Whedon & Cassaday on Astonshing for another year

[starvenger 0]

Link to Newsarama

 

WHEDON & CASSADAY ON ASTONISHING FOR ANOTHER YEAR

by Richard Guion

 

Joss Whedon spoke extensively about his upcoming Serenity movie on Saturday at WonderCon, but also had a few words about his comic book work, first off, confirming what Marvel's solicitations for May suggested, that Astonishing X-Men #1-#12 is the creators's first year on the series.

 

From the panel:

 

Whedon and Cassaday announced at the Serenity panel that they will stick around for another year of Astonishing X-Men. Whedon said that after issue #12 ships, there will be a brief respite, followed by another 12-issues by Whedon/Cassaday. This will be capped off by Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men Annual #1 as Whedon called it.

 

Whedon also mentioned that the forthcoming Serenity mini-series from Dark Horse has a bunch of variant covers coming from his favorite artists. Cassaday does one of the covers featuring the Captain, Mal.

 

Update: When contacted by Newsarama Sunday, Marvel Editor in Chief Joe Quesada said that keeping Whedon on the title - and at Marvel - for another year came down mostly to publisher Dan Buckley and Whedon himself. "Well, negotiating is Dan Buckley's territory. On the creative end, Joss had always said he had a longer story that he wanted to tell and who am I to get in the way of that?"

 

Quesada added that he gets to enjoy Astonishing on two fronts: "I'm delighted as both. As a fan because I get to read these incredible stories, as EIC because I'm blessed enough to be here while both Joss and John produce this series."

 

But as for any teases as to where Whedon and Cassaday will take the series in Year 2? "Are you kidding? Have you ever felt the wrath of Whedon? Nope, I'm keeping my nose clear of any Astonishing spoilers."

Good news for some readers, bad news for others. My view is that it's good news that Whedon will still have some sort of income after Serenity bombs...

[starvenger 0]

btw, my apologies on the "all caps" title. If some kind Moderator (or Sass) is able to change that, it'd be much appreciated...

[tbondrage99 0]

Sounds good to me, but then again Im not a fan of a writer or artist doing a comic for a year and quitting. I perfer longer runs.

[JasonX 0]

Link to Newsarama

 

WHEDON & CASSADAY ON ASTONISHING FOR ANOTHER YEAR

by Richard Guion

 

Joss Whedon spoke extensively about his upcoming Serenity movie on Saturday at WonderCon, but also had a few words about his comic book work, first off, confirming what Marvel's solicitations for May suggested, that Astonishing X-Men #1-#12 is the creators's first year on the series.

 

From the panel:

 

Whedon and Cassaday announced at the Serenity panel that they will stick around for another year of Astonishing X-Men. Whedon said that after issue #12 ships, there will be a brief respite, followed by another 12-issues by Whedon/Cassaday. This will be capped off by Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men Annual #1 as Whedon called it.

 

Whedon also mentioned that the forthcoming Serenity mini-series from Dark Horse has a bunch of variant covers coming from his favorite artists. Cassaday does one of the covers featuring the Captain, Mal.

 

Update: When contacted by Newsarama Sunday, Marvel Editor in Chief Joe Quesada said that keeping Whedon on the title - and at Marvel - for another year came down mostly to publisher Dan Buckley and Whedon himself. "Well, negotiating is Dan Buckley's territory. On the creative end, Joss had always said he had a longer story that he wanted to tell and who am I to get in the way of that?"

 

Quesada added that he gets to enjoy Astonishing on two fronts: "I'm delighted as both. As a fan because I get to read these incredible stories, as EIC because I'm blessed enough to be here while both Joss and John produce this series."

 

But as for any teases as to where Whedon and Cassaday will take the series in Year 2? "Are you kidding? Have you ever felt the wrath of Whedon? Nope, I'm keeping my nose clear of any Astonishing spoilers."

Good news for some readers, bad news for others. My view is that it's good news that Whedon will still have some sort of income after Serenity bombs...

Ugh......

 

The only way I could tolerate Whedon sticking around is if Marvel made Whedon/Cassady move to adjectiveless X-Men and write/draw the adjectiveless team.

[Vyce 0]

Oh dear lord.

 

Oh my, Quesada is a Whedon fan boy.

 

.........there's no hope for Marvel.

[pochorenella 0]

Yes, I read this on Newsarama earlier. I've said it before, Astonishing is the best X-Men title on the racks today. The writing is solid and interesting, with total respect of the history of the team in a back-to-superheroics sense. And you can't go wrong with Cassaday on the art department. I'll stick with the title as long as these guys stay on it.

[pochorenella 0]

Edit: Double post.

[Mole 0]

I only read the first two books, but is this series any good?

[MrRant 0]

Read more books and come to the conclusion yourself.

[starvenger 0]

btw, my apologies on the "all caps" title. If some kind Moderator (or Sass) is able to change that, it'd be much appreciated...

Thanks!!

[bobobrazil1984 0]

Fuck yes! Thank god there will be one X-Men book that doesn't suck ass.

[Sass 0]

Well, at least Cass is sticking around.

 

Whedon blows. Using "mutant cure" as his first major story was one of the worst ways to start his run off. Just another writer dangling the carrot that-can-never-get-eaten in front of the fans.

[JasonX 0]

Well, at least Cass is sticking around.

 

Whedon blows. Using "mutant cure" as his first major story was one of the worst ways to start his run off. Just another writer dangling the carrot that-can-never-get-eaten in front of the fans.

To be fair, if Whedon had Beast take the cure and lose his powers/Frank Quitely redesign it would have been big becasue:

 

1. The Beast redesign by Quitely was rather unpopular even with Morrison's supporters

 

2. It would have been a bold new storyline for Beast, the most well beloved member of the X-Men in terms of how the public views them, to reject his powers/mutant form and to see the shockwaves that come out of Beast doing this.

 

But Whedon wussied out on it.....

[starvenger 0]

2. It would have been a bold new storyline for Beast, the most well beloved member of the X-Men in terms of how the public views them, to reject his powers/mutant form and to see the shockwaves that come out of Beast doing this.

 

But Whedon wussied out on it.....

Or was told, "Yeahhhhhhhh... I'm gonna have to say no to that one".

 

Hey, it's possible. I mean, it's only Joss Whedon. It's not like he's Brian Bendis or something. Then again, Bendis would've probably killed off all the X-Men in some pointless exercise, we'd find out Magik did it because she really didn't die from the Legacy Virus (it was all a hoax), and brought back the X-Men with Namor and Jessica Jones as two of the primary characters...

[SuperJerk 0]

I'm not getting all the Whedon hate.

[Vyce 0]

Part of the animosity against Whedon is not necessarily directed against him, personally, but rather because he is merely a symptom (but the latest and greatest symptom) of the sickness currently infesting comics, something which I like to call "The Starfucker Syndrome".

 

That's my term for the mentality that's been prevalent in the mainstream comic industry (at least since Marvel Knights began a few years back, and Kevin Smith wrote the initial story arc for the revamped Daredevil title) where the comic companies hire "celebrities" to write their titles. "Celebrity" could mean actual celebrities such as Kevin Smith, or Joss Whedon, or Joe Michael Straczynski, to "celebrities within the industry", which would be Bendis or Chris Claremont. Under the Starfucker Syndrome, the comic companies basically give these guys carte blanche to do whatever the fuck they want to with the titles, no matter how badly they may fuck things up or sloppily retcon the books.

 

See Bendis' awful "Avengers Disassembled" (continued in New Avengers). See Claremont doing 19384 different things to fuck up the X-Men (including retconning all of Morrison's hard work), the latest of which is the X-23 debacle. See Whedon bringing Colossus back from the dead for no good reason (let's be honest - there hasn't been one revealed yet, other than Whedon brought him back because he could). See JMS and the silly "Gwen Stacy secretly had Norman Osbourne's love children!" storyline. Etc.

 

The other part of the animosity is because Whedon marks treat the man as literally some sort of minor deity, which insanely annoying and a little disturbing. Hell, that's evidenced adequately enough by some of the Buffy / Angel threads in the Movie folder.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Very little of that "celebrity hate" should matter in this situation, really. Whedon's written comics before, and his one retcon thing is something that he's carried off really well. Without a doubt it's the best X-title right now, and without a doubt Whedon has done the best sticking with the continuity after the "relaunch." I'll still take Morrison's run, but I'm really pleased that he's going to be around for a run of significance rather than just a year.

 

Furthermore, I don't get the people who hated Morrison and now hate Whedon. Whedon's doing pretty much the opposite of what Morrison was doing, after all.

[JasonX 0]

To be fair, Whedon isn't exactly getting special treatment despite what a lot of people are saying; unlike JMS, Whedon had to agree to give Marvel total control over his scripts and ultimate approval of ALL of his storylines. And not to mention having to agree to incorporating a bunch of concepts into his run (most notably the return of the spandex and an end to all of the freak students Morrison used to populate the school) designed to undo the Morrison run.

 

Whedon only requested TWO things from Marvel contentwise; he wanted exclusive use of Shadowcat and he wanted to keep Emma and Scott together as a couple. That is the limit of his demands storylinewise.

[SuperJerk 0]

^Isn't Shadowcat in the new Avenger/X-Men/Magneto mini-series (written by Bendis)?^

 

See Whedon bringing Colossus back from the dead for no good reason (let's be honest - there hasn't been one revealed yet, other than Whedon brought him back because he could).

Bringing Colossus back was actually a good move, though, considering how beloved the character is. I don't think anyone expected him to stay dead for as long as he did.

 

On the other hand, Psylocke's return = pointless.

[starvenger 0]

Part of the animosity against Whedon is not necessarily directed against him, personally, but rather because he is merely a symptom (but the latest and greatest symptom) of the sickness currently infesting comics, something which I like to call "The Starfucker Syndrome".

I think Morrison needs to be included in there as well. If New X-Men wasn't a clear-cut example of that, I really don't know what is.

 

Whedon only requested TWO things from Marvel contentwise; he wanted exclusive use of Shadowcat and he wanted to keep Emma and Scott together as a couple. That is the limit of his demands storylinewise.

I have heard that he pushed for the return of the individual costumes, but to be fair that may have been more of a concensus decision.

 

And getting rid of/retconning some of Morrison's dumber ideas is not necessarily a bad thing. Well, except when the retcon is actually worse than what initially transpired (coughMagnetocough).

[SuperJerk 0]

And getting rid of/retconning some of Morrison's dumber ideas is not necessarily a bad thing. Well, except when the retcon is actually worse than what initially transpired (coughMagnetocough).

I didn't read most of Morrison's run...besides Magneto being under the influence of whatever it was (the alien intelligence thing from West Coast Avengers), what have they done.

 

I have to admit I'm happy with the way they've kept the White Queen/Cyclops dynamic.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

The Sublime intelligence from Morrison's run is a lot more complicated than it just having influence over Magneto; it pretty much permeates everything that goes on in the story in small ways, for better and worse (my vote tends towards "better").

 

Whatever you think of Morrison's run, the changes in the endgame really aren't that substantial. Magneto wrecks New York and gets killed (sure), Scott and Emma are a couple, and Jean is dead, again. The school gets destroyed, but Scott and Emma reopen it. Some stuff involving the Weapon projects, all the way up to XV. Here Comes Tomorrow, the last story arc of Morrison's run, was a bit dippy, but it did a good job of making sure most of the stuff within remained pretty well self-contained.

[Sass 0]

I was really impressed by it and liked Morrison's X-Men run. It was probably the best run on a Marvel book since Garth Ennis's revival of the Punisher. That's some damn good company to be in. JMS wishes he could sniff Morrison's ink here. I didn't like how he tried to re-write the origin of Spider-Man. I understood why he needed to (example: Family Guy/Mayor West/toxic waste). But, I felt he got twisted with the origin after starting out strong with Morlun nearly killing Spider-Man. The guy was an excellent foe. It reminded me of the Black Tarantula from the end of the 1st series' end. But using temple, tribal stuff, and Zeke just became too much.

 

Morrison started off his run with a great bang and it was up and down from there. But the high's were more than the low's. The book actually had some real super-villains in it and that's something of a rarity in many comics today. Morrison wrote a better Wolverine than Rucka has since taking over the writing reigns. Cyclops was also finally fleshed out and given some character development that he lacked for years. He's the red-headed step son of Captain America. He's such a stoic ass to people but now there's some shit on his shoe after the way he cheated on Jean Grey with Emma Frost. I'll also hand it too Morrison about Emma. He wrote one of the strongest female leaders since his run with Wonder Woman on JLA along with Mark Waid's Invisible Woman stuff. Rucka has wrote a better Wonder Woman than either guy has on JLA though. I always thought she had a shoddy reason for sticking around in Man's World. Rucka has given her one by making her a diplomat. That role fits her like a glove.

 

For female sleeze and slink though, Ed Brubaker's Catwoman smokes Morrison's Emma Frost just because Selina didn't slut it up with a married man like Emma did with Cyclops. The girl didn't go around being a home wrecker and only has eyes for Batman. She's a keeper.

 

I almost wish that Morrison would have gotten a shot at reviving Colossus. I think he could have wrote a better return story for him than Whedon ended up doing.

[starvenger 0]

Cyclops was also finally fleshed out and given some character development that he lacked for years. He's the red-headed step son of Captain America. He's such a stoic ass to people but now there's some shit on his shoe after the way he cheated on Jean Grey with Emma Frost.

Yeah, I never did understand the hate. It's not like Summers hadn't done this before...

[SuperJerk 0]

I always thought she had a shoddy reason for sticking around in Man's World.  Rucka has given her one by making her a diplomat.  That role fits her like a glove.

I thought that idea was used since at least the George Perez run.