Gives you a warm glowy feeling inside.

It has been Astonishing X-Men rather than Buffy or Angel that spun me off down the wonderful world of comics. Goth dabbling with Sandman had only taken me so far. Now I have a whole X-Men history fetish as well as a scary reverence for Alan Moore. All ignited by Joss. So, thank you sir.

curlymynci | January 24, 18:46 CET

Wasn't this issue supposed to be add-free? Or did we jump the gun of assumption yesterday? Mine was full of adds. Anyway, it was a strong issue, great writing, ridiculous art. Only down point was lessened emotional impact since we all know what's gonna happen. Still no fault (sort of) of the effort of Joss and John.

CaptainB | January 24, 18:52 CET

I think the 'ad-reduction' bit was actually supposed to be about the Giant-Sized issue? As far as I could tell, this was normal length.

In any case, this series continues to be awesome; the pacing of the final arc has been really interesting, the way it ebbs and flows. Great Joss dialogue, as always -- I loved the scene with Scott and Hank, especially -- and Cassaday really brought his A-game to the art.

likeadeuce | January 24, 18:55 CET

I know what you mean, curlymynci. Joss and X-Men has led me to getting sucked into one of the few aspects of my nerdom that I had, to this point, resisted...

But, hey, it's led to a *lot* of good reading, so I can't complain!

kishi | January 24, 19:15 CET

Yeah, I used to read comics when I was 10ish and in the 90s and they were horrible. Then I saw Firefly and was convinced by my friends to read Astonishing. And now everyone in the comic shop knows me by name. It's become my Cheers.

Honestly, this wasn't my favorite issue of the arc. The character moments weren't as strong as I've seen Joss create. However, what an ending and now I'll be waiting VERY impatiently to see Kitty's fate.

leafblown | January 24, 19:42 CET

So... Astonishing X-Men is the gateway drug to comic addiction? It is true that it was Buffy that got me into the store, but it was Astonishing that convinced me I could get into other stories and should try the other books people always mention here.

Which means you're all my enablers.

So, about Aghanne... I was wondering if she was up to something when the "prophetic" carvings turned out to be more recent, but I couldn't ever see why she'd want to destroy the planet. Doesn't match with that opening scene with her honoring dead children. Unless she's decided wiping out her society is the way to solve its problems.And how would someone on Breakworld know of Colossus to plant the idea?

Sunfire | January 24, 19:56 CET

I shall miss buying Astonishing X-Men at my local comic book shop. It saw me through the wilderness years at Whedonesque when it was the only new Joss product on the market.



I thought it was going to be ad free but the info was wrong. Apologies to those who expected bonus pages.

Also the Kitty cover is very pretty.

Simon | January 24, 20:06 CET

It's Giant-Sized Astonishing which will be ad-free.

littlexander | January 24, 20:31 CET

This wasn't my favorite issue, but I love how Joss writes Scott.

With the three month and a half month wait for Giant Sized #1, I almost wish Marvel had delayed AXM 24 so that they were released closer together. It's kind of anti-climatic, since it's already been pretty much revealed in the other X-books how it ends and that Kitty died. I'm really dreading reading Giant Sized. I'm not sure I'll even be able to bring myself to read it.

The comments on here really show how Marvel and the X-Office really failed at capitalizing on having Joss on an X-book. Astonishing got a lot of Whedon fans into a comic shop, and now that it's nearly over, there aren't any X-books for them. :(

FaithFan | January 24, 21:29 CET

Joss follows in the same footsteps as Grant Morrison did. They did not force the reader to know 20 years worth of complicated X-History to understand the plot. And I applaud both of them for going down this route as it makes the story much more enjoyable.

Simon | January 24, 22:54 CET

"Joss follows in the same footsteps as Grant Morrison did. They did not force the reader to know 20 years worth of complicated X-History to understand the plot."

I see what you're saying, but does "Torn" really work if you don't know the Morrison story? I don't mean that as a rhetorical question, I'm honestly curious, because I'm one who went and read most of the Morrison stuff, between AXM issues, to figure out better what was going on. In any case, I don't mean it as a criticism; I'm just not sure it's ever possible completely to separate a long-running series from continuity.

I agree with the basic point that Marvel could have taken advantage of the first couple arcs of Astonishing to build a new audience for mutant stories. Instead, they went in a completely different direction, by drastically reducing the number of mutants in the world, in a way that invalidated a lot of what both Joss and Grant did, without putting anything new in its place. They seem to be trying to get the books back on track now, and the jury's still out on how that will go.

likeadeuce | January 25, 00:41 CET

Astonishing X-Men (like New X-Men) served as a fantastic gateway to X-Books, and introducing new readers to the X-world. The bigger problem I see is that the X-Office didn't make an effort to try to make the other books appeal to Whedon fans.

Essentially Marvel was able to introduce Whedon fans to a great group of characters, then didn't turn them into long term readers.

X-History isn't the problem. If you're a Whedon fan, then you're used to shows with complicated continuity. If there are strong enough stories and characters, people will pick books up. (I think eliminating new reader friendly intro pages and footnotes make them less assessable as well).

That points to larger issues in general with X-books. For example, on Marvel's X-boards, there's a discussion going about how fans feel there is a lack of strong female characters in the post-Messiah Complex books and how female readers feel they are being alienated. Which all points to problem that the other X-books have at attracting Whedon fans, beyond continuity and X-History.

You’d think with Joss Whedon writing an X-books, that wouldn’t be a problem. But post-Messiah Complex, it’s teams of killers, lots of Wolverine, and cyborgs with massive guns. Makes you want to rush out and buy X-books, doesn’t it?

FaithFan | January 25, 01:15 CET

"there's a discussion going about how fans feel there is a lack of strong female characters in the post-Messiah Complex books "

That seems like kind of a premature discussion, since none of those books have been published yet. But off the top of my head, I know that Uncanny will have Emma and possibly Storm, Adjectiveless/Legacy will have Rogue and probably others, Xforce will have X-23, Wolfsbane, and Hepzibah, and X-Factor will continue to have Siryn and Monet and probably Layla. The characters from New X-men (like Pixie and Surge, who had significant roles in the crossover) are likely to turn up somewhere. And if there's not a Grey woman on the horizon pretty soon, whether it's Jean or Rachel, I'll be surprised. We don't know Kitty's fate, but it's certainly possible that we'll see more of her. And I should also mention the great Jean and Wanda characterizations we've been getting in "X-men: First Class," or the fact that the new Astonishing series is going to be written by Warren Ellis, who has a great track record writing formidable women.

I'm sorry to go on and on about this; I have plenty of issues with the current state of Marvel, and think you have some excellent points. But I don't want to do a disservice to Marvel -- especially considering that many in the Whedonesque audience may only read Astonishing -- by suggesting that Joss's comics are the only ones with prominent or well- written female characters.

likeadeuce | January 25, 01:52 CET

Is it already known who the team will consist of in AXM Second Stage, since likeadeuce points out that Emma is leaving to Uncanny? Emma was my favorite character in Joss's run.

Storyteller | January 25, 03:59 CET

Emma's not necessarily leaving to Uncanny; she's just part of the cast in the next few solicited issues. She's one of those characters who tends to pop up in more than one book

But no, the new Astonishing cast hasn't been named. Really, we don't know the full lineups of any of the books yet, unless they've been announced in the last couple days. My list was only meant to point out that there are going to be plenty of female characters for writers to work with.

likeadeuce | January 25, 04:21 CET

One hell of an ending (both re: Kitty and re: Colossus), and extra material for Hank (who I thought has been a little underused lately). I don't think it's the best book in the arc either, but there's a LOT of ambition here and I definitely applaud it.

Oh, and also: "I will give you Charles Xavier." Oh. Wow. (Does it make anyone else extremely sad that Joss is not going to be writing more Danger/Xavier material, or is it just me?)

Can't wait for Giant Size.

WilliamTheB | January 25, 07:19 CET

Also, how far away is the Breakworld from Earth? Because, dude, that bullet ain't getting near us for a few years at least. In Marvel years, even if the bullet doesn't get stopped, it probably won't be until the 22nd century that writers actually have to worry about dealing with the bullet. (Faster than light travel is something we just have to accept, but faster-than-light projectiles? Well, I guess anything is "possible"....)

WilliamTheB | January 25, 19:44 CET

I wondered about how the bullet will get to Earth as well. I figure that the bullet will go through some sort of warp hole or stargate or some sort of MacGuffin.

Simon | January 25, 20:00 CET

Great line, but the impact is kinda mute considering Xavier was just shot and believed killed in X-Men #207.

FaithFan | January 25, 21:43 CET

likeadeuce, regarding the lack of female characters, the spoilers for post-Messiah Complex aren't too positive for female characters. Young X-Men may be a bright spot though.

Since Axel Alonso took over as group editor for X-books last year, his goal seems to be to up the appeal of X-books to guys by going incredibly dark with tough guy alpha male characters, massive violence and hyper-sexualized female characters.

That's just a shame since Astonishing remains the top selling X-book, and you'd think that would mean that the books would follow Joss's lead rather than doing a 180.

FaithFan | January 25, 22:01 CET

"likeadeuce, regarding the lack of female characters, the spoilers for post-Messiah Complex aren't too positive for female characters."

In what sense? You don't have to spoil anything, but are you saying that the list of female characters I gave above is incorrect?

"Since Axel Alonso took over as group editor for X-books last year, his goal seems to be to up the appeal of X-books to guys by going incredibly dark with tough guy alpha male characters, massive violence and hyper-sexualized female characters."

I'd have to know specifics of who/what you're referring to; I'm sure we could both give plenty of examples of those phenomena, but that's pretty much going to happen in any mainstream comic.
(I mean, does Astonishing lack tough alpha males, violence, dark themes, or strongly sexualized women?) And I can name you two x-titles -- XFactor and Xmen:First Class -- that haven't gone that direction at all.

likeadeuce | January 26, 05:38 CET