Writer: Joss Whedon
Artist: John Cassaday, Laura Martin(c)
Publisher: Marvel
I'm not a massive X-Men fan. My X-Men were the Stan Lee/Kirby X-Men. I can't even say upon retrospect that I really liked the Claremont/Byrne X-Men. I was more attracted to the writing and art than the characters, Dazzler being the exception. I always felt the opportunities with Dazzler were squandered after her debut. Forget about her disco trappings. Think about the power. She can transform sound--basically kinetic energy--into light. That is a pretty damn impressive power. If she focused it enough, she basically can form a laser capable of slicing a villain into toast. At a rock concert, she could produce enough energy to probably blind a state's populace. Forgive me. I digress.
Of all the X-Men, I kind of liked Wolverine because he was different, but those feelings changed when Wolverine became WOLVERINE. Like my bloodthirsty berserker rage, or eat dirt, and die. The surprise for me regarding this issue of Astonishing X-Men is that the only really good moment comes from the subtle transformation scene of Logan a.k.a. Wolverine. I expected some over the top claws and flamin' moment. Instead, the artwork and the writing transform Wolverine with nuance and expression, not an overt display of manliness.
The rest of the book--stank. Cassaday and Martin cannot do any wrong. So, make no mistake. The art is absolved from leaving the stench. There are some choice bits of dialogue from Agent Brand of SWORD, and SWORD's mole's identity while not coming as a shock at least allowed me the pleasure of being right, but given Whedon's skill this issue of Astonishing X-Men is just not very good.
Now, you can either remember that I worship Joss Whedon as a writing god and take my word for the paucity of this issue, or SPOILERS AHOY! Read on at your own peril.
The story opens with the White Queen thrusting Kitty Pryde into the make-believe world of Kitty's own imagination. This faux virtual reality doesn't make any sense for a number of reasons. First, it was established long ago that Charles Xavier, Jean Grey and the Phoenix--not necessarily the same being given the day of the week--trained the X-Men to resist psychic tampering. It would take more than just one look from the White Queen to break down Kitty's defenses. Second, the world itself does not make sense. Why on earth would Emma Frost be among the X-Men in Kitty's paradise? She doesn't like Emma Frost. Kitty's paradise would be a Frost-less world, and the presence of Emma should remind her that she was until a moment ago fighting all by her lonesome against the new Hellfire Club. She should damn well have a better sense of time. The whole psychic attack just strikes me as shoddy, and Whedon in his zeal to cut to the chase doesn't create a plausible means to make Kitty vulnerable. The closest thing to true virtual reality is brainwashing, and that requires for even the less assured psyche drugs, starvation and the continual mental and physical breakdown of the individual. I'm not buying it. Kitty is more powerful than portrayed. The White Queen is less powerful and shouldn't be able to manipulate Kitty's mind to such an extent.
As the virtual reality stretches through time, without Kitty recognizing the massive jump, Whedon then asks the reader to believe that the X-Men would try to kill her make-believe child because its mutant power represents some kind of threat. No. See, that's not how the X-Men work, and Kitty knows that. This wouldn't be her worst fear, and the scene should act as a neon-festooned billboard flashing "Hello?!? Somebody Is Playing Mind Games With You!" The X-Men would first attempt to help any mutant child to reconcile its power. This is the whole purpose of the X-Men. Hell, the little tyke couldn't be more powerful than Franklin Richards was.
After Kitty goes off to find the box in which her imaginary child is imprisoned--because the X-Men certainly aren't rich enough, resourceful enough nor conscientious enough to build a spacious environment to hold the hypothetical child--Whedon jumps to space where we find SWORD monitoring the X-Men. Apart from the fact, that the book lacks many needed segues, the SWORD section isn't given enough meat to be all that important to the main story. Worse yet, the SWORD section of the story reintroduces readers to Danger--a painful reminder of a Star Trek plot welded inartistically to the X-Men.
Whedon after the big mole reveal, jumps to Wolverine's encounter with an unconscious student, then back to Kitty encountering the box, stops over with Beast devouring a buck, oh, and then back to the bad guys where we learn that the White Queen refers to Emma Frost as an imposter. Bad, bad planning on Whedon's part. Had he bothered to actually explain the meaning behind the two Emmas, off the bat, this would have given the book a saving grace. Instead, he muddies the waters by having Emma Frost eavesdrop on the White Queen. I'm at a loss. This can't be time travel, because Emma would know what the White Queen was going to do anyway. An Emma Frost from a parallel earth opens up more headaches: how did she get there and what's her motivation, just to name two.
Kitty phases through the box and states: "I can feel him." No, you can't. Kitty is feeling a blob, probably an alien blob. If so, she should be able to feel the difference. What about the psychic-whammy on her? Here again, Whedon asks me to take a huge leap, and he simply hasn't written well enough for me to do that. Even were I to accept that Kitty is seeing a virtual world, I'm now being asked to accept that her mind is creating a false tactile sense. I'm not buying this at all. As soon as she feels the blob, she should snap her hand back out of the box. The blob in the box should act as a massive spotlight on reality. In order for me to accept all of this, I would have to have an issue where the Hellfire Club takes the actual time and steps to brainwash Kitty. The added impetus of psychic manipulation would speed the process. Kitty though has defenses of her own, taught to her by psionic powerhouses, and these would counter the efficacy of such techniques.
While Kitty tries to retrieve the blob in the box, Danger and Ord break down the house. Ord's and Danger's alliance as well as Danger's confusion over "cognitive dissonance" reminds me of Spike's alliance with Adam in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in which a minor fourth tier character using magic literally takes over the show to cast himself as a Bondish hero. It's funny, but while Kitty doesn't question her virtual reality, the Slayer does. She questions if the Amazing Johnathan is so amazing, why then is she designated the Slayer? Adam, a cyborg Frankenstein's monster, also immediately questions the reality of the situation. While it's okay for a writer to recycle his own ideas, he should at least try to distinguish those ideas. Cribbing from himself is just lazy, and Whedon does not distinguish these ideas enough. Furthermore, he reminds the reader of the artifice. Kitty is smarter than the Slayer, but Kitty does not question her reality. Buffy did.
The capper of the whole mess is when we learn that Cyclops is up and about. His move against Emma definitely rules out the possibility of time travel. This time Whedon hamstrings himself with his own cleverness. Cyclops is once again holding back his own optic ray blasts. No, no, no. A thousand times no. Cylcops has no control over the physics of his power, and none of Whedon's apologists can claim that Emma Frost is using her power to hold them back. She's trapped in a hole far beneath the mansion, and the other White Queen has just acquired a pair of smashing red holes to offset her ensemble. This issue of Astonishing X-Men was a huge disappointment.
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