Astonishing X-Men #38
May. 22nd, 2011 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which a new story arc starts, called Meanwhile and written by Christos Cage, who has my goodwill because of the Iron Man/Captain America meeting penned by him, Rubicon, in the middle of the Civil War arc. Also, I was promised my beloved Abigail Brand and Hank McCoy would have a prominent role, so you bet I got my grubby hands on this! I'm overwhelmed with work right now and miles behind answering emails and lj comments, but I had to get a quick observations out.
The arc's big bad seem to be the Marvelverse Alien rip-offs, the Brood. I was totally on board with this the moment Hank said that Abigail was a Ridley Scott fan, because it's always a kick when one's fanon becomes canon. :) (No, seriously, in one of my meme replies about a year ago I did state Brand was a fan of the Alien franchise. I mean, obviously.
So anyway, apparantly SWORD has been conducting experiments on how to save infected people, separating the larvae from the host without killing them, and Brand, due to Ridley Scott's ouevre, insisted this should happen not on her space station but on a separate one. Just in case. And of course, just in case happens, Brand ends up trapped with some SWORD personnell after having tried to rescue them, at which point Hank, still estranged from Scott, swallows his pride and enlists his X-pals to save his girlfriend. The current team is minus Scott, Emma and Wolverine but plus the returned Kitty Pryde, and to my surprise (since I'm fond of said parties), I did not miss the former at all. Kitty's reunion with Hank was played just right, and so was Kitty's reunion with Lockheed, who of course is part of the rescue mission as well. Just one continuity nitpick: someone must have told Kitty about the Beast/Brand romance (as well the Hank-Scott fallout) because she takes the news without batting an eye lash, and when last she was around Brand and Hank it was still all snark and UST. In Scott's absence Storm is team leader, and interestingly once they're on board the station she and Brand do not have any of the clashes Brand and Scott have about who's in charge. Thanks for being refreshing about the lack of cattiness, Christos Cage! (They're professionals and the situation is far too serious.)
I could see the cliffhanger coming a mile a way and to be fair Cage also isn't playing it as a coy surprise, he lets Abigail tell Hank right away as soon as they reunite that she's infected and it's a race against time. However, since one of the plot points is that the experiments were about separating host and larvae without killing the infected host and since Abigail Brand is half-alien and hence has a special physiology, I am not seriously worried. It should make great angst in between, though, and one of those "fighting with your inner parasite strengthened by friend/beloved around" scenarios.
Lastly: I love Cage's quick character description notes. The one for Brand says what I quoted on the lj cut, "half alien, protecting us from extraterrestrials and vice versa" which made me a wistful smile because while AXM didn't cover the later, the cruelly cancelled SWORD series did (where Hank unironically declares his love after she risks her life to save some none too bright but harmless rock aliens from Norman Osborne).
The arc's big bad seem to be the Marvelverse Alien rip-offs, the Brood. I was totally on board with this the moment Hank said that Abigail was a Ridley Scott fan, because it's always a kick when one's fanon becomes canon. :) (No, seriously, in one of my meme replies about a year ago I did state Brand was a fan of the Alien franchise. I mean, obviously.
So anyway, apparantly SWORD has been conducting experiments on how to save infected people, separating the larvae from the host without killing them, and Brand, due to Ridley Scott's ouevre, insisted this should happen not on her space station but on a separate one. Just in case. And of course, just in case happens, Brand ends up trapped with some SWORD personnell after having tried to rescue them, at which point Hank, still estranged from Scott, swallows his pride and enlists his X-pals to save his girlfriend. The current team is minus Scott, Emma and Wolverine but plus the returned Kitty Pryde, and to my surprise (since I'm fond of said parties), I did not miss the former at all. Kitty's reunion with Hank was played just right, and so was Kitty's reunion with Lockheed, who of course is part of the rescue mission as well. Just one continuity nitpick: someone must have told Kitty about the Beast/Brand romance (as well the Hank-Scott fallout) because she takes the news without batting an eye lash, and when last she was around Brand and Hank it was still all snark and UST. In Scott's absence Storm is team leader, and interestingly once they're on board the station she and Brand do not have any of the clashes Brand and Scott have about who's in charge. Thanks for being refreshing about the lack of cattiness, Christos Cage! (They're professionals and the situation is far too serious.)
I could see the cliffhanger coming a mile a way and to be fair Cage also isn't playing it as a coy surprise, he lets Abigail tell Hank right away as soon as they reunite that she's infected and it's a race against time. However, since one of the plot points is that the experiments were about separating host and larvae without killing the infected host and since Abigail Brand is half-alien and hence has a special physiology, I am not seriously worried. It should make great angst in between, though, and one of those "fighting with your inner parasite strengthened by friend/beloved around" scenarios.
Lastly: I love Cage's quick character description notes. The one for Brand says what I quoted on the lj cut, "half alien, protecting us from extraterrestrials and vice versa" which made me a wistful smile because while AXM didn't cover the later, the cruelly cancelled SWORD series did (where Hank unironically declares his love after she risks her life to save some none too bright but harmless rock aliens from Norman Osborne).
