Started well, ended badly. That's just as true of the artwork as the story. Averages out just OK.

very poorly written considering the first volume

It turns out that Charles Soule's short 12-issue run on Astonishing X-Men was really "X Resurrection: The Return of Charles Xavier". And, it worked better than all of the death and resurrection miniseries of late because of that swerve. By allowing the Xavier's rebirth to organically develop out of a series, it felt much less like a staged event.Now, about Xavier. He was one of Marvel's three pointless X-Men resurrections of 2017, which have together threatened to set the whole line back by a de...

This is the end of Soule's very rocky Astonishing run. I didn't hate this, but I certainly didn't love it. There are more problems here than good things:The plots were very slow with exhaustingly fast transitions in between. It's like: "Oh no, a bad guy!" *talking, talking, talking, fighting, talking, talking* "We got him guys...oh wait, another bad guy has jumped us!" *talking, talking, fighting talking* "Whew! We handled that...oh, no, yet ANOTHER bad guy has attacked us now!!!!" *talking, tal...

This volume wasn’t as good as the last. The whole Professor X/Fatomex situation was cool but the story got a little wonky towards the end of the battle with Proteus.

[Read as single issues]Charles Soule’s Astonishing X-Men epic concludes with a bang as Charles Xavier finds himself back in the land of the living. But he’s not alone, and now the team must deal with old enemy Proteus before he can warp the entire world to his whim. And of course, the Shadow King still lurks just out of sight, waiting for his revenge…Charles Soule knows how to amp up some action. In 12 issues he’s crafted a story that Marvel could easily have blown out of proportion into an X-Me...

Charles Soule's run on the Astonishing X-men was interesting that it departed from a lot of the floundering of the X-men: Blue and X-men: Gold line as well as post-Cyclops main continuity problems, but never completely found it's own voice. While it flirted with 90s nostalgia, it did not embrace it nor feel like it was stuck trending the same relationship soap operas of the other books, but also never convincingly found itself. Furthermore, the levels of psychic worlds and twists in this book ma...

While this volume mostly finishes the story, it doesn't do a very good job of it. Without giving too much away, there are two villains and one of them, the X-Men don't fully utilize their capability to take them down, and when they do, it isn't very clear what happened. It's almost as if the story forgot about it and moved onto the primary villain. The primary villain was a decent surprise, but dispensed with after a bunch of handwaving, "psychic" stuff. You feel cheated, as if the story was rus...

Soule only wrote 2 volumes, that was fast. I think he set up a nice story line in volume 1 with the shadow king and Xavier. I also like the team with Psylocke, Rogue, and crew. So I was pumped to read volume 2 and it started off ok but slowed down a bit and sort of fizzled. So when Xavier or X as he likes to be called comes back from the astral plane he sort of makes a deal with Fantomex which was fishy. With his return he also brings back Proteus who i guess was also trapped by the shadow king

It dismays me to write yet another “the change in art styles from one issue to the next took me out of the story” review, but there it is.(view spoiler)[Still, if that douche Fantomex can just stay on the Astral Plane gardening away for a long, long time something good will have come of this run at the least! (hide spoiler)]

The story continues straight from issue 6. Rogue, Gambit, Old Man Logan, and Mystique are back from the Astral Plane. But with them came out another mutant, someone whom everyone thinks is dead but who has been trapped in the Astral Plane, dueling with the Shadow King. He’s a changed person. Mystique doesn’t believe he is who he says he is. The new mutant who calls himself X, has taken over Fantomex while Fantomex’s spirit stays in the Astral Plane. Psylocke even visits the Astral Plane to make

With every issue this gets increasingly worse, both in storytelling and the art. Charles Xavier is back, sort of. Now he's younger and an angsty, douchey, emo kid who wants to be called X. I know this because he says it at least 10 times. The latter issues feel like they were created by a EXTREME 12 year old on adderall. The art becomes all of these double page spreads with shit just scattered all over the page. Good luck trying to figure out the order to read those word balloons. It's just a bi...

After a really strong first volume, I was excited to get this one. Did it live up to the potential I saw? NO. Well, let's start with how it begins. X is back. The X-Men are trying to accept this. I mean, after seeing their mentor killed it's hard to trust this new information. Especially since the Shadow King could still be behind it all. Then we have a new villain, which I never heard of, who is basically one strong ass psychic blob. But on top of that the X-Men have to work together to face of...

The Wonderful Wizard of XOVERALL RATING: 1.75 starsArt: 3.25 starsProse: 2 starsPlot: 0.75 starsPacing: 2.5 starsCharacter Development: 2.5 starsWorld Building: 2 starsThis arc was a massive decline on the last. Feels like Soule just finished a reread of Oz. X or Professor X being the Wizard of Oz (view spoiler)[fixing his X-men like the Tin man, Lion, Scare crow etc. (hide spoiler)] This was all just a mirror image of the last arc too. Definitely understand why Hickman was brought in now. Just

2.5 Not nearly as good as the first volume.

Well, at least this series started out strong... this volume, and the final chapter in Charles Soule’s run, isn’t nearly as satisfying as the opening salvo, and X never really rang true for me. I kept waiting for the big reveal in this bait and switch, but the final denouement left a fair bit to be desired. Mostly, the plotting just felt a bit sloppy. Bummer.

3.5 StarsNot quite as strong as the first volume. We got the return of Proteus (sort of? the whole thing was a little weird) and then Shadow King pops up again as well. This series has had a throwback vibe to the glory days of Uncanny X-Men from the 1970s, but sort of went off the rails here. I liked it, but didn't quite live up to the start of the storyline.

This is even worse that the first volume.

A worthy follow up to the first one, and I like (like? is that the word, here?) the addition of the character "X" who might be Xavier's mind in Fantomex's body? We're not sure yet. I enjoyed the recall of old villains like the Shadow King (who of course is on Legion right now) and Proteus, who does that good villain thing where they make some excellent points. Could have done without the "artist of the month" plan on this, though. Soule writes good X-Men.

Well this was a bit of a disappointment. I really loved the first volume, but this was not a very good conclusion. We trade in the rotating cast of all-star artists for many of their budget alternatives. The story is off the rocks, well into reality manipulation territory, and while Soule handles htis better than many before him, it does not make for a compelling story. Also, we barely resolve the "X" character introduction, then the book just ends? Now we have weird handsome Fantomex Chuck runn...