288: Astonishing X-Men # 25 - 30 (Ghost Boxes)
- Matt Campbell
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
What’s Covered?
Astonishing X-Men # 25 - 30
Roster Watch
Synopsis
AXM3 25 - 30: Ghost Boxes
Writer - Warren Ellis
Pencils - Simone Bianchi
Following Joss Whedon's famous Astonishing X-men run, Warren Ellis steps up to the plate. While this arc takes place during Manifest Destiny, I'm not going to formally introduce that plot line until the next blog. But for now you, just need to know that all of the X-Men (and most mutants) have moved to San Francisco and things are better than they've ever been.
Hisako is not sure if she should stick with the Armor name, but since I know her (briefly) from modern comics and she still goes by Armor, I'm going to guess that it sticks. It seems as though Ellis has decided to keep the Wolverine/Armor pairing that Whedon had started. The concept of Wolverine mentoring a young girl worked so well with Kitty, Jubilee, and others that you might as well keep going back to the well.
They are consultants to the San Francisco Police Department...but they don’t dress in a costume, supposedly because of the complications with the Civil War. I thought the whole point of astonishing X-Men was that they did wear costumes…I'm really confused. It was such a huge deal that Whedon had them wearing costumes again after Grant Morrison had taken them away. Oh well.
They find a man who was burned to death. The man seems to be a fabricated mutant with three chromosomes instead of two, which we're going to call a Triploid.
The team, Sans beast, is heading to Chaparanga, Indonesia to find the killer. That’s where defunct alien spaceships are kept.
They confront the man they are looking for (a fire starter,) but Storm has to blow up a ship with lightning in order to stop him.
Storm scolds Scott because of how willing he is to kill. I think Storm is a great person to hold Scott to higher morals, but I think Ellis forgot that Storm has killed. It's how she became a leader and then went punk to embrace her new personality.
The man survived, but killed himself so he wouldn’t get taken. Beast learns that there are two groups of mutants who are hunting each other. The triploids and synthetically made mutants.
Beast invites Abigail brand for a consult, who he is still dating/banging. Brand identifies the alien tech the fire starter was trying to use as a ghost box, which means that the triploids are from a parallel earth. Trippy!
The team heads to China where they find the HQ of a secret city of mutants, some of them dead since M Day. A few of them ambush the team, but after being beaten, they admit that they are connected to Forge.
The team spends a lot of time reminiscing about forge. They talk about how he always wants to solve problems, but that never the right problems or never in the right way. They also talk about how he’s been mentally unstable a few times.
Eventually they find Forge and he comes right out of the gate showing that he's not supposed to be a sympathetic character:
“ Emma Frost. I didn’t recognize you with your legs together.”
Forge seems to really have lost his mind. He introduced the X-Men to a group of freak show mutant that he created, and he plans to enter the alternate earth and start a war. For some reason, Cyclops thinks that’s a really bad idea. You know it's not a stretch to think that he would be starting a war if it was him who found them, but I digress. Beast tells Abigail brand to shoot a laser through the ghost box into the parallel earth killing everyone involved. End of arc.
My Connections and Creators
Boring or Great?
This was...alright. I couldn't believe it when I went to create the roster graphic and the team only had 5 characters. And two of them are Cyclops and Beast who I find boring. This story was ok. Typical X-Men story. I'm pretty interested in Scott and Emma's relationship. I typically think of Warren Ellis being more like a boy scout, but he writes them pretty scandalously, and then you throw in Brand and Beast...yikes. I didn't even realize that Astonishing went on past Whedon. Ok, I guess I don't really have a lot to say. The next Manifest Destiny blog will be more lively, I promise!
Thoughts on Art
Simone Bianchi brings a strikingly detailed, almost painterly realism to the series that contrasts sharply with John Cassaday’s earlier clean lines. His use of heavy shadows, textured cross-hatching, and muted, metallic color palettes gives the story a darker, more mythic tone fitting for the “Ghost Box” arc’s interdimensional themes. Bianchi’s intricate character designs—particularly his depiction of Wolverine and Armor—emphasize muscle, motion, and atmosphere over clarity, creating a sense of visual density. The result is a haunting, dreamlike aesthetic that enhances the story’s mystery but sometimes sacrifices panel readability for mood and grandeur.
Things to keep an eye on
Forge isn't really dead. Come on.