Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #1–5 (2010)

While the main Astonishing X-Men series is on hiatus, we get a miniseries. Not sure why it couldn’t have just been more issues in the series, but whatever. This story is pretty typical Warren Ellis. It introduces an an alternate reality threat (“The Furies”) who have a universe-altering agenda (kill all the mutants and meta-humans) and there’s a misunderstood antihero at the center of it (who dies in the end, so no need to get to know him). Also, the mutant haters are hunting and killing babies. Unclear why everyone is wearing baseball caps, but I think it’s a “disguise.” It works about as well as a trenchcoat. Or Clark Kent’s glasses. As with most things written by Ellis, there’s enough here that the reader is kept guessing and interested. For X-Men fans, though, it’s not much more than that, which is to say it doesn’t provide a new take on the heroes or advance any storylines that extend beyond this story. This could have been a story about any group of heroes. Nothing wrong with an entertaining, well-written story of course. And as always, Kaare Andrews’ art does not disappoint.