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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Astonishingly Great!, February 7, 2006
Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly/Serenity, as well as script-doctor par excellence on Speed and Toy Story to name but a few, enjoys the type of celebrity usually reserved for actors or pro-athletes and almost unheard of for those behind the scenes--and deservedly so.
Whedon exudes story. Although best known, perhaps, for witty pop-culture references and intriguing linguistic twists, Whedon is a veritable treasure of modern mythology from gothic horror to science fiction space-fare and, more to the point here, comic books.
Not since the Claremont/Byrne days have the X-Men been so much themselves, and so much more.
The first of the two arcs presented here in glorious large-size hardcover format, Gifted, introduces a new villain, Ord of the Breakworld, re-introduces an old and very dear friend, and threatens both the physical and, in classic Whedon-style, the emotional world of all involved with one small, four-letter word--cure.
The second arc, Dangerous, turns around, from the future and the stars, to the immediate heart of the X-Men world, their long-time training room, their loyalties, and the nature of intelligent life and oppressor vs. oppressed.
Keeping pace in spectacular fashion with Whedon's deadly-accurate dialog and plotting are John Cassaday's (Planetary) art complemented by Laura Martin's colors. From the grippingly casual to the bullet-time explosive, Cassaday captures every emotion, subtle nuance, and jarring physical impact, and Martin lights it up and washes it with every shade and mood imaginable.
No idea-splatter, no super-decompression, no endless splash-pages or pose-downs, just the most enjoyable comic experience I've had in ages. I already have the soft-covers and I'm still getting this.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of the Best Comic Collections of the Last Decade, July 25, 2006
Let me get some technicalities about this release out of the way:
This hardcover collects the first two story arcs of Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run ("Gifted" and "Dangerous"). It costs the same as buying those softcover graphic novels separately; if you're planning on reading the series, this particular volume is definitely worth it.
If you're unsure about whether to invest so much in a comic (maybe you've seen the X-Men movies, or maybe you're a Buffy fan, and you're curious), I have to go ahead and recommend this work. You may be interested to know that Whedon's won an Eisner award (the Comic industry's Oscar) for writing, the artist (Cassaday) has won for best art and the series has won for best series... so... it's a fairly good comic to take a chance on.
The initial plot concerns the X-Men coming together to instruct a new class at Xavier's Academy for the Gifted while world-changing events take place around them. Specifically, a prominent scientist has announced that she's discovered a "cure" for mutancy--the thing that sets the X-Men apart (you may notice that they ripped this idea off for the third X-Men movie, it's such a good idea, though the execution here is better than in that film). To say much more would constitute a spoiler, though you can expect that all of the in-fighting and love-triangling that the X-Men are famous for, is well-represented here.
Whedon writes for comics well (his Fray was very good) though he's not my favorite comic writer (Neil Gaiman sits atop that mountain); his style is surprisingly sparse, allowing the visuals to tell a lot of the story, and not quite as witty as you might expect from the pen of Buffy, Angel and Firefly. That said, he captures the voices of our X-Men regulars perfectly; it rather shows his discipline that he writes differently for different media. It is clear that Whedon is a long-standing fan of the X-Men--his lines are fully of sympathy for the characters. The action is non-stop and there are twists and turns aplenty. He manages to pack a lot of story into these pages, and I look forward to his continuation of the book (supposedly only another 12 issues and then no more).
To sum up, this is a very good comic. X-Men fans, and Whedon fans, should not be disappointed by this release--one of the best collections of the last 10 years.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Astonishingly awesome, October 6, 2007
This hardcover trade features Joss Whedon's first twelve issues of Astonishing X-Men.
Story lines included:
Gifted (issues 1-6)
Dangerous (issues 7-12)
Also includes an introduction by Brian K. Vaughan (of Y: The Last Man and Runaways fame), a cover gallery (featuring the regular covers and the variants), character sketches, Joss Whedon's planning e-mails, and the Marvel Spotlight interview with John Cassaday
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