Bought/Thought Aug. 23rd 2006 *SPOILERS AS ALWAYS*

[Darthphere]

That Bendis is predictable.

Have you been reading my posts, or do you just want to be a pain today?

Both. And thats an opinion, because sadly there are people who read USM who are surprised.

 

[Doc Destruction]

It's not my fault those people are morons.

 

[Darthphere]

It is, you must educate them.

 

[gildea]

Then what? Bendis has yet to surprise anyone with any earth shattering twists. So, she'll 99% be in the book. She's his freaking pet project.

Yes I really seen richard parker turning up.

I would list other surprises over the course of his career but I feel it would be pointless.

 

[Darthphere]

To add to my Astonishing X-Men review, the pacing on the book feels off. The book comes out every 2 months, but it feels like a book that should come out every 2 weeks. Really, the book is great but its not the best thing out there. Some people for some reason (Whedon fanboyism) tout the book as the second coming of christ. Its not.

 

[Brainiac 8]

To add to my Astonishing X-Men review, the pacing on the book feels off. The book comes out every 2 months, but it feels like a book that should come out every 2 weeks. Really, the book is great but its not the best thing out there. Some people for some reason (Whedon fanboyism) tout the book as the second coming of christ. Its not.

While I'm enjoyed the story, It's deffinatly not the best out there. In fact as of right now, I'm enjoyed Uncanny as the best of the X-Books right now...I'm just digging Brubacker's writing right now, and I love Shi'ar stories.

If I were to do a pick of the week, it would be USM #99.
But if I were allowed to use a book from a couple of weeks ago (Since I picked mine up late) it would be Annihilation #1.

I was just floored by how much I enjoyed the issue. Especially after the ho-hum minis leading up to it.

 

[Dread]

The "rules" go that whatever book you liked the most you can call your BOOK OF THE WEEK, even if you got it weeks later. ANNIHILATION #1 I probably got more of a kick out of than some books this week, that's for sure.

 

[hippy fascist]

Last week

Book Of The Week:THe Boy's (Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson)

Oooh the ****ing tension! This issue is clearly about introductions, as any good first issue is. Ironically it actually focusses very little on the guy who is clearly set to be the central character. In fact, unlike preacher we are told very little about the world we are entering into. We get glimpses of the **** that's coming, but in reality it's all about characterisation. It's about realising what a real low grade piece crap Butcher is, albeit the only kind that can get this kind of job done (just wish that hadn't made him look so much like frank). He'll provide a fascinating foil to hughie as the issues roll out, but for a comic where very little actually happened I somehow can't wait for the next issue, this is not brian "I'm gonna take six issues to tell an 3issue arc cause that's how trades work" bendis. He's taking his time because that way when it's starts to get real nasty you won't know what hit you. I see great things in hughie's future, the ultimate question being will he go darker than the butcher and end up getting the guy out of the way or will he take the higher path and act to keep him in check. All I know is that in the coming issues we are gonna see Francis ****ing Begby channelled through the body of Simon Pegg, It's gonna be sweet! And how can you disagree with a guy looking at a superhero and uttering the immortal phrase.

"I'm gonna 'ave you you ****! "

Flawless /5

SIMON PEGG!​

 

[gildea]

Being a big fan of ennis I thought the boys was rather weak.

Extremely well made but very underwhelming.

But I have faith.

 

[hippy fascist]

Being a big fan of ennis I thought the boys was rather weak.

Extremely well made but very underwhelming.

But I have faith.

But Begby Via Pegg!!!!!!

 

[hippy fascist]

I was kinda dissapointed with The darkness vs wolverine, it was like reading a clip show, lot's of edited highlights rather than the actualy meat of the fights. This could have potentially been far superior to ultimate wolverine vs hulk if they'd taken 2-3 issues to properly tell it as a story, good in a comic characters tournament kinda way but no real direction. Just overall... meh,

 

[gildea]

But Begby Via Pegg!!!!!!

I'm not saying I didn't touch myself inappropriately over a comic having a likeness of simon pegg in it.

I also liked that part of the comic was set in glasgow and that I could recognise george square in the final few pages.

 

[hippy fascist]

and I mean the butcher's like phil mitchel only actually quite hard looking rather than a man that looks like a gerbil that got kinda fat and developed high blood pressure (and was human sized..oh you get the idea)

 

[GNR]

To add to my Astonishing X-Men review, the pacing on the book feels off. The book comes out every 2 months, but it feels like a book that should come out every 2 weeks. Really, the book is great but its not the best thing out there. Some people for some reason (Whedon fanboyism) tout the book as the second coming of christ. Its not.

EXACTLY.

 

[Dread]

EXACTLY.

I agree. ASTONISHING is a fine X-Men superhero tale, just the pacing is slow and that is not helped by it's bimonthly schedule (which at least Marvel was honest about for the past few issues). It's nothing new but it's entertaining mostly.

Paul O'Brien made a post at his X-Axis site about the issue's pace, and I agree:

It's funny how easily a comic can slip off the radar if it hardly ever comes out. Of course, slow schedules rarely have much of an effect on sales. But they certainly do a lot to kill anticipation.

Astonishing X-Men isn't a late book, just a very slow one. It took a lengthy hiatus between issues #12 and #13, and then resumed shipping on a bimonthly schedule. Joss Whedon has an over-reaching storyline set for 24 issues. He began back in May 2004. We're still only two thirds of the way through. I don't get annoyed by the slow schedule of this book - after all, they've been quite upfront about it. I just keep forgetting that it exists. Every time an issue comes out, I see on the shelves and go "Oh, is that story still going?"

I wouldn't normally review this issue, since it's part four of six. But all of this week's X-books are in mid storyline, so I figured it would be worth checking in on the X-books' theoretical flagship title. To my amazement, it turns out that I haven't reviewed an issue of Astonishing in almost a year. I hadn't noticed.

Here's the thing. It's very fashionable these days to justify any sort of slowness on the grounds that it'll look great in the trade paperback which, after all, is the format of the future. Now, that's a valid consideration so far as it goes. But the reality is that we are not in the glorious, trade-paperback-oriented future. For mainstream superhero books, a huge chunk of the audience is still buying the book in serial format. In fact, in the USA alone, around 120,000 people are reading this book in serial format. Unless this book turns out to be an incredible perennial success, that's probably going to be the majority, or at least a very big proportion of the readership.

Now, if the serial format is one of your major formats, it's not good enough to think of pacing purely in terms of page count. You have to think of it in terms of publication schedule as well. That doesn't mean a book has to be monthly; but it does mean that you have to deliver issues which are reasonably satisfying chunks of story in their own right. You can't really get away with stretching a fight scene over three issues. The X-Men have now been fighting the Hellfire Club, in what's essentially the same scene, for four months. That is not good pacing.

A couple of years ago, when Whedon would have been laying out his storyline, this sort of thing happened all the time, because stories were forever being stretched out to six issues to make for a chunkier trade paperback. Quietly, and without making a big deal about it, publishers seem to have acknowledged that this was a bad idea. Two and three-part storylines have become common again. There seems to be a renewed acknowledgement that a series has to be written for both formats - after all, who says that you can only have one story per trade paperback volume?

Astonishing, unfortunately, suffers from a bimonthly schedule attached to a storyline with a serious case of six-issue bloat. Interestingly, the solicitations have the book resuming a monthly schedule from this point, which has got to help. But for the moment, it's a real stumbling block for the book. If you sit down and read first four parts of the storyline as a whole, it's really quite good. It bounds along happily, it has cute character moments, it has strong comedy, it has gorgeous art. It will make a very nice trade paperback.

And yet it's so damn slow. This has the look of a story that would have made a good four-parter on a monthly schedule - around three months from start to finish. Instead, it's going to take the better part of a year. That's a pacing issue, and it damages the story, and it's a real problem, however much certain people pretend otherwise.

This title sells around 120K in serial form. It will not do to pretend that the serial reading experience does not count. That is just self-serving nonsense from creators trying to justify their schedules, and industry commentators determined to pretend that the glorious future has already arrived, reality be damned. Horribly slow books are the worse for it, and the finished product needs to be downright jaw-dropping to make it worthwhile.

Astonishing is, at its best, a very good straightforward superhero title. It's certainly gorgeous to look at. If it was on a monthly schedule, or if I was reviewing the trade paperback, I'd be a lot more enthusiastic about it. But I'm not. I'm reviewing a serial which comes out every two months. And it's not a great serial, because a mildly interesting story is being stretched out over far, far too long a period of time. With considerable reluctance, I'm going to leave it as an A- book, but let's not pretend there isn't a problem with this sort of thing.

He actually rated the book as a B+, which is technically lower than A-.