Who's read Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men?

[Mog Elffoe]

As for no-X-Men-for-5-years, go pick up Grant Morrison's stuff at once!

Are you kidding!? I couldn't STAND Morrison's run on X-Men. There's no way I would recommend his stuiff to old-time X-Men fans. I got the impression that he thoroughly hated all of the characters and wanted to present them in the most unlikable ways possible. He completly missed the boat on X-Men, as dfar as I'm concerned. In the first issue or so of his run he had Cyclops kill a guy! What?! Where does this come from? Anyone who's read any amount X-Men comics where Cyclops and Wolverine interact will understand that Cyclops has a code vs killing just as strong as Spider-Man's, but Morrison has Cyclops offing a guy right off the bat. He didn't understand the characters in the slightest, and the overall meanspiritedness and just plain sleazy feel of his stories made me drop New X-Men. I picked it up a whole lot longer than I shouild have--dropped it right around the time Cyclops and Wolverine were hanging out with Phantomex.

This new Astonishing X-Men is much more what an old-time X-Men reader is likely to enjoy. Not a whole lot actually happens in the comic, but I did enjoy it.

 

[Mallus]

I couldn't STAND Morrison's run on X-Men. There's no way I would recommend his stuiff to old-time X-Men fans.

Really? I had several long-time X-Men fans recommend GM's run to me, now that's they're all available as trades. Then again, I make no bones about being a huge --and hugely tolerant-- Grant Morrison fan...

About Whedon's X-Men... I loved the 1st issue. Occasionally the characters sounded more Buffyverse than Marvelverse, but I like the way Whedon's characters talk. And I disagree with the idea that 'nothing much happened'. The major external --plot-wise-- conflict was set up. And the major internal --character-wise-- conflict. That's not too shabby for 22 pages.

 

[Ghostwind]

The writing was so-so, but hey, it's the first issue so I'm not expecting anything earthshattering right away. I hated the artwork however. Not on my "must buy" list. I'll read it at lunch at work (I work at a comic/gaming store). Thor 582, on the otherhand... Wow! Enjoyed that one immensely.

 

[amalthya]

Didn't Joss Whedon have some sort of writing credit on one of the X-Men movies?

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Didn't Joss Whedon have some sort of writing credit on one of the X-Men movies?

He was responsible for one of the (many) rewrites of X-Men (the first), I think the final one before David "Solid Snake" Hayter, who was the principal writer of the final draft (and the credited screenwriter, as well as, IIRC, the on-set rewriter). From what I've heard, there isn't much of Joss' rewrite remaining in X-Men, save for the line "Do you know what happens when a toad gets struck by lightning?" "The same thing that happens to everything else."- which, while not a great line, was absolutely butchered by Halle Berry's flat performance.

 

[Mog Elffoe]

He was responsible for one of the (many) rewrites of X-Men (the first), I think the final one before David "Solid Snake" Hayter, who was the principal writer of the final draft (and the credited screenwriter, as well as, IIRC, the on-set rewriter). From what I've heard, there isn't much of Joss' rewrite remaining in X-Men, save for the line "Do you know what happens when a toad gets struck by lightning?" "The same thing that happens to everything else."- which, while not a great line, was absolutely butchered by Halle Berry's flat performance.

Yeah, I read an interview where Whedon was explaining that the line was meant to just come off as a throwaway line, but that Halle delivered it like she was Moses coming down from the mountain. Can't wait for Catwoman! Hoo Boy! :sarcasm:

 

[takyris]

If I recall correctly, Whedon was also responsible for the manner in which Cyclops determines that Logan is Logan and not Mystique in the movie, which I won't repost here for fear of giving Eric's grandmother heart problems.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Really? I had several long-time X-Men fans recommend GM's run to me, now that's they're all available as trades. Then again, I make no bones about being a huge --and hugely tolerant-- Grant Morrison fan...

Yep. In fact I've found it to be mostly the old time fans that liked it the
most, the ones that gave up on the X-Men in the 90s. I will not say that it
is Morrison's best work or even the best X-Men I've read, but it's definately
the best X-Men of the last ten years or so. A few years back, 'X-Men' was
a bad word.

But I can't argue with that Morrison's not to everybody's tastes.

 

[LrdApoc]

I have to say that Whedon's decompressed storytelling is fine in the perspective of the modern Marvel comic. Consider that Ultimate FF (Actually all the Ultimate stories) take a real long time to get anywhere story wise. UFF 6 just came out and the team still isn't even a team.

The Dialog in the first Astonishing is great, and the flashbacks and in jokes are a great way to lure back fans like myself who remember the older XMen stories that are now considered classics. I also left the titles inthe era of 15 different covers and foil/hologram/3D images because the constant creative changes caused huge issues witht he characters.

I personally detested the Morrison run because like someone above said he never seemed to 'get' the characters. While he tried to flesh them out he actually disreguarded the core of the personalities in an attempt to 'modernize' or make things 'realistic'.

I recommend Astonishing to any fan of Whedon or the X-Men. The art and writing are good, and since he is only signed on for 12 issues you can count on some self contained stories that will wrap up nicely into Trades in a year or two.

 

[Mog Elffoe]

Yep. In fact I've found it to be mostly the old time fans that liked it the
most, the ones that gave up on the X-Men in the 90s. I will not say that it
is Morrison's best work or even the best X-Men I've read, but it's definately
the best X-Men of the last ten years or so. A few years back, 'X-Men' was
a bad word.

But I can't argue with that Morrison's not to everybody's tastes.

I've actually never been too impressed with Morrison. He's got some cool ideas, but I rarely like his characters, or how his big ideas wind up playing out. I dug his Batman in JLA quite a bit, though.

Gotta agree with you about the X-Men from early 90s on. Ugh. We had nearly a solid decade of good comics before that, at least. Just picked up the new Essential X-Men trade (#5, I think? It's got the X-Men vs Kulan Gath, Colossus vs Juggernaut, and the Lifedeath stories) and got to re-visit some of the old school goodness.

I did pick up the last two issues of Uncanny X-Men with Alan Davis doing the artwork and the storyline reintroducing the Fury robot monster from the old Alan Moore Captain Britain stories. I'm enjoying that quite a bit so far, and will certainly keep picking that one up if it continues to hold quality-wise.