First off I'll say that I have been really enjoying the alternating stories running in this title. Keeps the action from getting too stale when its just the same group of people always running around together. And by splitting the Astonishing team up, it gives way for a few things to happen that might otherwise not have. Like, for example, Storm back in the leader seat! Or Beast running with the X-men again (since Scott and Logan aren't there)!
Here's the minutia that some newer readers might have missed. WAAAAAY back in the late 150's and early 160's of Uncanny X-men, when the team first met the Brood, THIS was the team! In the initial Brood epic, the line up was Storm, Colossus, Shadowcat, Cyclops, Nightcrawler and Wolverine, and during this storyline is when Kitty first met her long time best friend Lockheed the Dragon. From that day on, its been part of the X-men's mission to keep the Brood in-check, if not simply eradicate them, but now for something All-New and All-Different!
With Cyclops and Wolverine in Japan and, sadly, Nightcrawler having left us for a better place, the representing X-men team is the same as the original Brood team plus Beast, but this time its the mission thats different! They not only have to help the Brood, but they also had to LET themselves get infected by their sleazoid offspring. It's also worth mentioning that Colossus, Storm, and Kitty are, arguably, the moral center of the entire X-men machine, and this particular situation put them in a highly ambiguous position: defeat one of their arch-enemies for good or save an alien race from extinction?
Now, if Cyclops or Wolverine had been there, there might have been less discussion and more destruction and death, but with THIS grouping of X-men, the preservation of life, ALL life, comes much more to the forefront of the debate. Unfortunately, as usual when dealing with beings like the Brood, such compassion never goes unpunished, and no one could have predicted that the new and improved Broodlings would mature SO much faster.
One thing I have to complain about though, and this could be an art problem or just editors being lax on the details, is the "good" Broodling that had been they meet is suddenly bipedal and with human-like arms. I know someone is going to say that jthey take on characteristics of their hosts, but in every incarnation we've seen, when they are in full Brood form, they don't walk upright and don't so much use their little claw-like arms as they use their long tentacles. And let's not forget that they drag around with the long spiked tail behind them. Where was the tail with spike on the end? Where were the creepy long tentacles (which we've seen just as easily hold a gun as a hand does)? And why is this little kid, by Brood standards, walking around on his two strong little legs? Even the other Brood in the issue were A LOT closer to the original version then this youngster was. I understand that its supposed to be a new type of Brood and blah blah blah, but cutting it off from the hive mind and teaching it differently shouldn't so quickly change the physiological make-up of a creature.
Overall, I am loving this storyline, MUCH more then Monstrous and I can't wait to see how they tie it all up! I am really hoping that Abigail doesn't die since she was infected so much longer ago then the X-men, but I think I am prepared for anything with this one.
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