Astonishing X-Men #2 and #3

written by Charles Soule
drawn by Mike Deodato (issue #2), Ed MGuinnes (issue #3), Mark Morales (issue #3)
colored by Frank Martin (issue #2), Jason Keith (issue #3)

After being blown away by the first issue of this series, I found the second issue surprisingly underwhelming, even as the third one recovered a bit.

Essentially, the second issue continues the journey of five X-Men ("old man" Logan, Gambit, Fantomex, Rogue and Mystique, who was previously masquerading as Beast) to the astral plane, where they seek to confront and defeat Amahl Farouk, aka the Shadow King. Meanwhile, Psylocke, who is enabling them to enter the plane, remains in London, accompanied by Angel and Bishop, and all three of them are in a standoff with British authorities. Each of the X-Men has to fight off the illusions constantly being cast by the Shadow King in this realm.

In issue #3, the X-Men find themselves separated in the astral plane, and the focus falls squarely on Logan, who makes his way past Farouk's non-stop barrage of illusions, only to find himself confronting Professor X himself.

Personally, I don't get the merit of this concept of having writer Soule team up with one superstar artist after another; the narrative feels somewhat disjointed, and even though Soule tries to address this by giving each issue a "done in one" feel, for me it undermines the overall flow of the story. While he started out strong with the first issue, the second one kind of felt like it was treading water, though to my mind he recovered nicely with the third issue, which seems to finally give the story some direction, though I imagine he's only got two to three more issues to wrap up this story arc, at best.

I've never been much of a fan of Mike Deodato, but to my mind this is the best work I've seen from him in a while. Still, it didn't really help what I felt were some pacing problems. I am, on the other hand a fan of Ed McGuinness, though this issue isn't the best I've seen from him, even when compared to his recent work like Spider-Man/Deadpool.

Knowing as I do that this series won't regularly feature the work of Jim Cheung, as I mistakenly believed when I picked up the first issue, I'll probably move on after the first arc is done, unless someone amazing in the vein of Arthur Adams comes along.

6.5/10 for issue #2
7.5/10 for issue #3