Quasi-Animated X-Men Tales to Astonish

Here’s a trailer for Marvel’s next motion comic, based on Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s well-received run on Astonishing X-Men, due on iTunes on October 28th. You guys know I’m generally a Whedon fan and although I didn’t read all of the comics, what I did read I liked a great deal. So I’m probably well inside the target audience for this motion comic, I would think. And yet I don’t really care, because it’s a motion comic.

Here’s my question — how is Marvel determining what should be a motion comic and what should be one of their direct-to-DVD animated movies? Frankly, I don’t dig the faux-animation and photoshop goofballery that’s necessary to make a comic a “motion comic.” Do you guys? And I’ve previously gone on record as hating the original stories Marvel has chosen to waste their time with in the DVD movie realm, such as Next Avengers and this upcoming Lil Thor or whatever its called; is there a reason that Marvel isn’t making an animated DVD of Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men? Because I’d buy that in a heartbeat. I’m genuinely looking forward to the animated Planet Hulk movie. And I’d kill a man if Marvel decided to animate some old-school comic sagas like Secret Wars or the Masters of Evil’s attack on Avengers mansion.

I’m assuming the motion comics are cheap and easy to put out. And they’re clearly popular, or Marvel wouldn’t keep making them. But I still can’t imagine why this Astonishing X-Men is a motion comic and not an animated DVD movie. Seems like a total waste to me.