The Best of 2009: Marvel

2009 is almost over and we, like all nerds, are taking some time to reflect on the best comics of the year. Because there are four of us writing the blog this year, we figured it would be best to divide the list into four categories: Marvel, DC, Collections and Original Graphic Novels, and The Best of the Rest. We'll post one of these lists each day for the next four days.

Now, even though there are four of us, it doesn't mean that we've read everything. I know I trade wait a lot of really good comics like Incredible Hercules and Agents of Atlas that won't make the list just because I haven't gotten around to reading them yet.

As an aside, I personally think that Marvel triumphed over DC overall this year. This is mostly for three reasons: a plethora of hot young talent; a willingness to experiment with its characters and allow "outsider" creators play in the Marvel Universe, and minimal crossovers (more importantly, minimal titles being pulled into crossovers).

So here are our picks for the Best of Marvel, 2009. Dave and I are pretty much the only ones who read an array of Marvel titles on a regular basis, but Johnathan has a few contributions to this list.  - Rachelle 

Wolverine: Weapon X  by Jason Aaron, Ron Garney and Yanick Paquette
In my opinion, Jason Aaron is the comic writer of the year. He had three ongoing series in 2009, Ghost Rider, Scalped and Wolverine: Weapon X, as well as a number of one-shots and guest spots. He also started a brand new ongoing series in November, Punishermax. And here's the thing: they all rule. I really like Jason Aaron's writing because it's full of crazy, insane violence, but without any of the cynicism of, say, a Garth Ennis book. I can't verify that this is true, but when I read Aaron's superhero comics, I feel like he has exactly the right attitude about comic books: they are awesome, but shouldn't be taken too seriously. Every title he writes, (with the exception of Scalped, which is just a masterpiece), takes comics back to being sensationalist pulp entertainment full of insane fun. Wolverine is a character that Jason Aaron writes really well. The first storyline in Wolverine: Weapon X has Logan fighting evil super soldiers in the jungles of Colombia. And when I saw evil, I mean they have laser claws and guns that shoot bullets full of cancer. The second story has put Logan, suffering from amnesia, in an truly horrific insane asylum that he can only get out of if he remembers that he can pretty much kill he shit out of anyone if he wants to. This series is everything a Wolverine comic should be. -RG

Ghost Rider by Jason Aaron, Tony Moore, and Mark Robinson and Ghost Riders: Heavens on Fire by Jason Aaron and Roland Boschi
Jason Aaron's awesome run on Ghost Rider will sadly come to an end soon. It's a damn tragedy because I would have happily read this series forever. At the same time, though, I am excited to see what Aaron does next. I want to see his take on every character. Wouldn't you love to read a Jason Aaron Daredevil comic? Or see what he does with Superman? Or Supergirl? I know I would. In the meantime we'll have Wolverine: Weapon X and Punishermax to keep things awesome. Although they probably won't have U.S. 1 character cameos, and that's too bad. Adding Tony Moore as the artist for a short run on this series was a stroke of genius, by the way. -RG

Daredevil by Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark, and others
Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark wrapped up their flawless run on Daredevil this year. They took over the comic in 2006, faced with the challenge of picking it up after Brian Michael Bendis' insane cliffhanger finish that saw Daredevil's identity disclosed and our hero thrown in jail. Brubaker took a difficult task and turned it into a masterpiece. This year's stories were really excellent, beginning with Lady Bullseye and moving into the Return of the King storyline, and ending with Daredevil becoming the leader of The Hand. And you know what? Andy Diggle has been doing a great job since he took over, so it looks like Daredevil will continue to be one of my favourite comics as we enter 2010. Also exciting: The first volume of the Brubaker/Lark Daredevil Omnibus collection was released this year, meaning that the comic is beautifully presented on giant, heavy-duty pages. As it should be. -RG

Nomad by Sean McKeever and David Baldeon
It is just so exciting to see Sean McKeever writing for Marvel again. I don't want to call his time at DC a colossal failure, but, well...it's just nice to see him writing for Marvel again. And back writing fun stories about teenagers! Nomad is a completely charming mini-series that takes a fairly confusing character and put her at the centre of a very accessible and enjoyable story of teen anxiety. It's common for teenagers to have trouble fitting in, but Rikki Barnes has just arrived in town from an alternate universe, so her situation is a little more extreme. Worse still: her brother in this universe isn't her brother...and he has a big crush on her. Despite all this, she is still totally kicking ass with confidence using the skills she learned as Captain America's sidekick back in her old universe. Nomad is not a character that anyone should really care about, or want brought back, but Marvel was smart enough to hire McKeever for the job and that makes all the difference. Also: Nomad has one of the coolest costumes in comics right now.  -RG

Criminal: Deluxe Edition by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
There's really nothing I can say about this comic that hasn't been said already by a million people. It's a fantastic, perfect series of crime stories with compelling characters (my favourite is Leo) and great art. It celebrates the pulp crime genre by perfectly marrying it with a medium that can really do it justice: uncensored comic books. Now the first few arcs are collected in a big beautiful hardcover book and you should buy it. -RG  
 

Strange Tales, By Many, Many People
Strange Tales was such a good idea - I'm surprised that it took this long to happen. Paul Pope, Tony Millionaire, Stan Sakai, Jhonen Vasquez... these are people who are going to make your comic anthology sing. Heck, Vasquez' "MODOK and Me" inspired my Halloween costume, the scamp. I was originally kind of grumpy about this title, and was going to award the coveted "Best of Year" title on issue number one only, but I just reread them all and I recant my cranky position. Basically everything in this series is really solid - the Dash Shaw Dr Strange yarn and Jacob Chabot's tale of Ben Grimm and his Chia mustache both just made me guffaw all over again, for example - but the distribution of stories among the issues was really uneven, with the bulk of the mind-blowingly pretty/funny stuff crammed into the first installment. Plus Peter Bagge's "Incorrigible Hulk" suffers for being chopped up into segments. But for all my complaining, this is some of the most entertaining stuff that I've read all year, with some of the best looking/most unorthodox super-hero art since, well, Bizarro Comics. If you haven't taken it in yet, just make sure to read all three issues at once and you won't have to suffer unwarranted nerd rage, like me. - JM

Invincible Iron Man by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca
The Iron Man movie kicked off the 2008 summer season, becoming one of the year's highest grossing pictures, rebooting Robert Downey Jr.'s career, and introducing the Armored Avenger to a giant new audience hungry to read more of his exploits. Unfortunately, 2007's Civil War crossover had turned the character into Marvel's biggest douchebag, a tin-plated dictator who made everyone give up their secret identities and was indirectly responsible for the death of his best friend, Captain America. Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca were given the unenviable task of relaunching Ol' Shellhead's series a few months later, and thankfully, they rose to the occasion with fast-paced action, snarky-cool technojargon, and snappy humour. The new ongoing series' opening arc returned the focus to Stark Industries and Tony's ongoing moral dilemma over how his technology was being used. Fraction and Larroca followed up with a stellar one-off issue guest-starring Spider-Man, and continued with the year-long World's Most Wanted arc, dealing with Tony Stark's fall from grace and following the fugitive hero's quest to destroy his own technology to keep it out of Norman Osborn's hands. In the wake of World's Most Wanted, the current Stark: Disassembled storyline is concerned with rebuilding the character and his relationship with the other Avengers, just in time for the upcoming Siege event (and, of course, Iron Man 2, in theatres next summer). -DH

Punisher, the current Franken-Castle arc by Rick Remender and Tony Moore
It seems that lately, whenever someone buys an issue of the current Rick Remender/Tony Moore Punisher from me, they inevitably groan and ask when the Franken-Castle storyline is going to be over, as if they're worried that Marvel is going to actually keep the character running around as a Frankenstein forever. Hey, if they did, I wouldn't complain--one of the best things about Remender's Marvel Universe-centric Punisher relaunch is how much it embraces the roots of its comic book silliness, making use of crazy superhero tech like Pym Particles, old storylines like the Scourge's massacre at The Bar With No Name, and now, teaming a reanimated, reconstructed Frank Castle (who was murdered by Wolverine's evil son Daken in a Dark Reign tie-in) with the Legion of Monsters (namely, Morbius, Werewolf By Night, and Man-Thing, to name a few). Throw in Remender's old Fear Agent collaborator and co-creator Tony Moore on the art, and you've got one of the most ridiculously fun and unpredictably crazy books on the stands. And hey, if you prefer your Punisher stories to be gritty and realistic, may I suggest Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon's new Punishermax series? It's got less Frankensteins and more popped-out eyeballs, but it's also a great read. -DH 

New Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen
The flagship Avengers title is sort of like a lost friend to me; it's done a lot of stupid shit in the last few years, but I really miss hanging out with it. Under Brian Michael Bendis, this series--which mostly follows fugitive Avengers like Spider-Man, Captain America, Luke Cage, Ms. Marvel, etc., as they try and stay one step ahead of Norman Osborn and his Dark Avengers--is still, on many occasions, profoundly stupid. For instance, why would a power-dampening device have any effect on powerless heroes like Ronin and Cap? Why does the same device give Luke Cage a heart attack, instead of robbing him of his invulnerable skin? Why does the solicitation info usually not match the final published issue? Why is Wolverine almost always on the cover, even though he's pretty much never in the book anymore? Never mind--I think I know the answer to that one. Despite all that, I've given in and started buying this book, and it's not for the writing; it's for the spectacular art of Stuart Immonen, who has always been a formidable talent but has stepped up his game big time over the last few years (since around Nextwave, I believe, where he pared his usually realistic style down to an angular, more streamlined look). I don't quite understand why this guy isn't a crazy superstar--his work here is thrillingly cool, amping up the ho-hum neverending chase-and-fight antics into something much more. And, unlike many of his contemporaries, he can actually meet a deadline! 2010 promises the return of Iron Man and Thor to these pages, and with Immonen on art chores, the timing couldn't be better. -DH

Honourable Mentions

Fin Fang Four Return: I will never get tired of the Fin Fang Four. "How Fin Fang Foom Saved Christmas" alone is enough to get this comic a mention here, as it is in the running for greatest Christmas comic of all time. - JM

Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers: Deserves a mention for being super-fun and having such a potentially-dopey-but-obviously-awesome-when-you-think-about-it concept and for featuring Speedball's cat (Hairball!), but even if it was terrible it would be here for introducing Frog Thor II/Throg to the world. - JM

M.O.D.O.K.: Reign Delay: Like Fin Fang Four Return, this was a really enjoyable one-shot by a very fun creator. Ryan Dunlavey, of Action Philosophers fame, delivers a very funny comic about a down-on-his-luck M.O.D.O.K. who has to move back in with his parents in New Jersey. - RG

Mighty Avengers: I really like the line-up, and I really like Dan Slott's writing. I don't normally read Avengers comics, but when the line-up includes members of the Young Avengers and Hercules and Cho, I can't resist. - RG

Amazing Spider-Man: Marvel's flagship title is still one if its best. The vast majority of 2009's issues (and there were a lot of them) were excellent. I especially love any issues written by Mark Waid. The comic went through a couple of rough patches this year, but the overall quality has been outstanding, and it's been coming out on time three times a month! Well done, team Spidey! - RG

The Marvel 70th Anniversary Specials: Marvel celebrated its 70th anniversary by releasing a whole lot of one-shots that re-visited their earliest titles and characters. Quite a few of these comics were excellent, especially the Sub-Mariner Comics special and the All Select Comics special that included a Marvex back-up by Michael Kupperman. - RG

Captain America and Captain America: Reborn: Steve Rogers is making a comeback. The return of a superhero never gets as much press or attention as a death, but so far Steve's return has made for some pretty excellent reading. So excellent that I don't even mind that my beloved Bucky will soon be redundant. - RG

Uncanny X-Men: Frankly, if Greg Land never drew any of the issues (he draws about half), then this would be one of the best superhero titles on the stands. But he does, and thus it's down here in Honourable Mention country. It's too bad. I highly recommend the Dodson issues, though. And really the whole series if you can stomach Land's art (I usually just read the speech bubbles without looking at the art) - RG

The Compliments of the Season!

I'm off to the wilderness to celebrate a Christmas the Batman way:

Have fun all! I'll be thinking of you!

-johnathan

Avatar: My Spoiler-Free (Mostly) Mini-Review

    

It seems that every time James Cameron makes a new film, a significant portion of the filmgoing audience wants him to fail. It doesn’t hurt that he has made The World’s Most Expensive Movie three times now—first in 1991 with Terminator 2, then again in 1997 with Titanic, and now, once again, with this year’s Avatar. I guess people want to see somebody with that kind of hubris humbled. Me, I just want to see what the guy who gave the world Aliens has to show us next. In this case, with his newest film, he has shown us not so much The World’s Most Expensive Movie (rumoured to be in the neighbourhood of $500 million!), but The World’s Most Expensive Amusement Park Ride. That’s not necessarily a totally bad thing, but it doesn’t exactly make it a great motion picture, either.

     The plot of Avatar concerns a future where Earth has used up its natural resources, and is looking to distant worlds to provide its energy sources. On a faraway jungle moon called Pandora, a sinister corporation has found what it needs in a substance called, with a straight face, Unobtainium. Unfortunately, this stuff rests under the village of Pandora’s indigenous, intelligent lifeforms, a race of ten-foot-tall blue cat people called the Na’vi. However, the military-supported Company—personified by Giovanni Ribisi as a corporate sleazebag cut from the same cloth as Paul Reiser’s Burke in Aliens—has a plan to gain the Na’vi’s trust and get them to relocate by sending human envoys whose consciousness has been transplanted into genetically-engineered Na’vi bodies called Avatars. The film’s protagonist, Jake Sully (Terminator: Salvation’s Sam Worthington), is a wheelchair-bound ex-Marine who hopes that his assignment as an Avatar will earn him the money to have his legs restored; all he has to do is either convince the Na’vi to move their village so the company can mine the Unobtainium, or provide the company’s military, led by battle-scarred hardass Major Quaritch (Stephen Lang) with valuable intel that will point out the Na’vi’s weak spots if a military solution is required. Of course, Jake eventually goes native, falling in love with his warrior princess guide Neytiri (which is pretty easy when she’s played by Star Trek’s Zoe Saldana) and learning about how the Na’vi live in harmony with their world instead of stripping it of its natural resources. Torn between two worlds, Jake must find a way to keep the trigger-happy space Marines from wiping out the Na’vi.    

      If this sounds familiar, it should—take away all the sci-fi mumbo jumbo, and you’re pretty much left with the legend of Pocahantas and the screenplay for Dances With Wolves. Granted, there aren’t a lot of original stories left these days, but that does take a lot of the suspense out of the plot. The visuals are spectacular—the world of Pandora is brought to breathtaking life by Stan Winston Studios and WETA Workshop—but there is nothing surprising about the way Avatar’s plot unfolds. For instance, when Jake is told that only a handful of Na’vi have been able to tame and ride a ferocious flying creature, we in the audience of course know that Jake will pull it off when the time comes. When a particularly risky life-saving procedure is attempted (I won’t say more than that, in the interest of spoilers), it’s easy to spot the fact that we’re seeing it now so that it can be used again later at a crucial juncture. I saw Avatar in IMAX 3D, and it was worth the extra five dollars. The 3D immerses you so completely that you almost forget about it, only to find yourself occasionally startled at its seamlessness (there’s none of that “Hey, hand me a screwdriver!” foolishness that usually accompanies 3D movies). The revolutionary motion-capture process that took years to develop does result in digitally-created characters that are pretty much indistinguishable from their human counterparts. And, for Cameron fans, it’s a kick to see the director return to the familiar territory of military dropships and giant mechanized battlesuits, to say nothing of his reunion with Sigourney Weaver. However, just like the various beasts, environments, and military hardware that populate it, Avatar’s script could have just as believably been generated by a computer program. Every scene and every shot has been designed for maximum visual impact, but the impression it makes fades almost immediately. It’s a fun ride, particularly in larger-than-life 3D, but one that left me eager for a less predictable one.

Living Between Wednesdays Holiday Gift Guide Part 4: 2-3 Kids!

Part 4: Big Enough for 2-3 Kids!

Everyone knows someone with two to three kids. Why not give them a break this year by providing their progeny with an enclosed space to hide out in, hopefully quietly, for hours at a time?

Frontier Cabin

Here you have your basic polyethelene Frontier Cabin, complete with rustic youth and nameplate. Note the ease with which one can purchase multiple such buildings – you can buy for multiple enchilded families at once or provide some lucky child with a village all their own.

Jet “Rocket” Space Ship

Missile Firing Tank

Polaris Nuclear Sub

I really don't have anything to say about the other three, except that I'm jealous of the kids who got to play with these things, even if they were made of corrugated cardboard.

Living Between Wednesdays Holiday Gift Guide Part 3: Gifts for Jerks

Part 3: For the Jerk in your Life

Jerks. Everybody knows one or two. Maybe they’re your best friend or brother or something, but they’re definitely the one pointing and laughing as you do a header into a snowbank one frigid February morn. This time of year, one might be tempted to leave the local jerk off of the ol’ shopping list, but this tactic will only increase your likelihood of becoming the target of some future mischief. Rather than taking that risk, go ahead and pick up some of the following for them. It’s good sense on a couple of levels, firstly because it might make them feel well-disposed toward you when next they feel like staging a fake eviction or mock execution for laffs, and secondly as it will give you a decent idea of what they’re armed with. Forewarned, after all, is forearmed.

Color Smoke Clouds

Think of these as early jerk warning devices. Do you know someone who might be a stealth jerk, or possibly a child who shows signs of nascent jerkdom? Watch closely after presenting this person with the Color Smoke Cloud and take note of what happens:

Possible jerk action taken                  Prognosis

Cloud released indoors                       Either a jerk or a bit dumb. Continue observation
Cloud released outdoors,                    Probably not a jerk.
in a well-ventilated field.
Cloud carefully saved until                  Definite jerk. Watch out.
next wedding or funeral.

Hot Candy or Gum

Hot candy can also work as a jerk-detector (do they give it to Gramma? Do they feed it to the dog?) but also works as an effective jerk &diffuser&, as it channels their energies into maintaining an air of nonchalance, the better to lull you into enough of a sense of security that you’ll accept their tainted treats. As long as your jerk has hot candy to disseminate they’ll be on their best behavior, so give ‘em plenty and make sure to put on a good enough show that they’ll want to do it to someone else.

Onion Gum

The same principle would apply to onion gum, but as you can see it transforms you into a grotesque baby-man.

Itching Powder

Joy Buzzer

The idea behind the joy buzzer is so grand, yet the execution is so lacking - for those of you who have never encountered such a thing in the wild, a joy buzzer both culturally and advertisimally promises some sort of jolt of electrified comeuppance that you can deploy toward your enemies via your palm. In execution, the joy buzzer is a simple wind-up motor  that unleashes a torrent of stored-up vibratory energy once pressure is applied to it. It's suitable to the task of making someone go "What the heck?" for a few seconds, sure, but just not quite the trick as far as dealing out righteous retribution and so forth goes.

Take care to only giv this sort of thing to a jerk who's got a bit of a reflective side. And no access to a taser.

Whoopee Cushion

 Last up: the Whoopee cushion, a classic weapon in the arsenal of the jerky prankster. If you know a jerk who doesn't have one or more of these babies then send away right now, because they are missing out and so are you. Every jerk should have the chance to make a Society matron appear to have farted loudly at some sort of cotillion or orphan-style fund-raiser, and likewise every jerkfriend should be allowed to rest easy knowing that sometimes the worst that is going to happen to them is a bout of counterfeit flatulence.

As well, everyone should know about the above being the best Whoopee Cushion ad illustration ever. For serious.

Word up, jerks.

John Buys Comics Yet Again

Incorruptible No. 1

You know, I was just thinking about how long it had been since I declared a SECOND ISSUE OF JUDGEMENT.

Honestly, I hadn’t expected to have to with this one. Irredeemable has been entertaining me fairly consistently and I figured that Mark Waid would be able to flip the concept without straining too hard, but this all seems a bit forced.

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s the skinny: Irredeemable is about the Superman-esque Plutonian turning evil and effing up the world, while Incorruptible is about the, I don’t know, evil white Luke Cage-esque Max Damage going over to the good guys.

Some of it definitely works, particularly the idea of the super-strong, invulnerable dude who fights crime despite the law’s objections simply because they can’t do anything to stop him. Plus I like the name Max Damage. On the other hand, Max’s former henchmen deliver more bald-faced exposition than I can comfortably overlook. The first page of the thing reads like a poorly-written Wikipedia entry on the guy.

And then there’s the manner in which Max goes to the good, which is totally, from rejecting his under-aged girlfriend to burning his ill-gotten gains. As the polar opposite of the Plutonian’s descent into genocidal debauchery, I guess that unrelenting purity is it. In terms of interesting character traits… meh, I could use a bit more moral ambiguity.

Eh, we’ll see. This is precisely why the SECOND ISSUE OF JUDGEMENT system was created.

Batman 80-Page Giant No 1

How could I resist an 80-Page Giant, long-lost child of the Silver Age (except for that one fifth week event a few years ago)? And a themed one at that!

Gotham City is blizzarded up and as per usual things are going all to hell. You got Batman and Robin vs. looters, Alfred doing a lady of the evening a nice turn (oh, that Alfred), Catwoman in a nice-looking but slightly odd (no I’m not going to specify, mleh) tale of theft and old folks, and so on.

Gotham’s ever-swelling vigilante ranks grow by two or three in this issue, with stories featuring the Saint of Orphan Alley and Veil (oh wait, I guess that she appeared during Battle for the Cowl and retroactively during No man's Land. Well, I don't actually care.) This means that I can now think of at least ten or twelve Gotham crimefighters off th top of my head, which further means that there have probably been three to five times that number over the years. That's a troubled city.

My favourite is the Commissioner Gordon/Mr Freeze story. Because I like seeing villains have a good time now and then.

Silver Streak Comics No 24 (wink, wink) - The Next Issue Project is one of my favourite things ever. Paul Grist is at this point one of the few people who I would consider not avoiding for fear of inadvertently fawning. Damn that man - how did he get so damned entertaining? Damn!

Green Lantern Corps No. 43 - Red/Green Lantern Guy Gardner is a Black Lantern-killing machine! Why the hell aren’t all of the Lanterns doubling up on rings? I may have to start a pool about this - how many issues until the various Corps realize what a good idea it is.

Power Girl No. 7 - How much did I enjoy this? Very, very much! Vartox of Valeron, Silver Age Superman pal, returns to the DCU after long absence. He’s a macho jerk vain enough to own a space ship in the shape of his own head, and he’s looking to woo Power Girl! I don’t know that it’s always the way to go but by GOD do I enjoy it when an old goofy character is brought back without being modernized. Shine on, Vartox!

Streets of Gotham No 7 - Humpty Dumpty, yeah! What a great character when written right - all poignant and insane. Between Dini’s writing and the Nguyen/Fridolfs art team, this is a fantastic appearance by the big round dude. Also, the rest of the issue is pretty great too. I really wasn’t expecting to like Streets of Gotham so much when the latest batch of Bat-titles started but hey, colour me pleasantly surprised.

Batman Confidential No. 39 - Dammit, why did I buy this? I assure you that the conclusion was just as stupid as the rest of this story. At least I read it early and didn’t leave myself in a bad mood.

The Last Resort No 5 - OVER! Was this supposed to be only five issues? Was it unexpectedly cancelled? Why does it feel like about three issues were compressed into this one(possibly via some sort of mechanical contrivance of fearsome aspect)? I swear that issues 1 through 4 had a nice, steady pace. Bah, bah I say.