I talked about writing up my "before" and "after" list of trades & graphic novels, and I finally did.

Now I crawl into bed with more comics.

Hello comics Buffistas! I've been enjoying reading the discussion of Batfamily books, and now delurk here to say that during Morrison's run, Magneto, thought to be dead, was concealed in the Mansion posing as Xorn, a teacher. While this was going on, Cyclops & Emma Frost had a psychic affair & Jean found out. Scott went running off to do various boring things with Wolverine. Back at the Mansion, someone shot Emma in diamond form & shattered her into many bits, & Jean healed her with the Phoenix Force. Then Magneto revealed himself & killed lots of people in New York. The X-Men survive his attempts to kill them off, confront him, & Magneto kills Jean with a huge electromagnetic pulse. (Don't know why this worked better than sending her into the sun did, but hey ...) Then Wolverine beheaded Magneto. There was then a mini-arc set in the future, in which evil Beast torments the world & a re-awakened Jean looks back and realizes that Scott's decision to turn away from Emma because of his grief set all sorts of horrible things in motion, so she reaches back & nudges Scott toward Emma.

If that was horribly incoherent & babbly, sorry. I couldn't find a link just now that explained it better, though I know I've seen some in the past.

As for Astonishing, I agree with Kalshane on the costumes - bleah. The faces look odd & inconsistent to me, but on re-reading I decided they were very expressive. Story-wise, it seemed to be off to a promising start. Emma's comment was probably my favorite part. Funny & angsty - yay!

amych, you could give Second Foundation a call and see if they've got any left. Maybe amyth or smonster or myself could run by and grab one for you.

As for Astonishing, I agree with Kalshane on the costumes - bleah

Aww. They made me happy with their retroness.

amych, you could give Second Foundation a call and see if they've got any left.

What? Call a different store rather than waiting 'til next week? But that would be initiative or something.

Yeah, you could just wait, if the store is sure they're getting them. I had too many times (like, one) where I couldn't get the book I wanted.

I loved Emma's face throughout AXM.

Actually, Kiba, what I'll probably do is go by the Raleigh shops since I'll be over there this evening anyway. Thanks for thinking of it, though!

Oak street store sold out of AXM in 5 minutes, but I'm on the list for a call when they get more. Helpful friendly employee. I didn't understand the arrangement of comics. I will learn it soon enough, and maybe it will click and make sense to me. Easy enough to browse through, though. I don't see getting out to Crescent City for at least a couple of weeks.

Consoled myself with Lucifer 40, Hellblazer 196, TotV 5, Harley&Ivy 1&2, and Planetary 16 - 19. Have not opened them yet, probably won't till I'm on the train on Monday.

I'm with Kiba, I loved the retro feel to the costumes.

I liked Cassaday's artwork, especially on Kitty and Wolverine. Hank? Eh. Don't like the kitty look, but Cassaday's not to blame for that - he's working with what he got. But I still miss the old Hank.

Kitty's always been my favorite, and I liked the way Joss wrote her here, especially her bits about "remembering to put on all my clothes" and "I have cloud hair". The one thing I'm not sure about was her claims to not be a fighter. She was pretty well-established in the old Excalibur series, as someone who could kick some serious ass. I know Claremont regressed her when he started writing her again, but did he take that away from her too? And nice history nod from Wolvie about wanting her at his back.