I even stood up for Danger and every other storyline following the first 6 parts of this once stellar book.

I bit my tongue once the schedule started slipping. I bit my tongue and thought maybe the amazing (sorry, Astonishing) artwork of John Cassaday was the reason for the delays. And my god does his pen put something magical to paper.

And then Joss Whedon's Runaways story-arc started and sucked really hard. And became super-duper late all its own.

So I started to feel the burn. 24 issues and one giant sized issue and 4 years later, the story is over. But this is going to be just a look at this last issue. I will eventually look at both hardcovers and the entirety of the comic in whole (once that is released).

This is the Breakworld arc's conclusion. This is the conclusion to the story that started who knows when where Colossus was found out as the Worldbreaker (coughHulkcough) and we were promised many things. Were all of them followed up on?

Joss Whedon made Cyclops a badass. Sadly, due to the lateness of this issue and the last 6 preceding issues, Mike Carey, Brubaker, Yost and Kyle, and all the rest of the X-writers had already beat him to the punch and made him the best he's ever been. Whedon was attempting to do what Morrison set out to do on his X-run and follow up on some of those ideas, but he was just too late.

Onto the show.

The issue opens with a 2 page spead of Spidey swinging across NYC and God does it look good. Cassaday can do no wrong in the art department, and never has. The issue features the FF, X-men (a few of whom have changed quite a bit since this arc started), some Avengers, and Doc Strange. And Ord and the Breakworld find a way to send images to the heads of all these heroes as the bullet rockets into Earth to destroy everything and everyone they all hold dear. And each of them thinks they are the ones that stopped the giant bullet from ripping Earth and turning it into a massive black hole.

On Breakworld, we get instances of greatness. And I stress instances. Colossus knows he is the only one strong enough to be inside the exploding star (or whatever the hell it is) and uses that to his advantage, allowing Wolverine to slice off the arm of the leader of the Breakworld and showing the power that Colossus holds over them as he suggests that he will not destroy the Breakworld no matter what.

Brand, the green-haired SWORD chick macks on Beast and gets hot for him and shows off her alien-ness (SKRULL probably) in front of Hank McCoy and promises him that she will show off her goods and let his catness inside her sex dungeon. Or whatever.

Wolverine does a whole lot of nothing except for standing around, drinking beer, cutting one guy's arm off, and getting a new Asian girl under his wing as his sidekick. Cyclops blasts people with his eyes without his Viewmaster and Kitty Pryde does the coolest thing ever with her powers and saves the Universe, only allowing her to fade off into the oblivion and be forgotten like the Claremont character she is.

Okay. Deep breaths. There are a lot of really stupid instances too. Cyclops isn't wearing the Viewmaster the entire issue, makes no mention of needing it, and then right at the end, in a throwaway scene, him and Emma mention how his eyes are red and he held out just as long as he could. Stupid.

Colossus makes mention of how stupid they all are for signing Kitty off to the oblivion, but probably Skrullclops suggests that everyone is working hard (or hardly working) on finding her and finding a way to save her (yeah, sure).

Wolverine gets drunk and fights the asian chick.

Emma cries.

And the whole world weeps as Spider-man is the only one strong enough to realize that they've all been tricked into thinking that they were all the ones stopping the bullet train. Not Reed Richards. Not Tony Stark. Spider-Man. The guy who made the deal with the devil to get rid of his marriage and his secret identity issues. Not the Sorcerer Supreme. The substitute teacher who lives with his aunt in Queens and eats Wheat Cakes and Bran Cereal every morning with his 1000 year old aunt.

Spider-Man.

Joss Whedon sucks here. I said it. I'm okay with it. I bought this issue specifically to end my run on Astonishing and to look at the amazing Artwork featured within. It's no question that John Cassaday is an awesome talent who can't hit a deadline to save his family or his friends or himself, but he won't go down with the Titanic on this one, and neither will Whedon.

People will remember him as the creator of Buffy and Angel and Firefly and soon to be Dollhouse. They won't remember him as the guy who started a great X-comic and then couldn't follow through to the end.

It just suffers the same EXACT problem that most crappy comics suffer from. Awesome ideas and terrible follow-through.

That is this comic to a T. No follow through at all. And it was declared not part of regular continuity, and yet, Kitty is long gone from the Marvel 616-verse. Why?

Because Whedon doesn't like it when other people play with his toys.

Final thoughts? Why couldn't this stupid comic have included a recap page to tell us what we were missing from the 6 years between issues? Why did we have to have a follow-up cover gallery when we desperately need to be reminded of what Wolverine said or did the issue before (probably nothing, as that's about what he did the entire series).

Whatever. It's over. This book doesn't deserve the title Astonishing nor does it deserve the idea that it should have been the flagship X-title. Uncanny passed it. X-men passed it. New X-men was better than it. X-Factor and X-Force are leaps and bounds better than it. And I wasted 5 bucks for nothing.