Astonishing X-Men #19

Released: December 27, 2006

Publisher: Marvel

Writer: Joss Whedon

Art: John Cassaday

Colors: Laura Martin

Letterer: Joe Caramagna

Cover: John Cassaday

 

The ‘Unstoppable’ arc starts here, six more issues (supposedly monthly), and then we can remember this whole exercise as an odd footnote in X-Men history. This series has been plagued by delays and little story pay-off for the wait. What it has is some of the best art around and fantastic character moments, but those aren’t enough to get over the biggest problem this series has: it’s average.

 

No, seriously. Whedon is a great writer and all the small jokes, characterizations, and decent hand-to-hand fighting show it, but he has written a plot that is not only average but at times mind-bogglingly boring. The last six issues built up excruciatingly slow (amplified because of the delays) to an ending that boiled down to: ‘it was all in their minds’. So Cassandra Nova was just rehashed as the villain, and nothing was really concluded because both of the previous story thread’s villains from issue’s 1-12 were stopped mid-fight when the whole group (including the villains Danger and Ord) were teleported into space.

 

David Hine has written more X-Men issues then Whedon in 2006 and Hine’s not even a regular series writer. The delay has been so bad that the rest of the X-books are just ignoring Astonishing until it finishes when maybe it can be slipped into continuity somewhere. That’s a lot of problems and yet, if you just read this issue as the opening issue of a series then you can actually enjoy it!

 

It still has great character moments and they can be appreciated on their own level, but the story is still frustratingly average. A world of warmongers is looking to kill Colossus since he’s prophesized to destroy their way of life. We get introduced to this ‘Breakworld’ and the whole story arc is setup for us in this issue. The irony, if anyone can remember that far back, is that Ord resurrected Colossus in an effort to recreate a Legacy Virus-type of disease that cured all mutants.

 

So average a plot it stings. That doesn’t make sense but neither does the idea of a really big missile pointed at Earth to hold the populace hostage. Is this a bad Bond movie? The Marvel Earth defeated Galactus, the Krees and the Skrulls. I’m pretty sure we could take down a bunch of green skinned no-nose warriors. See, average, but it’s still well executed so the rating can’t be too low.

 

Rating - 6