Evil Seduces - X-Men #1

I've always enjoyed a good vampire tale - Interview With The Vampire, 30 Days of Night or Hammer's Dracula films rather than Twilight or The Vampire Diaries you understand! - and as such I'm looking forward to the forthcoming Marvel Universe-wide vampire story that begins later this month.

In support of the storyline Marvel have released a new teaser image, illustrated by Mike Mayhew, for X-Men #1:
Nothing less than stunning ... as we'd expect from Mike Meyhew.

X-Men #1
Written by Victor Gischler, penciled by Paco Medina, cover by Adi Granov with variant covers by John Romita Jr., Paco Medina, Marko Djurdjevic
Published by Marvel, 8 July 2010, $3.99

New Avengers Annual #3

Marvel have released a three-page preview of the forthcoming New Avengers Annual #3 over at hypergeek.ca.

New Avengers Annual #3
Clint Barton is in custody and that leaves not only Barton's life in severe jeopardy but all the New Avengers are at serious risk. So the ladies of the Avengers ban together to do what they have to do in a double-sized blockbuster Avengers story with a startling new chapter in the life of Jessica Jones.

Written by Brian Michael Bendis, with cover and interior art from Mike Mayhew coloured by Andy Troy, this 48-page annual will be published on 2 December 2009.

In related news Brian Michael Bendis spoke at length at the Chicago Comic-Con back in August about the book, while at his deviantART gallery Mike Mayhew has posted some of the black and white art he created for the book.

The art looks beautiful, the story sounds intriguing - I'll be picking-up this title for sure.

Mystique: Tinker, Tailor, Mutant, Spy

Over the weekend I've finished reading Volume 2 of the four Mystique trades I picked up recently.

As with Volume 1, Volume 2 - Tinker, Tailor, Mutant, Spy - is written by Brian K. Vaughan, however this time we have a different interior art team of Michael Ryan, Manuel Garcia and Raul Fernandez. Covers are again provided by one of my favourites, Mike Mayhew.

Having been recruited as a secret agent by Professor Xavier Mystique travels to South africa for her latest mission - to find and destroy a deadly new strain of smallpox that is spread telepathically. To complicate things, Mystique isn't the only mutant who wants the bio-weapon.

This volume, which collects Mystique #7 to #13, was a 'comfortable' read perhaps lacking some of the plot complexities of Volume 1 Dead Drop Gorgeous: that's not meant as a negative, this was a great 'page-turner'.

Michael Ryan's portrayal of Mystique herself is noticeably different to Jorge Lucas's in Volume 1 - here she appears as a smaller, slimmer - less curvey - woman. There's nothing wrong with Ryan's vision but personally I prefer Lucas's.

Bonus features include a numer of pencil sketches from Ryan as well as all of Mike Mayhews covers for the seven issues - these covers are superb.

Highly recommeded.

Mystique Volume 2: Tinker, Tailor, Mutant, Spy, paperback, 168 pages, published by Marvel Comics, 2004.

X-Men Origins: Jean Grey

Over the past six months or so I've been enjoying reading some of the X-Men comics that Marvel publishes - far and away my favourite read was X-Men Origins: Jean Grey - a great story with amazing artwork from Mike Mayhew: the image above is an extract from the cover.

The interior art is every bit as good - Marvel has 6 of the pages available for preview - click here to view them.

There are some other titles in this 'Origins' series - I've read and enjoyed Colossus and Beast and I'm wating for X-Men Origins: Sabretooth to be delivered.