Astonishing X-Men: Children of the Brood [Hardcover]

Collecting:
Astonishing X-Men #38, 40, & 42-43

Bonus:
Uncanny X-Men #162

The events in Children of the Brood take place while the X-Men's leaders (Cyclops, Emma, and Wolverine) are in Japan taking care of personal business (and monsters) see Astonishing X-Men: Monstrous . The issues collected here are undoubtedly the better of the two storylines that were running back-to-back during the Astonishing X-Men run of #36-43.

Storm, Colossus, and Kitty Pryde have to help Beast when his girlfriend is overrun by the Brood. Okay, the Brood are and always have been Marvel's pretty clear rip-off from the Alien franchise Alien [Blu-ray], but they still make for pretty cool bad-guys. This graphic novel puts a great twist on the struggle between the X-Men and the Brood. When the opportunity to wipe out the Brood presents itself, the X-Men for the good of interstellar eco-sphere must devise an alternate solution.

Kitty Pryde's disability (she's stuck in her phased form) turns out to be an advantage when aliens would like to lay eggs in your abdomen. With her old companion Lockheed, Kitty takes center stage in saving the X-Men. The script works well and the pacing is fast for issues 38, 40, and 42. Christos Gage and Juan Bobillo made a great team for the writing and art in these issues.

The graphic novel takes a different turn at issue 43 (helmed by writer James Asmus and penciler David Yardin). Emma and Danger take an excursion to the Secret Avengers HQ. Yardin's art is a bit more realistic than Bobillo's, though I appreciated them both.

As a bonus the classic 1982 Uncanny X-Men #162 appears at the back of this book. The issue contains an epic Brood/X-Men battle.

The biggest problem with Monstrous/Children of the Brood is that they were oddly separated. Someone at Marvel either decided to try to keep the price point low or thought that readers couldn't handle two different simultaneous plots in one book. This was a very poor decision. Monstrous became an oddly dull book, while Children of the Brood is action-packed. The artists intended a back-and-forth dynamic that would have showcased the X-Men in two very different situations but linked by a common eco-awareness thread. I think one chapter in Japan, one chapter in space, one chapter in Japan, etc would have made a stronger overall narrative because the pace would have been what the the artists' had intended.

In summary Children of the Brood is great action read. There probably should have been one graphic novel that contained Astonishing X-Men 36-43. Instead there are 2 graphic novels that take every other issue over that span and split them into two stand alone books. Good story and good art, I certainly liked Children of the Brood 4-stars for that. But a wag of the finger at Marvel for a very poor publishing decision.

› Go to Amazon.com to see the review  4.0 out of 5 stars