I picked up the first graphic novel (“Gifted”) of the Astonishing X-men a couple of weeks back. I hadn’t read the X-men in many years, but I was curious to see how Joss Whedon was as a comic writer so I gave it a shot. “Gifted” did a lot of set-up but was pretty good overall. Whedon is clearly a huge X-men goober, which is both good and bad. There are some funny parts where he references old stories but he also seems to assume you’re fully versed in the entire X-men mythology so he doesn’t go out of his way to explain some things a neophyte wouldn’t get. Or say, someone who stopped reading the series in the early 90s. Anyway, I liked Gifted enough that I went out and bought the second graphic novel (“Dangerous”) yesterday while I was downtown. I had assumed it would pick up some of the plot threads from Gifted, but instead it veered off in a completely different direction.

(SPOILERS FOLLOW)

So can someone explain to me why (o God why?) writers seem so drawn to fucking Holodecks? Everytime Star Trek would do a stupid holodeck episode, I groaned. “Oh no, we’re somehow trapped in the holodeck and this time we could die!” That was bad enough. Now I find the frickin’ Danger Room has turned into Holodeck 2. This is strike 1 against Dangerous. Strike 2 is the Danger Room achieving sentience. Gee, incredibly dangerous computer achieves sentience. That was fresh…in 1968. Then the Danger Room takes on humanoid form for no particular reason and tries to kill Daddy (Prof. X). Strike 3! While I do like the characters’ banter, overall I am less than astonished.

More on True20 later.