» Blog Archive Astonishing X-Men Gets Motion Comics Right -
Todd C Matthy Comic Book News, Movies, News

Leave it to Neal Adams to leave his mark…again. The legendary artist who redefined the look of Batman (and comics overall) has put his distinct stamp on the fledging medium of Motion Comics, with Marvel’s Astonishing X-Men: Gifted. Gifted is Marvel’s first foray into turning a regular comic book into a Motion Comic and considering the praise this storyline received, thanks to creators Joss Whedon and John Cassidy, expectations were high, so Marvel turned to someone they knew would not only respect the work but make it groundbreaking, and who better than Neal Adams and Continuity Studios.

Before Neal Adams and Continuity got their hands on them, Motion Comics were static with bad voice acting. Continuity has changed that. The motion in Gifted is fluid, the characters move, there are mouth movements. If I didn’t know any better I’d say this were an animated movie designed by John Cassaday, because that’s pretty much what it is. Sure there are times when the motion distorts a characters anatomy, but hey nothing’s perfect.  What impressed me most of all was the voices.  The biggest flaw I’ve seen in Motion Comics is the voice acting. In Watchmen and Spider-Woman there were only a couple of people doing 2-3 voices (or at least it sounded like it) here, there is a whole cast. Every character has a distinct voice but also nails the right emotion for each situation. Of course it helps to have someone who writes emotions like Joss Whedon and someone who renders them like John Cassaday. To see what I mean, watch how well the Motion Comic captures the confrontation between Emma and Kitty in episode (and issue) 2. It was that scene that sold me on this X-Men and it once sold me only this time on Motion Comics. The cast will give you a flashback to the X-Men cartoon from the nineties.

This is the second time Astonishing X-Men has proven me the wrong. I didn’t think anybody could follow Grant Morrison on X-Men, then I read Astonishing. I think Motion Comics could move past static images and poor voice acting, then I saw Astonishing. Download this immediately from iTunes. It’s, dare I say, astonishing. (Yes…I went there)

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