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. Claremont struck a nerve with anyone who’d ever felt isolated or different with the books, and they spoke to a whole generation in the paranoia of the Reagan years.
I don’t know what it must have been like to read the first runs of Superman or Batman in the 1920s, but for my generation, the series was a revelation. These were real, breathing characters with personalities and motivations. It was easy to grow attached to these folks, who freakish as they might be, had real heart. Browsing the racks today, I miss that. As good as the contemporary books are, I can’t see 12-year-olds forming an emotional bond to books like The Authority. That’s sad, really.
Throughout the ’90s, the comic industry seemed to lose its direction, and what Neil Gaiman described as “the piteous and sad collector’s bubble” nearly killed it altogether. The medium fell into niche status with the advent of television, and now it’s got to compete with the internet. With the average cover-price of a monthly issue hovering at $2.99, and a glut of interconnected “crossovers” and marketing schemes, the whole thing looks pretty damned intimidating to newcomers.
If the industry lost its innocence in the late ’80s with The Watchmen and Frank Miller’s work, it became downright bloodthirsty in the ’90s. The X-men books were a good example. In my day, there was just the Uncanny X-men. In 1998, there at least eight distinct monthly titles with the X-men moniker, all of which were related just enough to entice buyers to plop down the money for the whole shebang. That’s $25/month, beyond what most kids are willing to pay. Add to that an angle of sex and violence that makes parents a bit uncomfortable, and you’ve got a recipe for alienating what was once the core audience for comics.
There are series geared toward younger audiences (notably Marvel’s dreadful Ultimates), but in publishing these, they’re still drawing a line of sorts (“Sorry Timmy, but you’ve got to be at least this tall to appreciate the stuff we used to market to your demographic. Here’s a dumbed-down version without the depth or history.”). For readers my own age, it’s something of a boon, since the death of the Comics Code has made it possible for things like the Sandman books, but I wonder what happens when a generation doesn’t start reading these as kids. Right now, the majority of the buying-public is the same age as the writers, which is a first, but the industry’s doing itself a long-term disservice by alienating younger readers.
I stopped following the X-men as all of this started. The book seemed to lose its heart somewhere around the time Claremont started substituting plot-devices for character development. Storm lost her powers, Magneto took Charles’ place, and we were subject to a glut of (yes…) time-traveling Schwarzenegger-types from the future, like Cable and Bishop. Every couple of years, I’d pick up a few issues to catch up, but at this point, it was nearly impossible due to the cross-pollinization of inter-related titles and pointlessly byzantine storylines.
About a year ago, I found out that Grant Morrison had taken over one of the books, so I decided to check it out. Turns out, Marvel’s under (somewhat) new management, and some major restructuring has gone on. First off, all storylines have to be resolved within six issues, and second, when somebody dies, they stay dead. No retconning, no evil twins, no recursive time-travelling dopplegangers.
Even though the art was sorely lacking, Morrison’s run was something of a blast. Sentinels wiped out the island nation Genosha, and with it 16 million mutants in the first issue. Magneto’s dead. Jean Grey’s dead. The public knows about Xavier and the school. The school is actually a school, with an actual student body of more than eight. Oh, and we finally know where Nightcrawler and Wolverine came from. It’s like Morrison chose to go through and deliberately cut the deadwood and effluvia, thereby forcing subsequent writers to step up and start writing without crutches for once.
With Morrison’s run over, the books were again restructured, and just in case you hadn’t heard, Joss Whedon’s doing one of the core books. Whedon’s said in the past that this was a lifelong dream for him (he’s rumored to be directing X3 with Singer’s crew off to do the next Superman), and he admits that his run on Buffy was greatly inspired by the X-men. So here, he steps up to the plate with John Cassaday on the pencils and ink. The results are wonderful.
Whedon knows how to write dialogue, and he’s a master of pacing, and it shows. The first four issues have been slow to start, but the elements are all there. Kitty’s back, which was one of his requirements, since she was the inspiration for the Willow character, and he writes her like he’s been doing it his whole life. In fact, he seems to have an excellent feel for everyone. Henry’s man/beast dichotomy is handled with a great deal of sympathy, and Logan’s father/daughter relationship with Kitty picks up seemingly right where it left off ten years ago, with only a couple of lines of reminiscing.
Cassaday’s work is absolutely beautiful in a quiet way, and Whedon’s humor is in full bloom. This is one of the most talked-about panels in the industry right now:
The villian shows up at the school with the intention of knocking around the cast, and well, I guess this is what happens when you don’t call ahead. Notice the absolutely mundane expression of disgruntlement and the inherent humor. This couldn’t have happened in the smash-bang-explosion years of Lee and Claremont (“Where are the X-men?!? I will CRUSH them with my @#$&-ray!!! I am Logan’s alternate-reality father from the dystopian future with a horrifying secret from his past!!!” Yeesh.). Gone are the expository dialogue and word-balloons filling every panel. The art and writing flow naturally and effortlessly from one panel to the next, and Whedon repeatedly shows how much explanation and character he can get through in just a couple of lines of dialogue:
Yep, that’s Emma Frost. Her initial clash with Kitty is priceless (“You teach ethics?” “Yes, do let’s make jokes now.”). Thanks to Morrison, Whedon hasn’t had to pick up much in the way of baggage or loose ends, so he can hit the ground running. Cassaday’s already established a wonderful, almost photorealistic, art style, and Laura Martin’s coloring is a perfect complement. She has an almost Hitchock sense of lighting and tension, and she knows how to use large swathes of color to establish mood, like the scene where Colossus makes his entrance, in which the whole page is swathed in red as Kitty stands motionless in the hail of bullets. There’s no dialogue at first, because none’s needed. We already know who these people are, and Whedon steps back and lets it sink in on its own (click for full page):
Since Peter’s death was pretty explicit, I’m waiting for Whedon’s explanation. After all, it was Kitty who scattered his ashes, so…we’ll wait and see.
It’s already somewhat bittersweet that Whedon’s only signed on for a year or so, because I’d love to see what he’d do with the series in the long-term. If this is any indication, the movie should be something truly amazing.