Editor's Note: Astonishing X-Men #31 arrives in stores tomorrow, October 7.

Plot: When a S.W.O.R.D. vessel piloted by Abigail Brand is about to crash into San Francisco, the X-Men respond to save Beast's new girlfriend.

Comments: My reading of Warren Ellis' run on Astonishing X-Men has convinced me that he would rather be (and would be better suited to) writing The Fantastic Four. I have trouble assessing the quality of the work here because it's hard to shake the feeling that Ellis would prefer to be telling science adventure stories and is to some extent constrained by having to tell them using the X-Men. The resulting work isn't bad, per se; it's just that the feeling of the X-Men as mad science adventure heroes just feels a bit off-model.

In his first arc, the protracted "Ghost Boxes" with Simone Bianchi, Ellis spent several issues dealing with alternate universe artificial mutants (or something equally inscrutable) for a storyline that was really about how Forge isn't quite right. Being an Ellis comic, the dialogue had the requisite ironic detachment, given a slightly irritable growl and run through a techno jargon filter. As a fan of the writer's work, I knew this was to be expected, but again it felt a little "off" at the same time.

To hear Ellis' distinct predilections (I might even say fetishization) of bleeding edge technology and rocket propulsion systems coming from such storied characters as the X-Men felt a little like it was missing the point. But that is sort of the mandate of the AXM line, is it not? To allow the frighteningly talented creators like Ellis tells stories not necessarily constrained by the current editorial direction of the franchise?

It's perhaps a disconnect, then, between being an admirer of the creator and a follower of the franchise. Long-held fanboy prejudices against wildly divergent takes on established characters "counting" feel like they're at play here for me, making it more difficult to assess the relative merits of the work. I'll try my best to untangle this knot that's twisted me into a state where I have trouble understanding if this book works in its current incarnation.

Well, first, I'll note that the majority of the issue deals with a rescue operation by the team to save Abigail Brand, whose S.W.O.R.D. incursion into an orbiting vessel revealed a hive of perennial X-Men nuisances, the Brood, and ended with Brand's vessel plummeting to Earth in freefall. Given that Hank's her boyfriend, he's of course motivated to get the team moving to save her. This whole sequence of the team getting to the new jet, the X-2 (recently shipped from Japan, Scott helpfully informs us) very much has a "Thunderbirds are go" feel to it. The team each does their part to bring Brand down safely, each using his or her powers in what I'm sure are painfully scientifically accurate ways with a combination of teamwork and mutual exasperation. Then, in the final pages of the issue, Emma randomly sees a dead student in the crowd who becomes something spoilery.

With the addition of Phil Jimenez to the mix, it feels even more like a big superhero science action comic with the added fluidity of an artist given to more lively "acting" in his work than the immensely talented but stiff Bianchi.

It just doesn't feel like a comic about the X-Men, though.

Ellis, I think, is a perfect match thematically for the franchise, given his focus on the transition from the old to the new in the realms of human biology, technology, and science, but he doesn't appear to be interested in any of that here (at least not explicitly or really in any way implicitly). I have the sense that he had some pet concepts he wanted to exploit or exorcise and they will be the focus of the current arc. It remains to be seen, and I'll remain reading but again, it feels "off."

Final Word: If only Ellis had gotten assigned the last year of FF stories instead of Millar.

If you liked this review, be sure to check out more of the author’s work at Monster In Your Veins

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