Astonishing X-Men by Matthew Rosenberg: Until Our Hearts Stop
In case you hadn’t heard, Alex “Havok” Summers is no longer a villain. The former X-Factor and Uncanny Avengers team leader got his moral compass flipped around during the “Axis” event and has been a villain ever since. It wasn’t until vol. 4 of “X-Men: Blue” that his personality was restored and now he’s back to being a hero again. The question now is, what kind of hero is he going to become? That’s what writer Matthew Rosenberg is looking to answer with this installment of “Astonishing X-Men” which gets by on charm rather than good plotting.
The argument against Havok in years past has been that he’s kind of a blank slate, particularly when compared against his brother Cyclops. Speaking as someone who has followed his superhero career in the aforementioned pages of “X-Factor” and “Uncanny Avengers,” I disagree with that assessment. Alex is someone who has always struggled in his brother’s shadow. He wants to be the same kind of great leader that Scott is/was/will be again but lacks the same kind of ability and confidence. It’s a relatable angle and the best stories involving him usually reflect this to some extent.
Now that I’ve said this, we don’t get that in this story. Rosenberg’s take on Havok is less “struggling leader” and more “well-meaning screwup.” We see this best in the opening scene where he’s taking out a giant monster in the middle of New York City, only for the Avengers to scold him afterwards because they were actually working out a way to transport it out of the Mole Man’s domain. Things don’t go any better for him later when he tries to recruit a new team of X-Men from the students in the mansion only for them to respond to his request with sass and Kitty to tell him that he’s not an X-Man anymore.
While this is going on, we see the Reavers rounding up Miss Sinister on orders from a Colonel Callahan. They’re doing this against their will because they were dumped with the Office of National Emergency after their attempt to steal Wolverine’s body went wrong. Unfortunately for Havok, the next target on their list is the first off-campus mutant he’s talked to about joining his new X-Men team: Beast. While it becomes clear that Havok will need to put together a team to stop the Reavers, there’s also the small matter of some highly sensitive information that was stuck in his head by Bastion that needs to be dealt with as well.
The reason I don’t have as much of an issue with Rosenberg’s take on Havok as I should is because it’s actually pretty fun. While the writer could’ve easily written a story where Alex mopes about his current lot in life until he finally gets over himself at the end, that’s the story we all would have expected to see. Instead, we get a glib, almost huckster-ish, spin on the character as he tries to cajole the mutants he knows into forming a team first out of self-interest, and then necessity.
It’s a lot more enjoyable to see him meet up with the likes of Colossus and Dazzler with this upbeat perspective because it winds up extending to the main story itself. Sure, they may be facing off against the Reavers and ONE, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a laugh or two about it along the way. It’s especially effective because Rosenberg’s dialogue is genuinely funny and sharp all around. There’s a playfulness to his character interplay that’s enjoyable to read and he knows how to dial it back just right for the more dramatic parts.
The catch is that the storyline reads like something that was meant to go on for longer than it did. My guess is that “Astonishing” got caught up in the “Great Color Cull of 2018” which saw the ends of “Blue,” “Gold,” and “Red” leading up to the big “Uncanny” relaunch. So stuff like the Bastion subplot and the conflict between ONE gets dealt with as quickly as it can by the end of the story. However, I’ve read much worse versions of the “We gotta wrap this up NOW” ending elsewhere and the storyline’s end does feel appropriate for Havok given what has come before.
Greg Land provides the art for this arc, with Neil Edwards pitching in for a bit in the third issue, and this is one of his better efforts. While Land is infamous for how his art is “traced” from other sources, it’s not as distracting here as I’ve seen it elsewhere. Sure, there’s the occasional face that doesn’t look quite right but the artist is actually pretty good at capturing the lighthearted tone that Rosenberg is going for here. Particularly in the scenes where Havok goes to recruit Colossus and then Dazzler only to find things either aren’t as he expected or that he’s actually terrible at this.
While this is the main story for the volume, it also includes the Annual Rosenberg wrote with art from Travel Foreman. As for what it’s about… First I’d like you to recall my main issue with the previous volume of “Astonishing X-Men.” You know, the second half of Charles Soule’s twelve issue run which served to bring back Professor X in Fantomex’s body. A rather major reintroduction which Soule dropped into the Marvel Universe and left the hard work of figuring out what to do about it to the creative community.
The Annual represents Rosenberg’s stab at what to do about Professor X (he was just calling himself X in Soule’s story, but that’s not mentioned here) and it’s not bad. It begins with the four surviving original X-Men, Beast, Iceman, Angel, and Jean, meeting up for lunch at a fancy restaurant that used to be the Professor’s favorite. While they’re initially glad to see each other the gathering quickly turns into a mope-fest as they start to dwell on how much they’ve lost over the years.
It’s at this point that the Professor saunters in and after Jean is able to confirm his identity he says he understands their misgivings and wants to make it up to them. This involves inviting them out to his new mansion in Lago, New York, and showing them around the town which is uncommonly welcoming of mutants. That’s especially strange because we find out that the Professor had warned his students to stay away from it back in the day because its residents were vehemently anti-mutant. What happened to spark this change of heart in the town?
The answer involves the four X-Men investigating the town, a very deep cut from continuity, an extreme solution to the problem, and Bobby eating a two-pound hamburger in under a minute so he doesn’t have to pay for it. Okay, maybe that last bit isn’t as relevant as I’d like it to be, but there’s some solid superhero action and moral issues to be tackled in dealing with what’s behind everything here. The most interesting thing here is Rosenberg’s take on the Professor which aims to mix the benevolence he’s known for with the ruthlessness that’s been kind of glossed over with in time. It’s an angle I can get behind, particularly after he calls out his four former students for the pity party they were having about their lot in life near the end of the issue.
Where the issue falters is in the final two pages, where it’s not quite clear whether the Professor mindwiped them into having a more positive outlook or if they just came to the realization themselves. It really seems like the former was the case here and, while it’s in line with what I’d expect from the new take on the character, it’s unsatisfying because ending the story in this downbeat way doesn’t feel like it adds anything to the lives of the people involved. Personally I like the idea that Beast, Iceman, Angel, and Jean were able to get over themselves and find some worth in what they’ve been doing all these years. That doesn’t feel like the way the ending was meant to be read, though.
Foreman’s character work can be a little odd at times, which is why it was a good fit when he was working on something weird like “Animal Man.” Given that this story is about the inhabitants of a town acting strangely and how Professor X comes off as different in his return, it works out pretty well. Which is a good way to sum up the volume as a whole. It’s got problems, but is able to overcome them thanks to Rosenberg’s strong dialogue and appealing if not-quite-consistent characterizations. After his “Kingpin” miniseries and “4 Kids Walk Into a Bank,” I’m really starting to warm to his work. Which bodes well for his upcoming co-writing and solo stints on “Uncanny X-Men.”