Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3) Issue #1 – “Gifted (Part 1)”! Ahhh, and what a way to break into some comic books featuring the X-Mans, right? When I think of X-Men, I think of Hugh Jackman, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and the shitty ‘90s cartoon series! I don’t think of Joss Whedon, the guy who created and wrote Buffy the Vampire Slayer and harassed half the women on the set every day! As you can see, I have a lot to learn. Whedon wrote the first 24 issues of this particular series (and a Giant-Size special issue) before handing off the writing to Warren Ellis. People say it’s no good after that. I say poppycock! I like Warren Ellis! He works with Nick Cave! Nick Cave wouldn’t work with anyone who sucked! The post-Whedon run can’t be that bad? Right?

Anyway, join me as I learn about these X-Mens in real-time. We have quite a lot of ground to cover.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #1 [July, 2004]
Written by: Joss Whedon
“Gifted (Part 1)”

“Mommy… …is screaming. Her screams are… …yummy. Daddy… …is next.” *cue Buffy intro music*

Hey Joss, you’re writing comics now! Enough with the melodramatic cold opens! Anywho, we see a scene of a little girl named Tildie waking up from a strange nightmare. OR IS IT?!

OK, now we’re cutting to the X-Men School of Freaks and Geeks where Kitty Pryde (hey, I’ve heard of her!) is arriving for the first time since being a student. Kitty Pryde can walk through walls, which is something I can do in Doom if I type IDSPISPOPD on my computer. She walks through a wall into an auditorium where a blonde lady with blue lipstick is introducing the new staffing structure to the new students at Professor Patrick Stewart’s School of Hard Knocks, since apparently the man himself is on sabbatical. After the speech, we cut to a scene in another room where Ms. Blue Lipstick is talking to Scott “Cyclops” Summers about the new students and then they look at each other like they’re ready to get their bone on. And then they do?! Hey, I thought this comic book was for children! Grrr!

Blatant voyeurism is a crime. A sexy, sexy crime.

Blue Lipstick and Cyclops wake up to find a seductive, open-shirted, oddly realistically-illustrated Wolverine perched at the foot of the bed, which is rude. Ruder still, he’s picking a fight with Cyclops! They end up fighting! Cyclops says “This is good. The guy who’s tried to steal my wife since the day he met us is gonna be all about what’s proper.” How’s that for some organic exposition dialogue, eh?

Next, we see these X-Mens all circled up together to talk it out, all “why are we fighting, we need to be a team!” style. Cyclops goes into a big speech that is obviously meant to catch new loser readers like me up, but it’s clunky and I still don’t know what the fuck their problem is at the moment except that the world sees them as freaks, and they don’t like that. Maybe they should stop being freaks! Ha! Cyclops proposes being full-fledged superheroes, which I guess they aren’t yet, and some snarky comments about tights are made. This scene is boring!

OK, the scene shifts back to Tildie and some other lady named Dr. Kavita Rao, a geneticist. Surely she doesn’t think these mutant X-Men are FREAKS, right? She gives a speech during a press conference about mutants, how they’re ordinary diseased people, and that a cure has been found. While this is happening, some hostage situation is going down at a place and it’s unclear what’s going on! The X-Men are wearing costumes! And that’s the end! Shit!

Mr. Unknown Hostage Guy is doing stuff for fun, I guess.

Final Thoughts

Well, that was quick! I’m absolutely brand-spanking-new to X-Men in general, and all I know is that they’re all mutants with unique superpowers and society shuns them as a whole. It really resonates with the whole “I’m misunderstood and nobody knows how I feel” angle of teenage angst in general, right? No wonder the X-Men franchise has 300 series, each with 10,000 issues, 40,000 one-shots, 48 movies, and brought us one of the sexier incarnations of Halle Berry. Oh boy! Yeah, that’s right, go fuck yourself, Catwoman.

Anyway, because I’m dumb I’m a bit lost already, but I shall press forward on this adventure! Is Dr. Kavita Rao a bad no-good lady? What’s up with this hostage situation? Why did they decide that the sound-effect for Wolverine’s retracting metal claws is “SNIKT!”? Is this “cure” going to be a BULLET from a GUN to the HEAD?! Time will tell! Thank you for joining me as I fail at being a decent nerd.