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Underground > Comic Books >

Astonishing X-Men #12

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Keith, like a scientist

20:30 / 10.08.05

rabideyemovement

23:42 / 10.08.05

Wow, she did the whole team. Didn't know she had it in her.

05:31 / 11.08.05

Look at Colossus taking two handfuls of Kitty, greedy guts! He definitely doesn't seem to have much faith in that invulnerable, indestructible techno-organic steel hide of his. Oh, and I'd say the same for Emma but we all know she's waited a very long while to have an excuse to touch Kitty. "I needed to lovingly stroke your back during all of that because otherwise I would certainly have died" she'd muse later on I'm sure.

Oh, and this John Cassaday does know what he's doing, doesn't he...apart from the panel with squinty-eyed Kitty's nose pointing in the wrong direction, that is. Now I know what Joss Whedon meant when he ceremoniously stated that Johnny has the sweetest hands.

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:43 / 11.08.05

Speculating on this issue, I have to say that what I'd like to see ideally is Magneto showing up to destroy the Sentinel on about page 5, and the rest of the issue taken up with arguments and recriminations between Xavier and the team, Logan wondering whose head that was he chopped off in New York, etc.

10:56 / 11.08.05

I gotta say, I love the idea of the X Men fighting gigantic robot monsters. Monsters that could give Godzilla a run for his money. 'Sproper action is what it is. Also, nice bit of closure for 'em.

'Course, I haven't enjoyed Dangerous much so far.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:40 / 11.08.05

Yes, I don't understand, where is Magneto during this? Couldn't he have sorted out Danger long before the X-Men showed up in the last issue? In fact, the X-Men seem to get there surprisingly quickly, isn't Genosha off the East African coast or something? I'm presuming that on the cover they are pissed off that Xavier is working with Magneto rather than psychically lobotomising him and turning evil again, but when is this going to be coming out?

18:19 / 11.08.05

this issue is scheduled to come out Aug. 31, then we wait til spring for Vol. 2 of Astonishing by Whedon & Cass.

18:22 / 11.08.05

or maybe March, something like that --- Marvel said 'early next year' for year 2.

08:34 / 12.08.05

So the father, Xavier chooses the new step-mom, Magneto over his own kids. Positively Claremontian.

Keith, like a scientist

01:14 / 01.09.05

Out today.

Er...is that who I think it is seated in the middle of the last page?

01:59 / 01.09.05

Yes.

Horrible.

And to the left is Negasonic Teenage Warhead. So this is not what we think it is.

Pooky Is Just My Pornstar Name

02:07 / 01.09.05

Cassandra Nova tis is. I don't know...I feel like this is the final nail in the coffin, and Marvel is getting around to retconning the last of Morrison's New X-Men run. After House Of M, the mutant population will be back to near extinction levels, and now with Emma being revealed to still be in league with Sebastian Shaw and the Hellfire Club, and the cracks appearing in her relationship with Scott...well, it feels like Marvel is flipping the bird to GM. 'Course we all knew that sooner or later, everything goes back to status quo, but geez, did it have to be so soon?

02:21 / 01.09.05

! - Holy Shit, Keith, I didn't recognize her until you mentioned being surprised.

M
E
G
A
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S
P
O
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L
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!

From right to left the new Hellfire Club (the mysterious voice(s) Emma's been conferring with and presumably the dark secret she's been hiding connection with) is Sebastian Shaw, Cassandra Nova, an unidentifiable purple-hooded figure (my money says female), and the previously very dead Negasonic Teenage Warhead, last seen alive all the way back in NXM 115, and as a glass-impaled corpse in Emma's arms in 116.

Great issue, great 2 arcs to follow New X-Men and properly ignore everything else X that's gone on since. Final page leaves me mega-excited for Whedon/Cassady's next arc. I think Whedon really is aiming to connect all the dots and give the latent reward from Morrison's run a proper satisfaction.

Cassady's Cassandra Nova is neat, really nails that disturbing "Chuck's Head on a little old woman".

Love the idea of the regretful sentinel, genocidal giant floating in space to Collect His Shit.

02:25 / 01.09.05

Gah, took to long to type my post.

I don't think they're flipping the bird to GM, I really think Whedon's making a great effort to satisfy a lot of issues that Morrison left hanging, to really make use of the NXM stories.

I'd say it's jumping the gun to think Scott & Emma are through, or that anything is quite what it seems.

Keith, like a scientist

02:27 / 01.09.05

I
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hmm...rather than retconning, the presence of Negasonic Whatever leads me to suspect that perhaps Emma is having some sort of breakdown.

Because, well, this is a horrible way to justify it, but is anyone reading the X-Men: The End books? She's still good in those...no matter how horrendous the books themselves (why am i reading these) are.

I don't this it's exactly what it appears. Maybe those figures represent her inner demons. Negasonic = Failure, Shaw = Betrayal, Cassandra = Fear?

02:38 / 01.09.05

The demons thing is what I was thinking. The White Queen version of Ghost Carol and Ghost Fury.

02:39 / 01.09.05

I was thinking that, too. Aside from the unknown figure, these are all people who symbolize huge areas of guilt for Emma.

If the unknown figure ends up being someone absurd, like her brother/one of her family members, or even Jean Grey, then my money's on psychic shenanigans.

02:42 / 01.09.05

My only thing is that Whedon hasn't done any psychic shenanigans thus far. Even when Danger "killed" the team, it turned out to be real.

02:55 / 01.09.05

Didn't Cassandra get turned into a little girl named Earnst? With a brain that she keeps on a leash?

02:59 / 01.09.05

Yes, Kirk. But this is Marvel, where decapitated Magnetos turn into homicidal shapeshifting, telepathic twin Chinese brothers.

Cassie was implied to be a disembodied consciousness in Austen's run as he got rid of Nurse Annie and son. Ernst may well be fine and part of the student body, and we have another EEEEVIL tulpa. Who knows?

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

12:56 / 01.09.05

So they didn't find out that Magneto was alive?

Which they, y'know, sort of had to do for House of M #1 to make sense?

Oh and PS: this seems to suggest the hooded figures behind Xavier in that one issue of House of M are Hellfire clubbers. Which means Wedon set up one part and then fucked up the other part. Gah.

13:02 / 01.09.05

>> Yes, Kirk. But this is Marvel, where decapitated Magnetos turn into homicidal shapeshifting, telepathic twin Chinese brothers.

Best sentence in a post all week.

13:22 / 01.09.05

Thanks Finder. Is Astonishing even that good anymore? I mean, really. I've only picked up two of the 12 so far and was bored in each.

So for discourse: After a full year, was the NXM team served well by becoming Astonishing?

13:37 / 01.09.05

I say no. I enjoyed the first arc, but during 6-12, I steadily realized that I wasn't excited about the comic any more. I didn't really give a crap about the danger room as a villain, the characterization didn't have hooks in me like it did during NXM (the Kitty/Peter storyline was interesting, but not enough to carry a comic book), and the dialogue was like better-edited Bendis. The story felt like it was going nowhere.

I dunno. Somewhere I switched into buying it out of habit, and when i make that realization, comics get dropped. It's weird.. I used to be all-Marvel, but at this point Defenders is the only thing of theirs I get excited to buy.

Keith, like a scientist

13:38 / 01.09.05

no, it's not very good anymore, Chad.

I really enjoyed the first arc, but this second arc, "Danger" has been pretty horrible. From the thoroughly idiotic concept of the plot to the terrible design of the Danger character itself, this has been a massive letdown.

I really don't understand Whedon love at all. I keep telling myself to give Firefly a chance. Caught an episode the other day and it's just terrible terrible dialogue.. Astonishing has become that for me, as well. I don't get it.

But I like the purty Cassaday pictures.

13:43 / 01.09.05

Cassaday's art still looks a bit rushed in places, hopefully the break between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (so to speak) will give him a chance to catch up and not put out art that looks rushed in various panels.

13:56 / 01.09.05

I really enjoyed the first arc, it was exciting and well written. This second arc has been pretty poor though and the book has rapidly gone from being one of my favourite titles to something I'm not really enjoying. Possibly time to give it the old heave-ho.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

14:30 / 01.09.05

Re: Chinese Twins

Is that really how they explained Planet X? Seriously?

14:47 / 01.09.05

Well, Planet X was the result of one twin, acting out.

The other twin killed a village of Chinamen, getting slightly less prominent headlines.

19:58 / 01.09.05

One brother was "star in my head" and the other was a "blackhole in my head."

Which if you think about it, it's a bit symbolic of the thought process going into each storyline.

rabideyemovement

02:21 / 02.09.05

What? Noone's talking about the Beast's brief moment of ferality?
"Mine!" he growls as he cowers over his kill.

I loved it. Colossus and Cyke tell the Prof to shove it! And Cassie Nova's back. Hellfire's back too, and not that crappy Claremont version that recently popped up in Uncanny. Who's under the purple-hooded cloak? The only person I can recall wearing a purple cloak similar to that one was Madelyne Pryor. Grr... Is this the end of season one, meaning months of waiting till the next?
how evil.

02:23 / 02.09.05

Maddie Pryor versus Emma Frost for the affections of Cyclops?

rabid, what are we to do with you?

03:36 / 02.09.05

I liked this story-arc. The big fight between Danger and the x-men was one of the best coreographed fights I've ever seen in comics, the fight against xavier was also cool (of course the prof played dirty, sneaky old bastard - and I'll bet that's him under the hood too, as part of emma's hellfire/inner-demon gang), there were great character moments for each of the cast members in almost every issue, and even if the art is somewhat rushed in places it is still very awesome. It's a fun book, certainly better than any other x-title being published right now, and I'd say Astonishing is a very worthy successor to GM's run. The lack of a Magneto mention is almost unforgiveable and it makes absolutely no sense that the x-men would give prof x any kind of warm hello in house of M #1, but as it's own thing it works just fine.

23:36 / 02.09.05

Bah. This issue was, as per usual, shit. The whole series, save #2 and 3, was awful. Did no one in Marvel editorial *read* New X-Men?

I quit.

Regrettable Juvenilia

00:13 / 03.09.05

This just in: thanks to your incisive criticism, Joss Whedon has quit!

Well done!

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