BB Review Group week 67 - Astonishing X-Men #13 (spoilers)

[Thudpucker]

There is no longer a set 'membership'. If you have read the book we are reviewing please feel free to join in and review

* fine print at the bottom of post


This week we will be reading: Astonishing X-Men #13 (Marvel) by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday, chosen by Slingy

Next week we will be reading: Ms. Marvel #1 (Marvel) by Brian Reed and Rob de la Torre, chosen by Adam Witt


Our reviewers this week are:

The Saint - 9
skinnyrunaway - 9
ThisSpaceForRent - 8.5
Raydawggie - 10
JoeyJoJoBobJr - 7.5
greg donovan - 9
DaveCummings - 8.5
Francis - 9.5
joespam - 9
Giannini - 9
Pat(sadly)NotLoika - 9
SteveZegers - 9
Adam Witt - 10
Akira - 9
itsdlevy - 9
Brandon191 - 9
Anthony Loring - 9
Kirbys corpse - 4.8
Slingy - 9.5
The Human Target - 6
Doug - 8.5
smashtor - 7
Andreas - 9
Joshzilla - 8.5
dEnny - 10

Our Previous 16 weeks of reviews (scores lost during the Image Board crash)

Week 1 - 11/17/04 – Captain America #1
Week 2 - 11/24/04 – Flash #216
Week 3 - 12/01/04 – Darkness Vol. 2 #17 (av grade 3.7)
Week 4 - 12/08/04 – Demo #12
Week 5 - 12/15/04 - Plastic Man #13
Week 6 - 12/22/04 – Goon #10
Week 7 - 12/29/04 - Legion of Super Heroes #1
Week 8 - 01/05/05 – Flaming Carrot #1
Week 9 - 01/12/05 – Majestic #1
Week 10 - 01/19/05 – Human Target #18
Week 11 - 01/26/05 – Conan #12 (av grade 8.3)
Week 12 - 02/02/05 – Black Panther #1
Week 13 - 02/09/05 – Young Avengers #1
Week 14 - 02/16/05 – Ex Machina #8 (av grade 8.4)
Week 15 - 02/23/05 – X-Men #167
Week 16 - 03/02/05 – Ultimate Iron Man #1


Week 17 pick - Shining Knight #1 (Morrison & Bianchi) av grade - 7.8
Week 18 pick - Invincible #21 (Kirkman and Ottley) av grade - 6.3
Week 19 pick - Expatriate #1 (Moore and Latour) av grade - 5.4
Week 20 pick - Temporary #2 (Hurd & Smith) av grade - 7.4
Week 21 pick - GLA #1 (Slott and Pelletier) av grade - 6.8
Week 22 pick - Nightwing #107 (Grayson and Hester) av grade - 5.8
Week 23 pick - Iron Ghost #1 (Dixon and Cariello) av grade - 4.9
Week 24 pick - City Of Tomorrow (Howard Chaykin) av grade - 6.2
Week 25 pick - Villains United #1 (Simone and Eaglesham) av grade - 5.7
Week 26 pick - Desolation Jones #1 (Ellis and Williams III) av grade - 8.9
Week 27 pick - Guardian #2 (Morrison and Stewart) av grade - 6.1
Week 28 pick - Adv. Of Superman #640 (Rucka and Kerschl) av - 6.1
Week 29 pick - Son Of Vulcan #1 (Beatty and Grant) av grade - 3.7
Week 30 pick - JLA #115 (Johns, Heinberg, Batista) av grade - 6.9
Week 31 pick - Wildsiderz #0 (Campbell and Hartnell) av grade - 2.9
Week 32 pick - Astro City: The Dark Age #1 av grade - 7.3
Week 33 pick - Albion #1 (Moore and Oakley) av grade - 5.0
Week 34 pick - Gotham Central #33 (Rucka, Brubaker, Kano) av - 8.5
Week 35 pick - Mutopia X (Hine and Medina) av grade - 5.2
Week 36 pick - Athiest #2 (Hester and McCrea) av grade - 6.9
Week 37 pick - JLA: Classified #10 (Ellis and Guise) av grade - 6.9
Week 38 pick - Justice #1 (Ross, Krueger & Braithwaite) av grade 7.9
Week 39 pick - The Winter Men #1 (Lewis and Leon) av grade 5.3
Week 40 pick - Batman: Journey into Knight #1 (Helfer & Huat) av - 4.4
Week 41 pick - Jack Cross #1 (Ellis and Erskine) av grade 6.1
Week 42 pick - Runaways #7 (Vaughan & Miyazawa) av grade 7.8
Week 43 pick - Ghost Rider #1 (Ennis and Crain) av grade 6.4
Week 44 pick - Thor: Blood Oath #1 (Oeming and Kolins) av grade 7.1
Week 45 pick - Wolverine #32 (Millar and Andrews) av grade 8.2
Week 46 pick - Losers #28 (Diggle and Wilson) av grade 7.4
Week 47 pick - FF/I M : Big In Japan #1 (Wells & Fisher) av grade 5.6
Week 48 pick - F N Spider-Man #1 (David and Wieringo) av grade 7.3
Week 49 pick - Fin Fang Four #1 (Langridge & Grey) av grade 8.8
Week 50 pick - Book Of Lost Souls #1 (JMS & Doran) av grade 5.6
Week 51 pick - Hero At Large #2 (Hogan and Treece) av grade 6.3
Week 52 pick - DMZ #1 (Brain Wood) av grade 7.7
Week 53 pick - The Thing #1 (Slott and DiVito) av grade 7.5
Week 54 pick - Walking Dead #24 (Kirkman & Adlard) av grade 8.4
Week 55 pick - Generation M #1 (Jenkins and Bachs) av grade 7.3
Week 56 pick - Marvel Team-Up #15 (Kirkman & Medina) av grade 6.0
Week 57 pick - Amazing Joy Buzzards 2 #3 (Smith and Hipp) av grade 5.1
Week 58 pick - Testament #1 (Rushkoff and Sharp) av grade 7.4
Week 59 pick - New Avengers #14 (Bendis and Cho) av grade 7.6
Week 60 pick - Sable & Fortune #1 (Cahill and Burns) av grade 4.4
Week 61 pick - Ares #1 (Oeming and Foreman) av grade 8.2
Week 62 pick - SGT. ROCK: THE PROPHECY #1 (Joe Kubert) - 7.7
Week 63 pick - Nextwave #1 (Ellis and Immonen) av grade 9.1 Bendis deleted the thread
Week 64 pick - Betty and Veronica Digest #163 av grade 4.2
Week 65 pick - Fables #46 (Willingham and Fern) av grade 7.5
Week 66 pick - Daredevil #82 (Brubaker and Lark) av grade 9.6





Our higest average grade so far was for Daredevil #82 with 9.6
Our lowest average grade so for is Wildsiderz #0 with 2.9


Our Sponsors:

Isotope Comics (SF Bay area)



(If any other retailers would like to sponsor our reviewers in your area, I'd be happy to promote your store in the thread too )



What we do: This is a fanbased review group, open to everybody.

As people post the reviews, I will add your name and score to a list in the main post and at the end of the week average the scores for an overall grade on the book. We grade on a scale of 0-10.

THERE IS NO OBLIGATION TO PARTICIPATE EVERY WEEK. Please join in as little or as much as you like week to week. If you are uncomfortable giving a grade then just join in the discussions and ask questions.

If you would like to chose the book we review, please join the list here:

http://www.606studios.com/bendisboar...ad.php?t=48095

[Ray G.]

Very excited about this weeks choice. I've been waiting for AXM to come back for a while!

[Olivier E.]

I'm so back behind reading, damn holidays, damn girlfriend, damn winter olympics, damn football,

and there' s holidays again

I was disappointed by the first run and hope this one get's better

[The Saint]

I'm a pretty big Whedon fan, so I'm a little biased. The writing is more of the same from the first arc, which is still good. The story ties in well with Morrison's New X-Men. Cassaday's art is really amazing. He did not miss a single step in this issue. My only complaint is the ending. It just rubbed me the wrong way. Other than that everything was fine.

9/10

[skinnyrunaway]

9/10

Awesome, and probably best of the week, but not perfect enough for the 10.

Thank god for kitty and colossus that was my best moment of the week. also loved wolverine this issue with hiro (i think thats her name). that was classic whedon.

Ending was a little odd, and i think emmas just gone bonkers.

[ThisSpaceForRent]

Hard to review the first part of an arc, but since that's what we're here for...

Great characterization and relationshipes as always. Good use of Kitty/Peter, Emma/Hellfire and S.H.I.E.L.D./S.W.O.R.D.

Having read #1-12 I can't say for sure, but I imagine this issue was pretty welcoming for new readers. You see the major players, you see where they're at, and while they won't play into Whedon's story that much, major events like House of M and Fury's departure from S.H.I.E.L.D. are mentioned.

8.5/10

[Ray G.]

Good issue. Very clean transition from the first run, while bringing recent events into the story. The revelations about Emma made a lot of sense, and really put a bunch of events into perspective. The new Hellfire Club has the potential to be better than the old one ever was. Wolverine really stole the show for me this issue. He should be a badass, and that's exactly what he was.

A true, classic superhero adventure book, with excellent dialogue, small emotional moments, and a ton of suspense and promise for future storylines.

You know, I can't think of a single problem I had with this issue. 10/10

[Kefky]

Wow, geeks giving high grades to a Whedon book? No wayz!

*runs away*

[The Robot Lord of Tokyo]

All in all it was a good starting point for the new story arc with a lot of ties to the past. Good interactions with most of the characters but for some reason I'm just underwhelmed with the current roster of the Hellfire Inner Circle. I liked Morrison's run but never really liked Cassandra Nova as a bad guy. For me, there's something about those "all-powerful omnipotent" villians that bore me. In addition to that...I just don't see Nova as the type of person that would collaberate with Shaw and vice versa. For me, with the exception of Shaw and Frost, I don't feel the others involved really fit what I think of the Hellfire club. But who knows? After I read the full run maybe it'll all come together and I'll change my mind.
Overall I'll give the issue a 7.5 out of 10 because the X-men interactions are a throwback to the past and it's felt more like what an X-book is supposed to be but I have the points knocked off for what I feel to be a bland group of bad guys and the last page "shocker" has been used to a point that it feels tired for me that they keep having to go back to this plot device.

[Francis]

I'm not a reviewer, so I hope I'm not completely out of line posting here... But I thought this issue was great. I've heard a lot of complaints lately about Marvel ignoring Morrison's run, and I think what's really going on is that they're leaving it to Whedon to deal with. Seriously, the progression of story seems to go directly from New X-Men to Phoenix Endsong to Astonishing X-Men and it's got some great themes.
The Emma/Scott/Jean thing is fascinating, and I'm curious which time Emma was referring to when she said she'd saved Cassandra's life. Was it when she put her into STUF's body, or when she broke Charles/Cassandra's neck?

Who do you all think the lady in the hood is now? Apparently it's not Mastermind... Also, was the girl-in-black sent with Emma to keep an eye on her?

All interesting questions.

--
Francis