Still a Gimmick: A Review of Astonishing X-Men #5

written by Charles Soule
drawn by Ramon Rosanas
colored by Nolan Woodard

Charles Soule's Astonishing X-Men epic continues, with yet another artist taking up the reins, and with Charles Xavier's plans kicking into high gear.

Professor X explains to the three X-Men whose consciousnesses he has rounded up, Rogue, Mystique and Fantomex how he came to be in the astral plane, and what he plans to do to defeat his jailer, Amahl Farouk, aka the Shadow King. Meanwhile, the Shadow King has taken possession of both Logan and Gambit, who are now wreaking havoc on London even as Psylocke, Bishop and Angel try their best to stop them. It's starting to look increasingly like Angel will have to take off the kid gloves fairly soon, though.

It would be incorrect for me to say this narrative approach is getting a little old for me. The truth is that it's BEEN old, for quite a while, and there are no signs of improving on the horizon.

The thing I really dislike about what's been going on is that, to be honest, I like the work of every single artist that's been featured so far, some more than others. I would read a six-part story featuring the work of any one of these artists, even Mike Deodato, Jr., of whom I am not the biggest fan. I like Rosanas, too, and have picked up three series featuring his art: Spider-Man 1602, Night of the Living Deadpool, and even Ant-Man, so clearly I have no issues with his art.

This story, however, is just borderline unreadable. All of these visual shifts just continuously take me out of the story, which is otherwise actually quite decent. It's not unlike watching five episodes of a television story and seeing the cast change every single episode. This is utterly ridiculous.

Like I said in an earlier review, this would work if each issue contained both a complete story and the reference to a larger arc, but what's happening here is just a straight-up serialized approach. This issue, like the one before it, is a conspicuously incomplete part of a whole that never feels complete because of each of its parts feels do glaringly different.

In truth, I'm done with this series the moment I get the last issue of this story line. I've seen a lot of gimmicks used to drive up sales in over three decades of collecting comic books, and I have to say, this is one of the worst.

5/10