Yes, I know it's not actually the first of August.  But the domain name was down for 24 hours or so, so most people wouldn't have seen the update anyway.  And then I decided to go to the pub instead.  And then I didn't come back.

Anyway.  This week wraps up the third month of Reload.  From what we've seen thus far, Astonishing X-Men is earning its place as the de facto flagship title. 

It may not be cutting edge or wildly experimental, but that's not really the point.  Joss Whedon and John Cassaday is doing the traditional X-Men format - largely character driven, enough gratuitous action to satisfy modern attention spans, and absolutely beautiful artwork.  It's the traditional formula, but it's the formula done well.  And when the formula's done well, it works.  That's why it became the formula in the first place. 

The idea of somebody finding a way of removing mutant powers isn't novel, but Whedon is handling it nicely.  Generally the approach in these stories is that an individual character discovers the possibility of getting rid of their unwanted powers.  Then they get to face a dilemma about whether to do so, with vague mutterings about being true to yourself.  (There's also a second version of the plot - evil villain discovers way of removing mutant powers, heroes discuss whether that would be so bad, heroes discover cure has genocidal side-effect, heroes defeat villain.  See the High Evolutionary for details.  But Whedon is working with version 1 of the story.)

Whedon's spin on the story follows on from something Grant Morrison introduced - the idea of mutants as a semi-functional minority community, rather than a bunch of scattered individuals.  Since plenty of mutants now live a fairly public existence, that opens up this twist on the story, where the existence of a "cure" is publicised, and tons of mutants immediately start queuing up to get hold of it.  The Beast, in particular, is tempted by the thought of getting rid of his powers and regaining his human appearance.  In this context, the dilemma becomes more nuanced than just a corny "be true to yourself" routine.  Wolverine wants to stop the Beast taking the cure, not because he could care less about the Beast being true to himself, but because he thinks the symbolic value of one of the X-Men removing his powers would be catastrophic.

This is a great example of how to work with the set-up Whedon inherited.  You couldn't really do this story with the pre-Morrison X-Men because there never really was a mutant community (outside Genosha, which was so bizarre that it didn't really count).  In the 1990s, the anti-mutant mania had become so psychotically genocidal that it no longer reflected the experience of any minority group in the western world.  Now, even while avoiding all of Morrison's wackier and more offbeat concepts, writers can go back to the old "mutant as metaphor for oppressed minority" set-up, but with a mutant community that more closely mirrors real minority communities.  Writers can return to the old territory, but now the old metaphor is closer to the mark and can be used to tell stories that have a closer bearing on the real world.  Morrison himself didn't really go in for that angle, but he's left the way clear for Whedon to do a traditional approach with a reinvigorated set-up.

Oh, and then the Beast and Wolverine settle their differences by fighting for six pages.  Well, it is a superhero comic.  And they do it so beautifully.

It's a gorgeous book to look at - Cassaday's artwork and Laura Martin's colouring are producing some of the most impressive work we've seen in ages.  It's not all set pieces, either.  Cassaday's good with the subtler character points, and I like the way they're using the Danger Room to liven up potentially static conversation scenes with gratuitously silly backdrops.

I'm all for experimenting with the franchise and pushing to do something new.  But the old routines still have life in them, when they're done as well as this.

Rating: A

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