I'm still digesting the end of Angel. I liked it. I have enthused about it on email and got no response whatsoever so I have yet to dare read others' opinions in case I am all alone in my enjoyment of it. I'll wait another week before detailing why I thought it worked.

Meanwhile, I have just finished reading Astonishing X-Men #1. I am not leaping onto this comic as it's written by Whedon. Well, not entirely. I've been a fan of the X-Men since the mid-80s, only giving up on it all after the infamously title-sprawling Inferno storyline. Admittedly, I've not bothered with the movie, on the grounds that most movie adaptations of comic books suck. I mean, badly suck. It's weird as people who know little about comics always assume that they are just storyboards with dialogue which can therefore be lifted effortlessly to the screen. I'm literally afraid to see what they did to make my beloved League of Extraordinary Gentlemen into a movie. My return to the X-Men came when Grant Morrison started the New X-Men title. Not only was it a good writer but it was the core team (well, except for Angel and Iceman both of whom seem to have vanished from everyone's memories) plus Wolverine and Emma Frost. I read the entire Morrison run. I did try the Austen run but I didn't like it - poor dialogue plus uninspiring artwork. So when the word came that Whedon was taking over...well, the guys in the shop put me down Astonishing X-Men without even asking me. I had spent over a year asking "any news of Fray?", after all. So, is it worth it?

Well, yes. Both from an X-Men point of view and from a Whedon perspective. His dialogue leaps off the page. It's hard not to see Angel's brooding posturing in Whedon's Cyclops, or Spike's refusal to conform to the superhero stereotype ("no amulets. No bracelets, broaches, beads, pendants, pins, or rings") in Wolverine's mutterings about tights. Emma Frost's bitchiness is so season 1 & 2 Cordy that it made me laugh out loud. And I needn't say anything about Henry McCoy's tweed suit and glasses...This is Whedon on top form, back to one of the things which inspired Buffy and it's fun.