Pick of the week - Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men #1
It’s been a very long time since I’ve read an X-Men story this good. As it stands, Astonishing X-Men has consistently been one of the best titles coming out for two reasons. The brilliant Joss Whedon and thetalented John Cassaday. Together these two have been making one of the best written and drawn X-Men story-arcs ever. Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men is the beautiful and emotion filled book end to therun of Whendon and Cassaday. This issue is massive. Its think, doube-sized and doesn’t feature any ads. Just beautiful art and story from cover to cover. Dealing with the events in the last issue, it’s a very grim situation the X-Men are in because one of their own will have to sacrifice them-self in order to save the Earth from a humongous. The Earth’s heroes are immobilized and this becomes only a situation the X-Men can deal with. Joss Whedon knows these characters deeply, he understands them and makes you truly believe what these characters are feeling knowing they are going to lose a team member soon. The promotional art for this arc featured the slogan “Die Trying” and that’s just what some one will do. For a whil now it’s been known that Kitty Pride wasn’t coming back after this mission. Joss Whedon started off his run by bringing Kitty back and building her into an even better character than she was originally. So it’s fitting he decided to kill her off (or at the very least leave her in space). What is fitting in typical Whedon style is that during his run he brought back the character, Colossus, a prominent X-Man who had been dead for a few years now. Kitty and Colossus had an on again, off again romance and after the character returned they were finally able to make their relationship official again. During this monumental arc we gained one character and lost another. Its sad to see Astonishing X-Men finally coming to a close because even with it’s irregular shipping status, it was still one of the best comics on stands in recent years. It’s a book that good and worth waiting months to get a new issue. Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men is one of the rare single issues that is so packed with amazing art and story that it sets a standard other comics can only hope to match.
