Best Publisher
Image. Out of left field a bit, perhaps, but Image put out a lot of great stuff this year, from excellent long-running ongoings like
The Walking Dead to great new series like
Gladstone's School for World Conquerors to some utterly fantastic minis like
Who Is Jake Ellis? While Marvel was busy floundering with event after lackluster event and DC was busy throwing the baby out with the bathwater--however good some parts of the New 52 have been--Image was just chugging along with its usual model of putting out great comics that aren't afraid to push the envelope. Can't ask for more than that.
Best Ongoing
Avengers Academy. Sure, there are series that are more ambitious or more original or whatever, but I'm never more excited for a series each time it comes out than I am for
AA. Gage has done an excellent job of making me care about the Avengers' students, and he's found a perfect balance between them and their teachers' subplots. It's a bit ironic that this is my pick given that I usually hate series that focus too heavily on kids; it's even more ironic that my other top contenders for Best Ongoing are
Journey into Mystery,
Daredevil, and
Wolverine and the X-Men, two of which feature kids heavily.
Best Mini Series
This is a tie for me between
Who Is Jake Ellis? and
Vengeance.
Who Is Jake Ellis? was a wonderfully taut spy mystery/thriller that was intense from beginning to end.
Vengeance started out totally weird and then coalesced into an amazing retrospective on the Marvel universe as it stands with an eye toward its future. There's more going on in both, obviously, but for brevity's sake I'll leave it there. Both were awesome, both had me on the edge of my seat, and both are probably gonna wind up as trades on my bookshelf even after I've already bought their individual issues--a rare honor indeed.
Best Event
I guess the New 52 sort of has to win this by default, huh? Love it or hate it--or, like me, love some of its end results while hating its total lack of necessity--it's definitely the biggest thing that happened in comics in 2011 by far. Hell, it's probably the biggest thing that happened in comics for the past decade. I'm still kind of in wait-and-see mode for how it all pans out, but the good seems to be outweighing the bad so far. I realize this isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, but given how terrible just about all of the events in comics were this year, the New 52 is the best of a bad bunch.
Best Writer
Mark Waid. As if managing all of Boom weren't enough, he rides right back into Marvel with a take on Daredevil so amazing that even
I, the notorious Daredevil-hater, have come to love his series. Plus, he's been pumping out pretty damn good issues of both
Irredeemable and
Incorruptible regularly. He's making writing three great series look easy while lesser writers are struggling with just one.
Best Artist
Olivier Coipel. Maybe I'm biased because he's primarily known for Thor now or because I've got a piece of said Thor art tattooed onto my arm, but I feel like Coipel is operating on a whole other level compared to 90% of his peers. His pacing is flawless, the energy of his action scenes is unparalleled (Odin headbutting Galactus!
), his poses are varied and dynamic--basically, he's everything I could ever want in an artist of superhero comics. I literally open old issues from him and just stare at them, page-by-page. I've re-read
Thor #600 for its Thor/Bor fight like 10 times at this point. I have a total man-crush on Coipel's art.
Best Male Hero
Superman. The total retconning of virtually all things Superman is one of the many things I found totally unnecessary about the New 52, but even I have a hard time arguing against the revitalization Morrison's
Action Comics has pumped back into the character. It's been a great read so far and it's preserved a lot of what's always been great about Supes.
Best Female Hero
Becky Montcrief of
The Sixth Gun. Another left-field choice, perhaps, but I haven't enjoyed any ladies in the Big 2's comics so much as I've enjoyed Becky's evolution over this past year from a helpless victim to a naive-yet-fiercely-spirited fighter. The current arc of
The Sixth Gun seems to be signaling the start of her next transformation--this time into a tough-as-nails adventurer in her own right as she readies herself to openly defy the Sword of Abraham and head off to rescue Drake Sinclair--the guy who initially rescued
her just three arcs ago.
Best Supporting Male Character
Crossbones. He's kicking ass and taking names in
The Fearless right now alongside Sin, who's an excellent villain in her own right. He hasn't really evolved or anything, so there's not much more to say about him past that, except that he's as entertaining as ever.
Best Supporting Female Character
Troll. I just f***ing love her. An Asgardian goddess who was raised to be a savage by trolls and ultimately starts wearing a hairy troll skin to ape her "family." What more could you ask for? She's been a fun, morally ambiguous addition to the Thunderbolts so far, especially now that she's off the leash.
Best Villain
Loki. True, he's not exactly an outright villain at the moment, but his nature demands that he'll always have that villainous edge to him. His most 'heroic' acts so far have been running roughshod all over Odin's rules, hijacking and/or manipulating various things and beings, and making various Faustian bargains, all toward the goal of ultimately ensuring a prophecy that hinges on his beloved brother's death will come about. After all, in a year where the heroes spent most of the time fighting each other or villains so aggressively underwhelming that they're sure to be instantly forgotten (Serpent, I'm looking at you), isn't "kinda villainous" villainous enough?
Best Fight
Asgardians vs. the Silver Surfer and Galactus for the cosmic seed. Say what you will about Fraction's Thor comics--I myself say things like "god, they're f***ing terrible" and "why is this *****e allowed to write comics at all?" quite often--but the basic plot of Galactus and Odin going to war over this object of immense power was sound. It reintroduced Galactus to the Thor mythos (where he spent a lot of time early on, even to the point of having his origin first revealed in
Thor's pages by Jack Kirby himself) and, even better, it led to several knock-down, drag-out, pulse-pounding fights that, thanks to Olivier Coipel, were a pure joy to behold. Thor vs. the Silver Surfer, the Asgardians taking the fight to space against Galactus' defenses, Odin and Galactus engaging in gritty, visceral one-on-one combat that the cosmic types are usually considered too evolved for. Coipel's fight scenes took a somewhat mediocre story with a solid foundation to unparalleled heights by punctuating Fraction's bland story beats with tableaus bursting with the kind of pure excitement I haven't felt in superhero comics since Kirby, Buscema, et al. were first establishing all of the titanic rivalries that set Marvel apart from the Distinguished Competition back in the day.
Best Moment
The original Vision's return. There were a whole bunch of great moments this year, from Odin's aforementioned headbutting of Galactus to Jon breaking into the facility he previously broke out of to find Jake Ellis lying catatonic in a bed, but none of them got me as excited as the original Vision's return. Perhaps it's because the Vision's return came so out of nowhere. Sure, everyone knew the Vision was joining the Avengers thanks to cover solicitations and such, but pretty much everyone assumed it would be the Young Avengers' Vision 2.0. When I flipped through that
Avengers issue and found that it was, in fact, the original, rebuilt by Tony Stark, I barely stopped myself from giggling like a little girl in the middle of my comic shop. Sure, it may not be as epic or momentous as other moments, and of course Bendis will likely find some subplot for the Vision so terrible it'll make me regret the fact that he's back at some point, but right then, at that moment, I felt like a little kid again, taken aback by the surprise and wonder that superhero comics can provide.
