Favorite Panel Friday: Astonishing X-Men

Some people have criticized Joss Whedon's work on Astonishing X-Men, saying he tends to shoehorn certain quirks into his characters or that his rat-tat-tat dialogue has become a repetitive trademark.

All I know for sure is that Whedon, along with series artist John Cassaday, made me fall in love with the X-Men all over again.

This isn't a blind love, though - I'm fickle, and my affection is reserved just for Astonishing. The art has been across-the-board gorgeous — just look at that panel from Astonishing X-Men #20 — with expressions and body language that work like a second layer of dialogue.

And about that dialogue: The playful banter, the quick retorts, the tough-guy posturing are all elements I remember making me an X-Men fan in the first place. I think it's pretty obvious Whedon's a fan himself, and that's not a bad thing at all, especially since he seems to not only love the X-Men, he gets them. Cyclops sounds like Cyclops, but he also sounds like Scott. In Whedon's scripts the characters not only sound like superheroes, they also sound like real people who just happen to have super-powers.

In a way, I think that's what the X-Men is supposed to be about.

So, smarty-pants, you might have noticed that after all this talk about dialogue ... there isn't any in the panel above. That's because Whedon not only writes fun patter, he also crams more raw action into a single issue than you'll find in just about any other monthly comic out there.

Aliens with blasters and eye-whiskers! Kitty goes all ninja and uses her phasing power at the same time! And Colossus hits a guy so hard he hits the ceiling!

DUDE PUNCHES A GUY INTO THE CEILING!

That pretty much speaks for itself.

Astonishing X-Men #20: Joss Whedon, writer; John Cassaday, artist