So a retailer this week telling his customers not to buy Astonishing X-Men #26 in his shop’s email was one of the major controversies in a week full of controversies. The question was if that was really a good idea– telling customers not to buy product he himself has already bought and paid for. Remember, the direct market is a non-returnable so if his customers listen to him, he’s just screwed the pooch on this issue.
A secondary question that really hasn’t been posted yet is “did he read the same comic book as me?” Two issues in and I’m already digging the Ellis/Bianchi team much more than the nostalgia-laden Whedon/Cassaday book. Under the previous creative team, Astonishing X-Men was comfort comics. You knew what you were going to get and they delivered. Whedon’s run took everything he loved about the X-Men and repackaged it into an easily digestible package. It was fun, exciting but familiar and very much X-Men by the numbers. And let’s be honest, it was two American boys doing American comics.
And now we have an Englishman and a Spainard doing an American comic. Do you really think this is going to look like everything else on the stands? Don’t you have Uncanny and adjectiveless X-Men if you want that? Beyond just the basics of the different techinique that artist Simone Bianchi and colorists Simone Peruzzi use, there’s a whole different pacing and texture to this book that reflects a more European flavor. The team may as well have relocated to Lisbon instead of San Francisco. The way that the panels flow created a ripple effect in the way that you read this issue. By putting a lot of panels at angles, Bianchi keeps the reader off balance since the panels don’t nice and neatly line up like we’re used to.
Ellis’s story is a bit thin but he’s got 22 more issues and this is still just the beginning. After the exposition heavy first issue of his run, this issue feels a bit light, focusing mostly on action as the team faces down the enemy in a spaceship graveyard. It’s a light book storywise but puts the X-Men on more familiar ground. Not as much time is spent rebuilding a status quo which is mostly all that the first issue was for.
Astonishing X-Men is a spotlight book featuring all-star creative teams. In fact, this may be Marvel’s version of DC’s All-Star line, giving strong creators a chance to tell just the stories they want with little or no attention paid to continuity. There’s a “Manifest Destiny” banner on this book but after reading this issue, I don’t know what that means and nor do I care. This is a European take on the X-Men and it’s a good looking book so far.
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Tags: Astonishing X-Men, Simone Bianchi, Warren Ellis, X-Men
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