Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 5: Ghost Box

Joss Whedon left and this series went all sorts of to hell. The biggest problem with this volume is that, in the previous installment, Joss, as he is wont to do, had a character sacrifice herself to save the rest of the X team. She wasn't dead, but she was certainly going to be gone for quite a while, assuming she ever made it back, and it was all very emotional. This volume never mentioned that. At all.

The plot of this is just awful and mostly doesn't make sense. The last chapters are depressing and come out of absolutely nowhere. The group had won a battle with the bad guys and then all of a sudden things are different. And apparently they lost. But there's no explanation of what's happening. I can't say whether the last sections were, fittingly, an alternate universe thing or if the series is over or what. I suspect it was an alternate universe, but that should definitely be made more apparent. ( )

Ghost Box provides a look at a much darker team of X-Men. It's grim from start to finish, and the characters are ruthless, desperate and willing to kill to protect the decimated mutant population.

Bianchi's art is decidedly different from most comic book art - the ultra-detailed hair/clothes/backgrounds tend to get overwhelming and difficult to differentiate, especially with the muddy colours and the lack of crisp, sharp outlines. While it's interesting to look at one of Bianchi's illustrations on its own, put together they just don't flow like a comic book should. Also, the character's facial features are weirdly inconsistent.

Ellis' plot is pretty straightforward when you get down to it, but it begins in such a convoluted manner that, for the first half of the graphic novel, it feels much more confusing than it really is. The team (minus Colossus) have relocated to San Francisco, with a new mission, which is to protect the mutant population (which was reduced to only 200 after the events of House of M.) Storm also rejoins the team, and the teenage Hisako a.k.a. Armour, is now a fully-fledged X-Man.

The rest of this review contains SPOILERS:

Basically, there is a group of mutants from another reality, trying to cross over into ours and invade. Then there is another group of artificially created "mutants" a man named Forge has created to combat this threat. There are things called "ghost boxes" that allow for these parallel-reality mutants to come in an invade, and, well, that's pretty much it, though Ellis tells the story in as confusing a way as possible.

Perhaps we are really meant to be focusing on the changes to characters' personalities in this post-M-Day universe. Cyclops in particular is a much darker person, more ruthless and more prone to fatal violence against their enemies. There are hints early on, when Storm first reunites with the team and he tells her in no uncertain terms that he is not doing things the way the Professor did. There are small unpleasant things he does, like swearing at Beast's girlfriend, and then there are things like his callous and indifferent attitude towards murdering their enemies.

At one point, Cyclops orders his team to leave a wounded enemy they had just interrogated to die. Then Cyclops wants to tell Storm that he bled out from the wounds she gave him, knowing that this will hurt her, because she seems to be the only X-Man who is still against killing.

In the story's climax, Beast, who should be so much better than this, tells his girlfriend how to fire two zettawatts of quantum laser into the ghost box.

"It would be very like landing a piece of star in the room. Even ten miles out, the polariton storm at the edge of the beam's field of effect would have torn buildings and people into foam."

And this is against a parallel reality that they are not even certain is planning on invading! Seriously, they don't even know. I mean: What?! Honestly, these are not the X-Men I know and love, and I don't really know if I want to keep reading about them.

The most interesting thing about this volume, for me, was the very end, which included four short-short stories showing glimpses of different alternate realities and how they dealt with the ghost boxes. The first, Agent X-13's Report on the Emergency Annexation of Earth-616 is jarring because it's weird cartoon-y art is so sharply out of place in this volume, also it really doesn't add anything to the story. But the other three are dark, powerful and intriguing:

Being an Journal by Miss Emma Frost of New Portsmouth Bay in the State of New Albion is a steam-punk/weird fiction take on the X-Men, with gorgeous art by Adi Granov. I wish this could have been expanded into a full graphic novel on its own! I would love to see more stories set in this universe.

The Last Testament of Scott Summers is an emotionally devastating look at a universe in which the world was taken over and everyone killed except for Cyclops, who is haunted by the ghosts leaking through a liquified time. With haunting visuals and a palpable sense of grief, this story is very dark, but excellent (and short enough that the extreme angst does not get over-done.)

The final "ghost box" story doesn't even have a name, but it's the most disturbing. Armour, Beast and Wolverine are the only survivors on a ruined planet, and Wolverine and Beast are both crippled mentally and physically by what's happened, leaving an exhausted Armour to care for them, wishing only for their deaths. A horribly dark look at the characters, this is a suicidally grim note to end the collection on. ( )

Collects Astonishing X-men #25-30 plus Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes #1-2 ( )

I'm a big fan of Warren Ellis, which is why I picked this up, but this is one of his most generic efforts. The story is nothing special, and the dialog has little of Ellis's usual sparkle. If I hadn't known it was his I would never have guessed.

Bianchi's draftsmanship is gorgeous, but the page layouts are often poor, and the action sequences difficult to follow. ( )

Merideth says: This book, the first in the Astonishing X-Men relaunch without Joss Whedon, falls squarely in the "good not great" catergory. Ellis takes the story into a much more morally ambiguous place, with the much diminished X-Men, with a change in mission since mutants were virtually wiped out by the Scarlet Witch (House of M). It was interesting to see the team dynamic with a newly returned Storm, and see how the lack of mutants has changed the X-Men. This story delved a little bit too deeply into the X-Men backstory for me, but Ellis is an excellent writer, and managed to keep it accessible. Bianchi has a moodier style that former artist Cassady, but it fits with the newly grim X-Men. ( )