Amazing X-Men # 6 discussion: SPOILERS!!!!

Good riddance to Jason Aaron. His WatXM is one of the all-time worst runs in the history of the X-Men, up with Chuck Austen. And speaking of Austen . . .

Why couldn't Azazel just die? If Mystique had put a bullet in Azazel's head, I would've been satisfied. But no. Jason Aaron is apparently the one person on the entire planet who thinks Azazel's a cool character who deserves to get some use.

But you know something, I hope Bendis does use Azazel. I want Azazel to show up in Uncanny X-Men. I want his next appearance to be him sedated, strapped to a bed, his power dampened, and his blood being extracted as a new source of Mutant Growth Hormone. Still better than he deserves, but it'd be a damned sight better than seeing him and Mystique working together.

And hope Jason Aaron never returns to the X-franchise. I want him to stay far, far away from these characters. He can play around with the Avengers - his Thor has been excellent, so let him do more Avengers-related stuff. Just as long as he doesn't use the X-Men any more.

I've really enjoyed Bendis' X-titles. I think the characterizations have been solid, I've loved a lot of the character drama, and the overall plotline of UXM has been great. I also appreciate that Bendis threw in the pro-mutant rally - one of the first times in the history of the franchise that anything like that has happened, and certainly the first that any X-Men have actively spoken at. ANXM's felt a bit more meandering in terms of overall plot, but it's had some great character work, especially for Scott and Jean (and I'm actually really enjoying his Jean, which is odd because I don't normally like the character much).

Aaron's WatXM had shallow, two-dimensional characterization, weak attempts at humour, did character assassinations on Husk and, to an extent, Idie, he had stupid plots, some of the least enjoyable villains I've ever seen. Wolverine and the X-Men was a flat-out badly written book.

Bendis isn't for everyone, but UXM and ANXM are still well-written. WatXM was not.

Truthfully, I'd love it if one of the JGS books actually bothered to explore what it means to co-exist. They're doing the "classic" X-Men approach of hiding away in a mansion, segregated from human society, and not interacting with normal people. That is a terrible approach to take, and I really, really want one of the JGS books to abandon that approach and actually show mutants interacting with humanity on a normal basis (and no, going for drinks at Harry's Hideaway does not count). Even better if Amazing winds up being that book.

Amazing hasn't really had a chance yet to establish a direction, though I suspect the overall direction was going to be an attempt at a more "classic" approach of just going from one story to the next. And I kinda have a hunch that's more or less what Kyle and Yost will do. We'll see. But I sincerely hope that they at least try to make it more in line with Morrison than Claremont, in the sense of not having mutants trying to keep out of the public eye. Let's see mutants actually inviting attention. Let's see them saying, "I'm here, I'm mutant, get used to it."

Mystique not putting a bullet in his head was the worst part of the issue. Her shooting him would've reduced the chances of anyone bothering to inflict the steaming pile of lameness on us again.


On another note, Wolverine telling off Scott kinda bugged me. It feels like it just totally ignored the conversation the two had in the third-last issue of Aaron's own run on WatXM. They had the extended scene where they cleared the air, and where Wolverine talked about wanting back the Scott he used to follow. It feels like something like that really should've reduced the tension between the two of them, but nope, here's Wolverine acting as dickish as ever. It didn't feel like there was any real need for it. It might've been better for someone else to have told Scott off. Beast would've made sense. Beast remains irrationally hateful towards Scott. Storm still seems to have a mad-on for him, too. And Iceman. Given the conversation between Wolverine and Scott, Wolverine was one of the characters it made the least sense to have tell Scott off here.

Agreed, I'll miss Aaron! And Ill give Kyle and Yost a chance because they did some of the best Nightcrawler in the WatX cartoon but if its more like X-Force with cannibalism and Wolverine smacking around X-23 or trying to murder teens than I'm out'a there so fast you'll feel a breeze.

@ cc008

Haha, yeah, I know but Im afraid Marvel will decide lighter wont sell books and decide on it being more like X-Force. Maybe Im paranoid because Im enjoying Amazing so much, more than I have enjoyed a comic in a while so now I'm quite fretful with it.

BTW, I love your Turtles avatar.