He gives everything a very clean look with solid lines and colours that pop. John Cassaday also deserves credit for his artwork.

The story seems straightforward on the surface, but the revelations that come out of that situation take things to unexpected places. Directly following the events of Gifted is Dangerous, a story about the Danger Room going haywire and the team’s attempts to stop it from killing everyone inside. Many consider this to be the highlight of his stellar work and I now understand why. This arc reads like a love letter to past X-Men fans while still moving forward with an all new story. Over the course of six issues, the story ratchets up quickly and peaks when things are at a fever pitch. In Gifted, the world is rocked by a scientist who claims to have a cure for mutants. His presence can also be felt through the actual stories. It makes for a book that feels more grounded and real even though they’re still superheroes fighting against impossible odds. Other times, it helps bring out a layer of depth to characters that hasn’t come been shown before. Sometimes it comes through as an acknowledgement of something silly in the X-Men‘s past. For a franchise that’s prone to getting its head stuck up its own butt with ridiculous plot twists that it takes way too seriously, there’s a refreshing sense of self-awareness and earnestness that’s written into these stories. Joss Whedon brings a lot to the table with his writing. I haven’t read enough X-Men to say where this fits in the pantheon of X-books, but this is at the very least some of the best material I’ve read yet.

I’ve kept that thought in the back of my mind until I stumbled upon both books in the Astonishing X-Men Ultimate Collection for half price.įor the purposes of this post, I’m just going to write about Book 1, which covers our heroic mutants through two story arcs: Gifted and Dangerous. According to him, these were some of the best X-Men tales ever.

In particular, he told me to check out Joss Whedon’s run from issue #1-24. During the beginning of my X-Men vision quest, a vendor at Comicon strongly recommend checking out Astonishing X-Men.

Astonishing x men joss whedon run