Astonishing X-Men # 15
Writer: Joss Whedon; Pencils and Inks: John Cassaday;
The Beast goes feral. Colossus gets the crap beat out of him. Kitty Pryde phases to the center of the earth. Wolverine turns into a poof. Cyclops is comatose. And with all of the build-up, it’s difficult to feel any tension. Possibly that missing excitement is from a too often senseless fixation on comic book past.
I can’t get worked up about the Hellfire Club, or the Brotherhood, the Aging Comic Villians of Sunset Village, or any of the other bad guys from the past. They were a problem in the past, they were defeated, now move onto the new guys or concentrate on the one or two groups who are the real problems. While I fall squarely in the real change camp in the real change vs illusion of change battle, this ridiculous need to bring back and feature every past nasty is a bit tiring at times and due to the real change folks obsessing with continuity and past.
I realize that the Hellfire Club may have great meaning to Joss Whedon, but we’ve already seen them and the stories weren’t that good. Please, move on to something new.