." Of course it is, Piotr, you creepy pedophile. And, um, yeah...their whole relationship disturbs me on so many different levels. I thought it was cute, pre-Pryde/Wisdom when she was crushing and he was unattainable, but when he started returning her interest and wishing he could take her to Russia and marry her when she was fourteen? It got a bit creepy, and it hasn't stopped. And see, their relationship can be written in an adult way, but Joss isn't interested in that. Joss wants to bring back the exact dynamic they used to have when he was reading, and that sort of requires Kitty to act like an insecure 13-year-old, which she does throughout their interaction.
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"Torn" - Kitty's willingness to kill Emma really bugs me, and my sister pointed out that it's a bit like Buffy's willingness to kill Faith, which I have never gotten over. Buffy is all about the "We don't kill humans" thing until it gets personal. Then not only is she willing to kill Faith, she's so okay with it that it never becomes an issue for her. And I get that Faith doesn't die, but it's not from the lack of trying on Buffy's part. And this is what Kitty's issues feel like, "The X-men don't kill! Unless I'm personally being mentally tortured, in which case, it's okay to kill a mentally disturbed TEAMMATE who is not evil because I have *personal* issues with her." To be fair, however, Kitty wanting to kill Emma came immediately after the mind-warp and wasn't pre-meditated like Buffy's killing of Faith. On the other hand, in "X-men: True Friends," Kitty actually talked herself out of killing freaking Hilter all on her own. But Kitty's issues with Emma must trump her issues with Hitler, apparently, because Scott has to talk Kitty out of killing her.
In retrospect, I don't completely hate this arc (although there's still a lot of hate). Honestly, if not for the delays, Joss' whole run would've probably annoyed me a lot less. But, as has been mentioned before, I have much Roswell trauma in my past. I don't think rationally when there's a possibility that a favorite character is possibly going to be retconned into having been evil all along, because Katims totally went there with Tess. Logically speaking, my brain knew where this plot was going, and when it was revealed, I was disappointed by the predictability of it. But mostly? I was relieved that Emma's whole characterization in the last few years hadn't been retconned.
The whole Hellfire club thing is revealed to have been in Emma's head, triggered by a suggestion Cassandra Nova put into Emma's head before Emma ticked her into a human shell of a body. Which the whole fandom kind of saw coming. There was really no other way this could've gone if Emma weren't going to be retconned completely.
One of the biggest things revealed in this arc is that Scott's inability to control his powers is a choice he made. He created a condition for himself to ensure that he'll always have to be in control of his powers/emotions/etc. So, I know that some of you have issues with Scott's power retcon, and I completely agree with all your objections to it. But I'm ashamed to admit that I sort of like it for newness' sake and for the shippage it brings. Because apparently, I'm blinded by the Emma/Scottness of it. I doubt, however, that Xavier, who is very hardcore these days, would've ever given the team to Scott out of pity. So I wonder if Emma is speculating on Scott's view of it, and not actually stating a fact when she talks about why Xavier made Scott the leader of the X-men. Scott does have control issues, so I could see him doing that. The issue here is that Xavier and Jean never saw it despite being more powerful telepaths than Emma is.
Xavier, at least, would've had something to gain from Scott's issues, so he might have willingly not said anything, considering that he's just that kind of an asshole these days. Jean's motivations would have to be a bit more complicated, but Jean has always had disassociation issues going, so even if the Phoenix were aware of it doesn't mean that Jean was. I mean, Jean has to be, at the very least, suppressing the Madelyne Pryor parts of her psyche if she's not burning with raging hatred for Scott and is actually apparently in love with him. Who knows what else she's blocking out for sanity's sake? So, yeah, it's a total retcon, but it's possibly a plausible one. Not to say that I don't have issues with it still, but it's nowhere near the worst part of the series.
The worst, unfortunately, is yet to come in the very last arc.
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"Unstoppable" - Themes from the last arc sort of bleed into this one because it wasn't properly resolved. Emma/Scott issues being one of them. I'm still really meh on Scott's, "I'm in love with you now." So Emma and he are discussing Emma's break-down and misguided attempt to kill the X-men while actually trying to get them to kill her, and Emma says, "Don't pretend that everything is the way it was." Emma realizes that something has changed in their relationship, and Scott agrees. And the difference is, apparently, that he loves her now. Which implies that he didn't love her before. I don't mind that so much, because I don't see Emma and Scott as completely in love at the end of the Morrison run. Emma is, yes, and while Scott sort of picks Emma over Jean in a way, my feeling is that it's because at this point, he sees more of a future with Emma than he does with Jean and not because he's actually more in love with Emma. But...I'm uncomfortable with Scott's confession because he doesn't say that he realized that he loves her, but rather, he actually fell in love with her during "Torn." Which makes some of his dismissive behavior towards her earlier come off more as general assholery than just their usual snark towards each other.
So let's take a look at what happens during "Torn" that might've made Scott love Emma when he apparently didn't before: 1). Emma has a mental breakdown and tries to kill all the X-men. 2). But she's actually just wanting them to kill her, so she's suicidal. 3). She's suffering from survivor's guilt, some post traumatic stress, and possibly some serious disassociation what with creating a whole new set of evil friends to play with. 4). Emma mentally breaks down Scott and fixes his issues.
So, either Scott has a thing for mentally unstable women or he's incredibly selfish. He has to see Emma completely broken down and messed up before he'll fall in love with her? That's dark and interesting, but I don't exactly see where Scott would have to be coming from for that to happen. Another possibility is that what makes him fall in love with her is that she "found" him the way Jean never could and made him deal with his issues. And that's always been sort of their thing. Jean and Scott are happy and in love and they like each other the way they are. Emma and Scott have to work at liking and loving each other and that includes pushing each other into places where they would normally not go, which is what makes them more interesting for me. Emma throws Scott's issues at him, which he apparently likes. And the more she challenges him/messes with him, the better he loves her. Which is kind of amusing. But it also implies that he doesn't love Emma but rather loves what she did for him. Which is a bit selfish and odd. So, mostly? It's the use of the "now" that disturbs me, which highly implies that the love (and not the realization of it) is sudden and happened after Scott woke up with control over his powers.
This is probably my biggest issue with the Emma/Scott arc of this series. This revelation, despite all its issues, might not have been odd if Joss had been putting his issues out on time. But he didn't, and by the time it came along, we had already had several confirmations of the fact that Scott does, in fact, love Emma. Emma is a telepath; he doesn't have to tell her he loves her and I don't think she would put up with all the X-crap if he didn't. Which brings me to another issue I had with this: Emma's total shock at Scott's confession, which seemed odd considering that, well, she reads minds.
The Breakworld parts of this arc started out intriguing, got confusing, and then got really boring and I stopped caring. I'm not sure I actually got all of it and I don't really care enough to reread.
The Piotr/Kitty bits in this were painful. Kitty's seducing Piotr in space? Yeah, like my mind didn't go back to the Brood arc where she tried that and was 14 and Piotr was, like, 20 and wishing that they could go there. Creepy. And...I just don't see Kitty regressing back to a point where she would want to have a relationship with Piotr after everything they had been through since their break-up.
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"Giant Sized Astonishing X-men" - I think I actually liked this run better before I read this. As Joss finales go, this one rates pretty high on the level of suckage. There are some good bits, yes, but they're so grossly outweighed by the crappy bits that it's hard to care. The whole Superhero party? No idea why they brought them all in anyway. Because, really, it makes the ending seem without logic because there's no way they wouldn't have been able to figure out a way to fix this if they had really gotten everyone involved. I mean, Magneto could've just...melted the bullet or something, no? And if he's dead or depowered these days, there's Lorna. And where's Rachel while the love of her life is about to sacrifice herself for humanity? She could've helped?
Kitty bonding with the freaking metal bullet has to be one of the most ridiculous things ever. How does it make sense? And any emotional impact it might have had is sort of lost in the hilarity of "She's a bullet now!" Of course, it's not a Joss finale unless people are dying completely unneeded deaths. At this point, it would actually be surprising if he *didn't* off someone unnecessarily in a finale.
But, I guess, better Kitty than Emma. Which pains me to say because I've loved Kitty a lot longer, but Joss made her into someone I wouldn't have minded losing. Especially if I had to suffer through Kitty/Pitor in all her appearances. I know that Joss feels the need to tear apart a relationship in everything he's written, and I was hoping it was going to be Piotr/Kitty and not Emma/Scott, but why couldn't Piotr have bitten the dust instead?
I didn't think I would mind Kitty dying, after the way Joss reinvented her, but I'm actually filled with rage over it. It's possible that I'm a bit too attached to Kitty - she's the reason I started reading comics, and it feels odd to lose her. Especially now when Warren Elllis would be writing Astonishing. All through the crappy Joss stuff towards the end, I kept thinking that Ellis would redeem Kitty because Ellis!Kitty is still my favorite Kitty. And now? He wouldn't get a chance because Joss couldn't leave without fucking it up for everyone else. And I'm especially bitter about this because I was really, really looking forward to some Kitty/Pete Wisdom interaction now that they were both slated to be written by people who ship Pryde/Wisdom. And, yeah. I know she'll be back eventually, but it would probably be a while and by that time, who knows if Pete would even still be around? I'm so sad for the tragic separation of my OTP. Sigh.
I liked the Emma/Scott bit at the end. Ah, how I love them and hope that Marvel never, ever takes them away from me. In fact, I kind of would've liked the entire Scott/Emma arc of it if not for the whole "I'm in love with you now" bit. If only I could find a way to fanwank that, I could ship without bitterness.
The Agent Brand/Beast stuff was odd. I liked her a lot, but the last arc made her kind of 'meh' and her badassery was considerably diminished, and the Beast love contributed to it.
More on Kitty/Emma: The last bit with Emma and Kitty was nice, but I still kind of hate the assumption behind it. Emma tells Kitty that it wasn't Kitty who was supposed to die, and Kitty agrees that she was brought here to kill Emma instead. And then Kitty asks if Emma is surprised at this turn of events, to which, Emma says that she's, um, astonished. My interpretation of this is that Emma's astonishment has to do with the sacrifice Kitty is making, so Emma is surprised by Kitty's powers/abilities/self-sacrifice? But, see, the way this arc is set up, Kitty isn't the one who needs to prove herself to Emma. Emma has kind of believed in Kitty's awesomeness, in her own messed-up way, since their first appearances in Uncanny X-men back when Kitty was 13, and Emma was evil and randomly trying to seduce Kitty over to the dark side. Kitty, however, doubted Emma's intentions since the beginning of the run, so I can't help but feel that the last exchange should've had more to do with Kitty acknowledging Emma's awesomeness. Okay, yeah, that'd be pushing it, but there should've been some sort of a positive affirmation from Kitty's end. The way it stands now, everyone is all, "It shouldn't have been her." That combined with Emma's own surprise at Kitty's death (rather than her own) resulting from these events sort of implies that Emma is, somehow, more deserving of death. Which? Totally ridiculous. Emma's arc is an important one in the series, but Kitty's arc is all about heroism while Emma's is about her mental breakdown. Kitty is being built up during the entire run as Emma is being broken down (in terms of characterization at first and then mentally), which is an interesting contrast to note. So even though Emma didn't turn out to be evil as had been feared and predicted, Joss's arc is still very much about his perception of Emma as human, fragile, and fucked up and Kitty as girlish, innocent, and heroic. Emma being human and jaded is what makes us love Emma, but Morrisons's Emma was heroic despite those flaws. As was Morrison's Jean, IMO, despite the fact that Jean and Emma were being played against each other in terms of their relationship to Scott and in having similar powers and roles to perform. But in Joss's run, Kitty's heroic nature is in direct contrast with Emma's plot because of the way Joss has set them up as being antagonist towards each other. So the Kitty/Emma duality and Kitty's characterization remain my biggest issues with Joss' run.
All in all, it's sort of an entertaining read when read all together (as opposed to a hair-pulling read when read with delays) and there are some good bits. The plot is mostly okay, and I think that it's the characterization that sucks the fun out of it. I also think that, for me, the constant mindless praise of his run affects my opinion of it. This is supposedly the best X-men run ever, according to a large number of fans. And I think it's only mediocre approaching good with some ridiculously hateful bits. Which, in itself, isn't so horrible, but my opinion of it is probably harsher because in my mind, I compare it to what the best X-men run would actually be like, and it falls horribly short. Honestly, with the amount of crap being put out by Marvel, it's not that surprising people like it this much, but there's just no justification for this being the best X-men run ever. Not even looking at the past runs like "Excalibur" and "New X-men," the current X-Factor run is consistently awesome and better than Astonishing. The only reason it gets no love it because it's not filled with A-list characters.