Wanted got cheap enough for me

One of my very favourite writers about comics went off on Mark Millar on their Twitter feed the other night, slamming Millar for the quality of his writing, while grudgingly conceding that at least he treated his artistic talent fairly. It was a glorious little rant, and they made many very good points, but I just read Wanted for the first time in more than a decade and it was fucking great.

Even though it's usually highlighted as the low point of the whole story, I always loved the very end of Wanted, because I always think it's really funny when characters in a story tell you what a fucking loser you are for reading about them. I can still remember the immediate reaction when the comic came out, back when there was thriving series of blog writers analyzing every fucking thing coming out, and it wasn't pretty. There was loads of fainting and pearl-clutching over the end of it, and what Millar was saying to the readers who had loyally supported his books.

(Still, if anything, the years since have more than proven the point that maybe nerds should be confronted with the truth more often.)

For all my sins, I do like Millar's comics. I make fun of the dialogue as much as anybody, but he has a great sense of pacing and has managed to tell the kind of superficial thrills that do actually bring out the best in great artists. He makes it look so easy, but this tone and business strategy is a lot harder than it looks, otherwise everyone would be fucking doing it.

I've been a part-time Millar follower for years, depending entirely on the artists he work with (although the secret identity thing in the last Jupiter's Legacy was actually a little blinder). I've missed entire series, and even gave up on the Kick-Ass, but still want to read the one about a dying James Bond.

And I always wanted a copy of Wanted, but never got it, even when it was turned into a movie which inexplicably thought everything would be better with some Haunted Looms of Fate. If nothing else, letting JG Jones loose on the super carnage was worth getting the book, but I never did.

Mainly because it was extraordinarily expensive when it came out - $50 in local money for a basic trade - and it wasn't $50 worth. Then I saw it in a second hand bookshop last month for twelve bucks. 

Wanted feels like a twelve buck thrill. I ain't that much of a sucker

And it's still as mean and ornery and cynical than I ever remember, and the bit with the Joker dude saying how he doesn't fuck goats - he makes love to them! - is still better than anything the MCU have anything done.

My other comic-reading buddies think I'm out of my mind for liking Wanted, but I'm easily pleased.