Issue Description

It’s the book you’ve been waiting for. The superstar team of Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi are ready to take the X-Men to the “Second Stage”! “ Messiah CompleX” pulled the X-Men team together, “ Divided We Stand” tore them apart. Now the X-Men are back to business -- with a new look, a new base of operations, and a mystery to solve that will take them into previously uncharted territory and test them to their core! SFX TIE-IN

The X-Men – Beast, Armor, Cyclops, Emma Frost, and Wolverine – awaken and assemble over coffee in the control room of their new San Francisco base. They are surprised when they are joined by Storm, who hasn't been an active member since she married the Black Panther.

Storm makes excuses about auditing the team on behalf of Mutantes Sans Frontieres, but when pressed by Scott she confesses to needing a break from life as royalty. Emma begrudgingly accepts her back onto the squad.

The women's verbal sparring is interrupted when the SFPD call Scott to ask the X-Men to investigate an unusual murder. The team arrives at the scene in street clothes to discover that the victim, though clearly deceased, is engulfed in flames and levitating above the ground!

Storm is able to extinguish the flames, but the body continues to float while Wolverine extracts an uncharred tissue sample for Beast. While Beast speculates on if the victim and his attacker could have been mutants unknown to him, Emma pages through the dead man's journal. He was trailing his eventual killer, and speculated he intended to travel to Chaparanga Beach.

Back at their base, Beast has some disturbing news. The dead man did not have a mutation his 23rd chromosome, the genetic marker of a mutant. What he did have was a third set of chromosomes, which did bear a mutated gene. That made him an artificial mutant, undetectable by Cerebra!

The team takes off in their new X-Plane (short for “eXperimental”) while Beast stays behind to further analyze the gene sample. En route to Chaparanga, Cyclops and Wolverine explain to Armor that it's a junkyard for alien spaceships... and one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

Astonishing X-Men (2004)

Publisher

Marvel

Volume Description

Astonishing X-Men Volume 3

This would be the third series that runs by this name, but the first ongoing series. Astonishing X-Men is a volume that was started in 2004 by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday as part of the X-Men: Reload event. It was meant to become the prime X-Men series, and was so for some time. It featured the return of fan-favorite X-Man Collossus, the introduction of S.W.O.R.D. and Breakworld among others. The series lasted for 68 issues and was the only series that did not receive the Marvel Now logo, even though it was published during that time. It was recently cancelled and then replaced by Amazing X-Men Vol.2 as part of Marvel Now.

Collected EditionsAstonishing X-Men: Gifted (#1-6)X-Men: The Adamantium Collection (#1-6)Astonishing X-Men: Dangerous (#7-12)Astonishing X-Men: Torn (#13-18)Astonishing X-Men: Unstoppable (#19-24)Astonishing X-Men Omnibus (#1-24)Astonishing X-Men by Whedon and Cassady Ultimate Collection (#1-24 & Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men #1)Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Box (#25-30 & Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes #1-2)Astonishing X-Men: Exogenetic (#31-35)Astonishing X-Men: Monstrous (#36-37, #39, #41)Astonishing X-Men: Children of the Brood (#38, #40, #42-43)Astonishing X-Men: Exalted (#44-47)Astonishing X-Men: Northstar (#48-51)Astonishing X-Men: Weaponized (#52-56 & Astonishing X-Men Annual #1)X-Men: X-Termination (X-Treme X-Men #12-13, Age of Apocalypse #13-14, X-Termination #1-2 and Astonishing X-Men #60-61)Astonishing X-Men: Unmasked (#57-59 & #62-68)Motion Comics

Marvel Knights has released motion comics based on this series, being released through video services; iTunes, Playstation Store, Hulu, and Netflix, and released on DVD/Blu-ray through Shout! Factory. The series collects the entire run by Whedon, and Cassaday, adapting issues 1-24.

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Status: Not in Collection