You killed Kitty. You goddamn killed Kitty and you goddamn made me cry. Read Full Review

So was this issue worth the wait? I have to answer yes to that question. Quality takes time to accomplish and I prefer to wait a couple of months than see a fill-in arc or inconsistencies in the art. This issue marks the end of a collaborative team but I think they already are assured a place in the X-Men hall of fame. Read Full Review

With that off my chest, I want to end with a few nicer words. When I first heard that Whedon was taking a crack at writing the X-Men, my heart nearly imploded. It took me a while to wrap my head around the aspect of my favorite television writer working on my favorite childhood comic franchise. And ultimately, at its conclusion, Whedon's Astonishing X-Men stands as one of my favorite superhero stories of all time. It lived up to its hype in nearly every conceivable way. No plot thread is wasted. Almost every page is beautifully and clearly presented, and even with a less than perfect concluding issue, the way the story comes full circle will place it amongst the most memorable in recent memory. My hat's truly off to Cassaday and Whedon for creating one of the defining superhero stories of the decade - a collection of tales I'll undoubtedly revisit on a yearly basis. Read Full Review

Still, I personally find it hard to overcome my own X-fanboy leanings. I definitely see how some X-Men fans will squee themselves into oblivion over this issue, but speaking as a decades-long fan, there are things that trip it up along the way for me. And ultimately, I don't feel that Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men sets the bar that all future X-Men books need to meet or risk being branded a failure. It does, however, manage to tie a nice ribbon on the whole thing and see its threads through to their logical conclusions, and for a storyline that's meant to be accessible by definition, that should be just fine for most readers. Read Full Review

Cassaday's art is simple, and not so breathtaking as it used to be. It's lost some of its luster, and the use of photographic backgrounds from the opening pages is jarring. As a whole, Cassaday's work gets the job done. keeping the cohesion from the past 24 issues intact. The closure of this storyline is fitting, bringing things full circle, so to speak. I may not have been blown away by its conclusion, but other than maybe X-Men: Legacy, this title is still miles away better than all the other X-Titles combined. Read Full Review

It literally felt like Whedon thought up some great dialogue or action scenes and then strung them all together in some incoherent finale that "killed" off a beloved character, sent another into space for the unforseeable future and, otherwise, left the team the exact same as when the run started. Even Cyclops, who had been incredible in the last half, had his newfound sight taken from him and is relegated to wearing the visor again. Yay, lack of progress in 40 year old characters! Read Full Review

I will say that Kitty Pryde's sacrifice is not what I expected, and it works quite well -- it's emotionally effective and consistent with what has been established in previous issues, and yet still surprising. Her sacrifice (and you all realize that she's been missing from the other X-Men books, so this isn't a spoiler, right?) is the heart of "Giant-Size X-Men" #1, but with everything else going on in the story, that heart is a bit obscured. It's too much sound and fury, ultimately, and Whedon's attempt at a grand climax overwhelms itself. Except for poor Kitty Pryde, who handles the whole thing with dignity. Read Full Review

Joss Whedon and his work's freedom from continuity were the only things that were keeping Astonishing X-Men on my pull list. I have to say that even if Whedon stayed on the book, after this finale, I don't think I would still stick with the title. I'd like to think that he was bored or that his original idea was scrapped and Giant-Sized Astonishing X-Men was just a desperate attempt to meet a deadline, but I haven't any proof of this, nor have I heard the inkling of a rumor. I'm sorry to say this is the dumbest thing Joss Whedon has ever written. Read Full Review