The Marvel Knights production company doesn't just make the Marvel animated films that we've been seeing. These aren't stories retold and reanimated from scratch, but instead they take the original comic book cells and bring those to life, thus using the original artist's work, in this case John Cassaday, and not some unnamed animator's interpretation of his work. As a result, you get a film that has a very different feel to it, but rings very true for followers of the comic book creators' works.
On a similar note, no extra dialogue or sound effects are added to the show, so every voice you hear can be found in the original source material, and in the case of Astonishing X-Men, this means the writing comes from Joss Whedon.
Gifted is the first story arc of Astonishing X-Men: Volume Three, where Whedon and Cassaday teamed up, and was created in 2004 before the events of "House of M," but after Magneto's latest attack which has once again left Jean Grey dead. It is in this arc, where Cyclops and Emma Frost, now co-heads to Xavier's school since he has left for a time, have decided to reassemble the X-Men as a fighting force. On their team is Beast, Wolverine, and after a long hiatus, Shadowcat, as well as her little alien dragon familiar, Lockheed.
The overall plot of the six episode/issue series focuses on the development of a cure for the mutant gene, and the possibility of mutants becoming human once and for all. If this plot sounds familiar, you might be surprised to learn that the Gifted plot was the inspiration for the third X-Men film, X-Men: The Last Stand. Of course, the possible cure not only has a dark underside as it seems to be backed by a strange new alien race, but the moral and sociopolitical turmoils are brought up concerning the right to be "cured" and the very real possibility that the government might force all mutants to take the drug.
Having been out of the comic book game for quite some time, it was nice to see that there were a lot of little details mentioned in the story to help catch more casual fans up on what has happened in the Marvel Universe before this point. Again, these were references made in the original comic book, not something added by the Marvel Knights group. Through these brief statements, we learn of things like Jean's death, and Scott's new relationship with Frost (as well as her becoming a hero instead of staying a villain). It even goes so far as to touch on Beast's secondary mutation that makes the furry blue mutant have a more feline appearance. It is details like these that show just how well the original comic book was written, and how well the Marvel Knights group did in translating the story for a wider audience.
One of the more interesting special features on Marvel Knights Animation: Astonishing X-Men - Gifted is "A Conversation With Joe Quesada and Neal Adams" where we get a taste of what went into translating the comic book into the motion comic movie, but most of those intriguing tidbits can be seen in "Behind-The-Scenes Look At Marvel Knights Animation" where we see how the animators applied the artwork to 3D models to have them walk, or how they would slice up parts of the image to move individual body parts, or even how they had to scour other parts of the comic for mouth positions in order to Photoshop in the lips to have the character talk, but still be Cassaday's original artwork.
Another truly amusing extra is a collection of Marvel Super Heroes: What the--?! films. These are stop-action promos that have a very Robot Chicken feel to them, and while they aren't directly related to Astonishing X-Men, they are amusing. Actually, there is one under this menu option called "Voice Auditions" where various Marvel characters attempt to play the role of Emma Frost. We see everyone from Deadpool, to Hulk to M.O.D.O.K. make the attempt, and they are all pretty funny. Outside of that short, there is one where M.O.D.O.K. interviews various Marvel characters on the red carpet for the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, as well as one where Deadpool falls asleep before the annual movie awards show and goes through various classic films in his dream, and another where Iceman becomes human, much to Beast's chagrin, and becomes a talk-show host. This last one is the most relevant to the film and is called "There's No Business Like Snow Business."
There are a couple of other features like trailers, both for Gifted and for other up and coming motion comic movies, as well as an artist's gallery for Cassaday. There is also a visual history slide show that is a good prep to get you caught up on who the various featured X-Men are and how they got to where they are at the beginning of Astonishing X-Men - Gifted.
I was so impressed by this film, and interested in the original comic books, that I ordered the Astonishing X-Men - Gifted graphic novel for the explicit purpose of comparing it to the film, and I was flat out astonished (no pun intended) by how closely the filmmakers were able to stick to the original book. While the animation itself takes a bit to get to used to, it really does feel like a new branch of the medium and, based on the trailers on the disc, we can expect to see more, similar, products to come from Marvel Knights. I just hope they continue the Astonishing X-Men line and go through the next few story arcs. While Gifted was pretty self-contained, there is a lot of evidence of an overall plot that is sure to be interesting.
