Astonishing X-Men #26 cover

Oh Warren Ellis… you clever and exciting bastard.

After the somewhat jump-start beginning in Astonishing X-Men #25 last month, this month we readers are given another morsel of comic book greatness in Astonishing X-Men #26. At this point, what do you expect me to say? I am a monster X-Men fan and Warren Ellis does nothing outside of write this series in a mature and sarcastic way; something I haven’t seen for the X-Men in this series from any writer since I started reading comics (an exception goes for Wolverine because he’s always a smart ass).

With this month’s issue the X-Men continue their pursuit for the killer–who they call “Subject X”–who was the murderer of a few people (triploid DNA? wtf?) in San Francisco with evidence found smoldering last issue, to Chaparanga Beach .

**spoilers and more after the break**

Chaparanga, “Where the spaceships go to die.” I know that I’ve never heard of it in an X-Men title. If it’s a reference from something way back in X-Men it’s beyond me, but the story begins here. As I said, the X-Men are chasing this would-be murderer from last issue. Apparently, he was tracking his own death, if you recall, and right off, this had the X-Men a tad baffled.

The whole Astonishing X-Men team.

Upon arriving in Chaparanga, the team searches momentarily for the mysterious killer until Emma Frost locates him telepathically… a few hundred feet in the sky on a working ship (again, this whole Chaparanga place had me confused, so bear with me). After some talking as to how the team was going to get up to the said ship, Armor has a sudden idea to pull an old-skool (spelling error on purpose) “fastball special” to launch Wolverine up to the ship and wreak havoc if need be. Without skipping a beat, the feat is done despite Armor not realizing she threw Wolverine a tad bit too fast to which a nice little comedic series of frames derives from. Thanks for that Mr. Ellis.

As soon as Wolverine enters the ship he begins to not destroy everything, but instead talk to this mystery character, Subject X. Working on what I thought looked like a cube made of alien technology this fire-killer won’t talk to Wolverine and needed “just five more minutes.” Subject X decides to press his luck by starting Wolverine on fire, an obviously dumb idea. Of course, the rest of the X-Men bust in to stop the fight between a flaming Wolverine and Subject X but this only causes our fiery foe to act out against everyone who is now in the ship by “turning on” his weird cube–which I found out is called a “Ghost Box” after some looking online. What was weird with this cube was that little men were drawn encircling it… I have no clue where they came from. Here’s to hoping it get’s explained.

Looking it up online (not sure if that link is credible…) a Ghost Box is supposedly a box that, after some construction can be used to contact the dead… so, I’m sure that has something to do with the upcoming story.

But back to the story: Here was the turning-point of the issue. Given we have no idea what this “Ghost Box” is, apparently neither does Cyclops which is why he suddenly orders everyone out of the ship as Storm takes it out with a massive lightning bolt, bringing the ship down and destroying everything within it.

The Ghost Box activating... who are those little hovering men?

What’s great about this scene in the issue is that Storm confronts Cyclops about killing Subject X along with taking out the “Ghost Box” because killing a killer who murders mutants is Cyclops’ number one priority; he wants to be able to keep the mutant race alive and to do so, he must do what’s needed to be done (see also: X-Force). This is truly a defining moment in X-Men, but I’ll get to that in a moment. After this great moment in the issue, we switch to a scene within the rubble of the destroyed ship… Subject X is alive, talking to himself. He says the X-Men can’t stop “the Annex” and that they’re already dead–to steal nearly word for word from the comic–which he then follows-up by blowing his own head up, which I thought was kind of cool. So, who knows what “the Annex” is, but I guess we’ll get to that next issue because I can’t even think of what it possibly could be…

But back to the “we have to do what we have to do” ordeal from Cyclops: I say this is a real turning point in X-Men because now Scott Summers is coming out and admitting that if he has to kill, he won’t hesitate. It’s kind of an amazing thing in my opinion. Charles Xavier was always outrageously peaceful not wanting to kill his enemies, thus allowing the series to continue with memorable bad guys and all that jazz, but this sudden change in attitude by Scott Summers in recent X-titles (X-Force and this series) opens a whole new realm of possibilities to the future of X-Men comics.

On one hand we have the idea of: If a bad guy is in an issue/story arc he has a good chance of dying if his threats become to vast. Just like in this issue, Cyclops assessed the situation and saw a possibility of he and his X-Men dying and therefore did what was necessary to eliminate that threat. But spinning off of this idea is the arrival of a whole new breed of extremist villains (similar to the Purifiers) who will do the exact same thing and eliminate the X-Men–or any mutant for that matter–without hesitation all because of the first act done by the X-Men. It’s a great vicious cycle that could be the future of the X-Men… but that’s all speculation.

Obviously, I loved the writing of this series. Warren Ellis, as I said, can write a mean X-Men comic and the combination of Emma Frost, Wolverine, Armor, Cyclops, Beast and Storm is just perfect for him. We have sarcasm and harsh comedy coming from Wolverine, countered by sweet-and-innocent Armor with a dash of snarky-high-English humor that only Warren Ellis can write. This is all topped by the severe seriousness of Cyclops that is piled in with Beast’s amazing intelligence and Storm’s royaly-accustomed tone. It’s a flawless  plot and dialogue overall.

And then there’s the art. Simone Bianchi draws in an almost dark and still very detailed way something I would call vaguely similar to that of Salvador Larocca, but that aside the art in this issue is stupendous. Things are dull and sharp at the same time and all emotions are felt from the characters. The characters, though awkward at times, are drawn as if a picture was snapped mid conversation or mid-action. The facial expressions and poses of the characters are almost lifelike at times; very candid. And it fits Ellis’ script in an imaculate way.

I’m so positive about how good this issue is, I don’t think I should have to tell you to go out and get it. And while your at it, pick up #25 too… You know it’s good.