Last week saw the release of a new miniseries in the Astonishing X-Men brand, entitled, Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis. This series is being written by Warren Ellis, who also happens to be the writer on the current run of “normal” Astonishing X-Men run, which looks to be on hiatus until the end of the X-Book wide crossover of Second Coming or just plan cancelled… I’m not 100% on that one… So what we have here is another out of continuity story featuring the current lineup of the Astonishing Team. For those who are in need of a refresher, the astonishing lineup consists of Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Beast, Emma Frost, andArmor. Also, it seems that the team is still based out of San Francisco… That’s about all you need to know to get caught up.
Xenogenesis follows a string of potential mutant births that are occurring in Africa and causing all sorts of havoc and mayhem. It appears that the children being born are manifesting their destructive powers immediately after birth, opposed to the start of puberty that most mutations are initiated. So the Black Panther sends a message to his wife, Storm, asking for support from his favorite mutants; The X-Men. So after a brief conversation at the breakfast table, it is decided that the X-Men will go to Africa to begin a new adventure. However, this is only after Cyclops stumbles through an awkward conversation with Storm about race relations. I thought it was absolutely hilarious, but I’m not certain that everyone shares my humor with this one. Anyway, the team gets a new uniform and like any other time, Emma finds herself not following the rules and wearing some sort of white latex thing that is way too small and tight.
And there it is. Hopefully that was enough to get you excited. There’s even an interesting history lesson about Nelson Mandela from Wolverine. In fact, even though the first issue is light in action, the conversations are enough to keep things interesting. I know a lot of people are feeling burned out on Warren Ellis, but I quite like what’s going on here. But the real winner of this comic is Kaare Andrews. That dude’s art is fan-****ing-tastic. All the characters look awesome, except for maybe Emma Frost. She looks weird to me on closeups of her face. But that probably just he making weird faces and forcing her fake accent. And as folks around here know, I’ve never liked Storm’s mohawk look… Until now. She looks amazing, as does Beast. I’m really looking forward to the rest of this series, regardless of story. What made me pick up the book was the artwork. As long as it stays solid, I’ll keep picking the title up. Thumbs up, Kaare Andrews.
-Fleet
Tags: Astonishing X-Men
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I liked the first issue as well, although I disagree with the artist being awesome. While most of it was decent, Emma was god awful looking, her face reminded me of that creepy little girl from Akira (the movie, I dunno if the manga has the same characters). Armor looks too young, like 12, as opposed to however old she actually is (17, 18?). The rest of the X-Men were fine, and I do like Mohawk Storm, but I liked her with the Mohawk even before this mini-series. Otherwise, it was a pretty good start to the mini-series.
Yeah, Emma’s face is the biggest issue of the art. And yeah, at the start of the book, I thought Armor was a 9-year old girl, but later on, she looked a bit older. But certainly, she looks way younger than she should be… And yes, the little creepy psychic “girl” is in the manga as well. But glad you agree with me on it being a good start.