Just felt like I’d get that out of the way for the last three people on earth who haven’t been reading Joss Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-men. Not like I’m spoiling anything, since Marvel chose to run with a variant cover that splashes it right out there for everyone to see.
I grew up on the X-men, specifically Claremont’s run in the mid-to-late ’80s. The book was unlike anything out there, with a strong, well-developed cast of believable characters who just happened to live in the most unlikely of circumstances. They fit somewhere between the bland superhero comics that DC were churning out and the more grim “adult” segment market. The X-men were outlaws in the eyes of the public, but by their own standards, they were protectors of a world that despised them even as it depended on their help. They were freaks who bonded together not just out of a need for survival, but as a family of sorts. Continued...