Really more like 3.5 stars, but I can't bring myself to bump it up to 4.Maybe I should have taken a break between reading Joss Whedon's excellent run on Astonishing X-Men before picking up anybody else's take. It may have helped. Now, if you put down the last Whedon volume and then immediately picked this one up, you'll probably feel a bit lost. It reads like a lot happened in between, and I ended up confused that they'd moved base and seemed to have gotten over the events just one issue prior.

I think that I jumped into this too soon after the absolutely fantastic Whedon/Cassaday run. Not only was that my first X-Men, but they were a team that proved to be pretty flawless. I got spoiled, and I let myself believe that switching writers and artists at the same time would be no big deal, because it would still be the same characters with the same backgrounds and the same relationships.That is what made me angry. According to the numbers, Volume Four covered issues #19-24, and Volume Five...

5.9/10The body of a mutant who is not a mutant? and some mystery boxes. The X-Men joined by Storm try to figure out what the hell is going on.Warren Ellis had the hard task to continue the series after Whedon and although it is not a bad start its not in the same level.

In the remaining days of 2017 I devoured the enjoyable Whedon / Cassaday run (volumes 1 to 4) of Astonishing X-Men. While I try my best to be open-minded when new folks pick up the reins of an on-going series I felt burned this time. Ghost Box had little in common with the earlier work.While it started out as interesting - the initial two or three chapters were good and had me briefly hooked - I soon realized by the halfway point that my enthusiasm had cooled to indifference. The drab color sche...

I loved Emma Frost. Loved her! What a bitch, right?Anyway, I liked the whodunit aspect of Ghost Box. It wasn't exactly a cozy little mystery to read by the fire, but it was fun watching the group put the puzzle pieces together.The artwork was stunning. Really. The detail the artist put into these characters was amazing. But (you know there's a but), occasionally it was hard to tell exactly what was going on in the panels. Is that his foot on that guy's neck, or is he flattened up against a wall?...

Fantastic premise for a mystery. Hilarious dialogue - nay, *writing* above all. Genius ideas on the origins of mutants, how it works, where all the friggin spaceships have gone, the works.The art isn't perfect but when it's good it's really good.Ellis thinks big, really big - takes what's been going on in the ongoing storyline, adds some futuristic thinking and injects some real live imagination. It's always fun to see the universe expand under Ellis' tutelage.But if this parallel universe conce...

Warren Ellis nails the X-Men perfectly. The way he writes the characters is spot-on. His trademark quips don't disappoint, either. In "Ghost Box", he writes one of the funniest lines I've ever read: «Emma Frost. I didn't recognize you with your legs together.» Ha! There are a lot more funny lines, all delivered in typical Ellis fashion. Followers of Ellis' writing will notice that he brings his obsession of parallel universes to the X-Men by way of the convenient ghost boxes. In that respect, th...

SUPER FAST REVIEW:So I loved Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men but Ellis’ looks like it’s only okay so far TBH. Not to say that this book is poor quality or to say that Ellis is a bad writer, this was just a bit meh.I like the story, it’s a pretty cool idea. There’s a good amount of cool action scenes too. Ellis also writes the characters pretty well, especially Wolverine.As far as dialogue goes well... that can be another story (except for Wolverine’s dialogue for some reason). The comic relief b...

Um... what the heck happened? This was boring. *checks details of book*oh.. that's right..Joss Whedon didn't write this.I was reading this and thinking "why does this feel really different? Why do characters sound a little off? Joss Whedon! Where did you go?!I was bored. But the art was still really pretty.

Book Info: This collection contains Astonishing X-Men issues #25-30, and Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes issues 1-2.ABSOLUTE RATING: {3+/5 stars}STANDARDIZED RATING: <3/5 stars>Since their recent relocation to San Francisco, the X-Men have been taking it easy for a change, and enjoying their well-earned break. But when the San Francisco Police Department call on the team for their assistance in solving an unusual case, the mutants are again thrown into the thick of it. Recently joined by

So this is the third time I'm reading this, and finally it makes sense! Ellis is a great storyteller but sometimes he has the dialogue dominate the storytelling making the visual format pointless, this would be a case in point, despite the interesting art by Simone Bianchi. The story? The Astonishing X-Men are joined by Storm, as they find themselves investigating Ghost Boxes and more. A solid 7 out of 12 from me.

This volume of Astonishing X-Men just did not work for me at all. I really disliked the art. There were just too many cold colors, so many grays, browns, and dark blues. The characters were drawn extremely inconsistent. Just when I thought the art wasn't that bad because of a great scene, the very next scene had the characters looking completely different. Beast changed appearance with the art constantly. The plotline was just OK. There were a lot of things being said but not a whole lot going o...

The work of Warren Ellis is a lot like Grant Morrison's to me. Either I love it, or it's so weird I can't get into it. This one falls into the weird category for me. I get most of where the story is coming from, but it's "hard sci fi" to me and not really my thing. There are devices known as "ghost boxes" that are used to travel between alternate dimensions. It appears as though the X-Men universe is in danger of being invaded, and that's where the X-Men come in. The short stories in the volume

This book takes a few issues before the scope of its story is realized, and then it simply becomes a fascinating read.Simone Bianchi's art is beautiful and strange, but sometimes it lacks the kinetic energy that is called for in a "super-hero" comic. Some pages feel jagged and still.Alan Davis, Adi Granov, Clayton Crain and Kaare Andrews all contribute their incredible artistry to the Ghost Boxes issues, dealing with...nah, won't spoil it. These shorts hit hard though.Warren Ellis is great.

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 depressin...

[CLICK TO VIEW FULL POST]From this point forward in my The Astonishing X-Men reviews, I'll be doing a collective analysis of a story arc instead, much like this one which is comprised of issues #25-30 and penned by Warren Ellis who is generally an awesome comic book writer. This is due to some time constraints in RL stuff at my workplace. I simply can't find enough time to write individual reviews anymore, at least for the time being. As a compromise, I'll finish The Astonishing X-Men with the c...

Set after the events of “House of M” where all but a couple hundred mutants were wiped out by Scarlet Witch’s curse “No More Mutants”, and after the events of “Second Coming” when the first mutant, Hope, was born after the curse, “Ghost Box” is about parallel worlds affected by Scarlet Witch and their desperate attempt to enter our world to survive. Ghost boxes are gateways to other universes and the X-Men set out to find, and destroy, the few remaining ones before the deranged rebel mutant Forg...

As soon as I finished reading Ghost Box I knew I had to write my thoughts on it down.Marvel picked the best writer to replace Joss Whedon on Astonishing X-Men. Whedon launched the title with John Cassaday, returning the X-Men to its superhero spandex roots after Grant Morrison’s biker leather chic take on New X-Men. Warren Ellis followed up what was a well-received neoclassical take on Marvel’s mutants with a story that is pure Ellis. Mad science, parallel worlds and space ship graveyards are al...

It's pretty good but man am I missing our previous writer and artist. The art is digitally painted but everything is so closer to monotone that it's hard to pick out different characters from each other at times. There is quite a bit of jump from the events of the previous volume and while a knowledge of the House of M storyline is very helpful with understanding this volume but you can follow well enough without having read it.The mutant population is under 200 now, the X-Men base has moved, an...

An excellent self-contained X-Men story by Ellis. Pros - Ellis is exceptional at creating a tightly plotted story and making sure there is strong characterization. Cons - the art is too artsie fartsie for its own good at times (the artist loves to use the outline of a character as the borders for the panels below) and it detracts for the ability to tell a clear easy to follow story. Also the story is a bit too complex to follow. After some reflection I can make sense of it but it comes at you fa...