2009 Year In Review: Astonishing X-Men

[Scotti]

The Cast: Banshee, Cyclops, Firestar, Justice, Sunfire, Longshot, Phoenix, Iceman, Shadowcat, and Jubilee

Antagonists Faced: Dr. Apocalypse and Warp Savant

Stand-Out Character: Iceman

Best Moment: Iceman assuring Jean that Cyke would soon have his proverbial stick up his ass.

Banshee putting his police background to work was nice to see considering it’s never really given much light except when trying to highlight his past with some figure from X-History. This title has done a good job in showing the newfound celebrity status of the X-Men and the pushing of Xavier’s dream into a positive direction. There is a positive energy coming from the title and you can’t help but to feel that progress is coming forth. This title is really meant to be the flagship of MA’s X-Line and it did a good job establishing that tone in the first three issues.

The antagonists in this title really haven’t been up to par thus far. It’s pretty obvious that Dr. Apocalypse wasn’t meant to be, but it seems so much attention was put onto establishing this title’s tone that creating an actual threat seemed to be thrown out of the window. A few mysteries were created, but there needs to be something more powerful in the mix. Something seems to be missing.

Longshot seems to have gotten the short end of the stick in terms of screen time, but that is bound to happen in a title with a roster this big. The best remedy to that though is probably stretching out the issues and adding some more in there for the folks getting the short end of the stick.

Even though only one of the issues in this series so far are mine, I still thank you for the review of it. Dino putting Banshee back into a role to use his police training is actually one of my favorite things about the title. It's something I'm enjoying expanding in issue #4, and hope that I do it some justice (no pun intended). The X-Men sort of achieving the dream and actually being popular for once was another thing that drew me to pitching for this title. It's a different place for them than in so many other stories out there. At last their not the hated minority again getting beat on by Sentinels and the same bad guys every week. They have a chance to do Xavier's dream fully proud now.

Hopefully the antagonists in the future will feel a bit more up to par, especially with what is coming. I'm looking forward to throwing the X-Men against some bigger and more powerful foes from outside their usual stable of villains and showing why they are the best at what they do. After the fun Mojo two parter that is lol.

Longshot has a big part in issue #4 as it focuses only on Banshee, Kitty, and Longshot in their investigation so the lovable Mojoworld inhabitant gets way more screen time. I've slowly become more comfortable in stretching my issues out bigger than they were before and adding more to them so in the future there will definitely be more of each character getting a chance to shine. Thanks again for the review guys

[Erik]

I never had a real problem with the 'slow' build that some see in the book. Honestly, the direction for the entire line is really a bigger focus in this book (which was the point) and given that status I felt that it was a good decision to establish the tone of the book before diving too much into the threats that could have sidetracked what really is the point of the book: to show the X-Men as people who are welcomed in Chicago and celebrities.

I thought the fun the X-Men were having made up for any of the shortcoming this book may have had. And now that we know what this book is about, it'll be able to run with deeper plots and tougher antagonists that've been planned for the book from the start.

And about issue length. I've never been intimidated by long issues. Frankly, if the writing is good, the plot interesting and engaging, and the characters are solid I've never noticed if the issue was long or short. If the writing sucks, then no matter how short you make an issue it's going to feel like it took 3 hours to read it regardless of it's short length. Just be comfortable that the issue you write, regardless of length, is exactly what it needs to be to tell the story...shoehorning in your plot to fit a set amount of words will only serve to derail the character progression (the learning, realizations, dialogue) a story needs in favor of hitting the twists and plot points to carry the story scene to scene.