Customer Reviews
Absorbing tale. - By: Dogtooth, 11 May 2008 
If you appreciate a story with skillfully crafted characters, relationships & plotting you will love Astonishing X-men.
Astonishing X-Men is masterfully written by Whedon. The outstanding text is complimented by Cassaday's fine artwork.
Even if, like me, you are new to American comic books, I strongly encourage you to buy the Astonishing X-Men trade paper backs, starting with the first volume, Gifted.
Very good, but no gifted. - By: genejoke, 21 May 2007 
I liked this a lot, however I was not really taken with Danger as a villain. The art is excellent, john Cassaday is great at capturing expression & thus removes the need for too much narrative that plagues many comics. Joss Whedon seems intent on taking his time with his x-men comics, the pace is ponderous at times, & many writers would have a story like this finishedin twenty pages not a hundred & twenty. That said he does a great job of fleshing out the story without making it over complicated.
Lightweight - By: J. Edwards, 23 Aug 2006 
I agree with S Bentley, below. This is a well-written & superbly-drawn story that nevertheless feels as though Josh Whendon is still feeling his way as a comics writer. The pacing is just a bit too slow & he doesn't really do enough with the characters.
Buffy writer does the X-Men. - By: S. Bentley, 01 Oct 2005 And does them well. Joss Whedon handles the voices & viewpoints of the characters very well, all the while offering an intriguing threat & moral dilemma. The X-Men are presented as individuals, with failings. If there is anything that you can fault this on, it's that the story is a little light plotwise & the intriguing subplot involving reformed villain Emma Frost is not resolved. As a 45 minute episode of a TV show it would work well, but as a hundred plus page story one could be forgiven for expecting a little more meat.
John Cassidy's artwork is beyond reproach, although it would be nice if there was more work on the backgrounds, but when you look at some of the pages your breath is taken away (though this may explain the lightness of the story to accomodate the art).
It's good but could do with being a little more dense.
