Holiday Reading 1

"Wanted" by Mark Millar and JG Jones.
I don't read as many comics as I used to, so I missed this when it came out, browsed it in Borders, and bought it for holiday reading. Ignore the movie tie-in cover, this is the original comic, and has as little to do with the movie as, um, any book that's been bought for the plot line and nothing else.
It comes on as Watchmen for bad guys, with a bit of Preacher and a lot of The Invisibles thrown in. Initially fun, but a little empty towards the end. And am I the only one who finds it a bit convenient that the only super-power these bad guys don't have is being bullet proof?

Holiday Reading 2 (Well, 2A, B, C and D)

Astonishing X-Men, Volumes 1-4 by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday

John Cassaday's art on Planetary is astonishing stuff, changing in style from 1950's Sci-Fi movie, to 1980's Vertigo, to a lovely, clean photo-realistic style for the modern day. But no one bought these comics for him. Nope, it was the combination of the man who gave us Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and some daffy webcast that everyone is singing along to with the characters I still call The New X-Men.

I haven't bought an X-Men book since the last time Jean Grey died (sometime last year) and hadn't bought one before that since the last time she died (a couple of years ago). But, hell, I've been buying X-Men collections since Jean Grey first died (1980, I think).

These two dozen issues have a bit of a twist - Jean Grey doesn't die! At least one other X-Man does, and for at least one of them it isn't permanent. We also get an old member back, much to my pleasure.
I quite enjoyed these 24 issues - good dialogue, Whedon has a fans grasp on X-History and characterisation (including a lovely tip of the hat to the Clarement/Byrne Hellfire trilogy), and the new stuff he introduces is mostly welcome. I finished these with a grin and a nod (well, actually, with a tear in my eye, but I grinned later) and a determination to push them in the direction of any Whedon fans.