Year In Review - The Best of 2008

[cdk]

ah triple post sorry

 

[cdk]

I read Alan Moores run on miracleman and really enjoyed it, although it did freak me out a little at the end with ultra smart flying babies

 

[Sloth7d]

Favorite publisher-Marvel, though Top Cow is a close second, a spot which normally goes to DC in my heart, but DC has been sucking so hard lately it would be hard to put them on a Top 5 publishers list.

Favorite writer-Dan Slott. Only this guy can make some of the stories in that horrid BND continuity readable. His work on A:TI didn't hurt his position either.

Favorite artist-Going with Frank Cho on this one, though McNiven makes a close second.

Favorite book-A:TI.

Favorite moment-Terror Titans #3 HOLY **** STATIC HAS PREMIERED IN DC CONTINUITY! It's really bad timing on his part with how DC is currently on the decline, but still holy ****! I mean, do you know how long I've been waiting for this. Now give him his own title, maybe add him to the Teen Titans, and switch McDuffie to those two books.

 

[Spade]

Top Cow...? Really? DC has its issues, sure, but it's still noteworthy. Witchblade...the Darkness, maybe...and I think that's it. Those are the big draw-ins for Top Cow. You'd say they're above DC in quality right now?

 

[Sloth7d]

Well, I was speaking for the years perspective. Titles like Madame Mirage and others have finished their print for this year, but while lacking in quantity still topped out in my head over almost everything DC has done this year. In fact, this is probably the only year where I pretty much dropped all their books.

 

[sandwraith]

Favorite Publisher - Dark Horse. Simply because they finally managed to get Blade of the Immortal v.20 out after what seems like a gawddamn eternity...

Favorite Writer - Paul Dini still has my heart and his work on Detective gives me hope that the Batbooks will return to their finer days.

Favorite Artist - J.H. Williams III . Please, someone put this guy on a regular title PLEASE! Honorable mentions: Hiroaki Samura, Ivan Reis, Ethan Van Sciver, Tony Daniel and severely underrated: Sean Chen.

Favorite Up and Coming Artist - Guillem March. I was very surprised by this guy's work on this month's 'Tec. I hope to see a lot more of his work in the near future.

Favorite Ongoing Series - NOVA and Detective Comics. Very consistant stuff. NOVA in particular.

Favorite Mini/Maxi Series - None. Swore off excess stuff since I enlisted.

Favorite Hero - Of course: The Batman. Despite the insanity of the Batbooks...well, just Batman, Dini's Batman feels like the Batman I grew up watching in the 90s. He'll always be my childhood hero alongside the likes of Steve Vai, Cactus Jack and Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao...I have a screwed up childhood. So sue me.

Favorite Villain - Sinestro. Hey, I'm a little surprised at my choice too. A GL villain...who'd have thunk it?

Resolutions/Wishes: I hope to see the Batbooks return to a stable Status Quo. I want to pick up a team book with not so well known characters (Agents of Atlas, here I come!)
I hope to make to the 3rd Guards (completely irrelevant, please ignore), an older Bruce Wayne, a Jack Knight action figure, a new animated series done by the folks who brought us Avatar The Last Airbender, Imaginary Friends Studios releases more easily accessible, peace on Earth, a girlfriend who understands my geekhood and accepts me for who I am, more PS3 RPGs, War in the Winter, Dream Theater to tour SEAsia again, a Jet King Ibanez and did I mention better Batman stories?





Favorite Up and Coming Writer - Urm...no idea. If any of the big publishers are willing give reins of major titles to the little guys (thus finally giving us a much needed breath of fresh air) I'm not adventurous enough to try stuff by anything new.

Oh, how could I forget this one:

Favorite Moment:
After his epic showdown with the Fire Lord, Aang proves himself the Avatar bringing balance to the world. In a scene reminicent of Moses, Aang washes away the infernoes wrought upon the world by the self-styled Phoenix King, with music which captures an almost Messianic essence lending the boy-Avatar's innocence with a divine aura...Beautiful.

 

[BrianWilly]

Best Publisher - Blegh. Marvel takes it, if only for the fact that in a couple of months I'm going to be buying more Marvel books than I am DC books, which is mindboggling. Neither of the two should feel particularly proud of themselves this year, though.

Best Writer - Abnett and Lanning for pure, nonstop quality that only gets better and better.
Honorable mention: Grant Morrison for fighting tooth, nail, and talon to make a great event in spite of...considerable...odds.

Worst Writer - Judd Winick
Honorable mention: Judd Winick

Best Up and Coming Writer - Peter Tomasi for knowing what the DCU is when all others have forgotten.

Best Artist - Mark Bagley
Honorable mention: Doug Mahnke

Worst Artist - Nick Runge for his work on Angel: After the Fall

Best Up and Coming Artist - Philip Tan, although his faces still needs a bit of work.

Best Ongoing Series - Nova

Worst Ongoing Series - Probably Teen Titans when you take the whole year into account, but it's been showing small signs of getting better lately. It would definitely be Green Arrow & Black Canary if Winick hadn't just left.

Best Mini/Maxi Series - All Star Superman

Worst Mini/Maxi Series - Secret Invasion
Honorable mention: Terror Titans

Best One Shot - Final Crisis: Requiem

Best Hero - Blue Beetle

Worst Hero - Cyclops
Honorable mention: Defending champion Spider-Man.

Best Villain - Darkseid

Worst Villain - Jericho
Honorable mention: Countdown Darkseid

Best team - Guardians of the Galaxy
Honorable mention: The Green Lantern Corps

Worst team - The Avengers
Honorable mention: The Teen Titans

Best new charactHGNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGHHHH

Spoiler

Worst new character - Still not feeling Rucka's Radiant.

Best Moment - "...We never stood a chance." -Blue Beetle #25

Worst Moment - Teen Titans #62. Wonder Dog. Wtf.

Best Comic Adaption to Film - The Dark Knight

Worst Comic Adaption to Film - Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Talk about wasted opportunity.

Best Series from any year you just so happened to discover this year - 20th Century Boys

Best surprise of the year - The Incredible Hercules

Worst surprise of the year - Justice Society taking a no-holds-barred nosedive in quality.
Dishonorable mention: Blue Beetle canceled.

Most anticipated projects of 2009 - Blackest Night. War of Kings. Rise of the Olympian, which just started, is looking surprisingly good despite Lopresti's embarrassing cover art.

Least anticipated projects of 2009 - Dark Reign.

 

[yenaled]

Favorite Publisher - Image. Again I find myself getting more and more image books onto my pull, especially with the Man of Action team joining Image - Joe Kelly, Duncan Rouleau, Joe Casey, Steven T. Seagle - I'm excited for everything they are coming out with (I Kill Giants, Gødland, Four Eyes). Along with Luna Bros with Sword, Kirkman with Invincible, Mike Oeming and Bryan Glass’ Mice Templar, Mike Allred with his experimental storytelling in Madman and Erik Larsen seems to have hit a second wind with Savage Dragon and it's better than it's ever been. And hey who would have thought it but Youngblood relaunch is getting good reviews. I really think Image are delivering A* work all round.

Favorite Writer - Grant Morrison. For me it's been his year, his Batman run has got me so interested in the character again and RIP was a riot. He finished off probably the best and most accessible Superman book ever written in All Star which seriously lives up to it's hype and it's probably this generations DKR they will be talking about All Star forever. Now in Final Crisis he's writing a story in such a way that it is redefining how event stories can be written, he's not for everyone, he's controversial but if you find his wavelength you'll never regret it.

Favorite Up and Coming Writer - Peter Tomasi. I could give it just for the Oreo moment in Requiem - but that does sum it up he's remembered to keep heart in a story and characters.

Favorite Artist - Mike Allred. Even if it is just for Madman #9 which was one long scene split across all the pages never seen anyone do that before and I'm not sure if another artist could have done it as effectively as Allred did.

Favorite Up and Coming Artist - JM Ken Niimura. I'm not sure if he's done a lot of Japanese work but his work on I Kill Giants is pure quality and I just want to follow him to more books.

Favorite Ongoing Series - Captain America. I don't actually want to see Steve back any time soon the series is perfectly crafted and an example of how to write comics. Also want to mention Blue Beetle - guess it's the last time I'll be able to say this but if you want to find out how to write teenage heroes read Blue Beetle it's note perfect.

Favorite Mini/Maxi Series - I'm not sure the Matt Fraction Thor one shot books count here so I'll say I Kill Giants. I did not expect to love this as much as I did.

Favorite One Shot - Fantastic Comics #24 (Next Issue Project). The idea behind reinvigorating these lost characters in the guise of their next issue was brilliant I was surprised that every single story in it was perfect so many styles and formats but all worked perfectly to give a proper Golden Age style one shot.

Favorite Hero - Thor. Never used to give the guy a thought but with JMS' series and with Matt Fraction's one shots I just can't enough of his world.

Favorite Villain - Darkseid. All is one in Darkseid. Final Crisis has managed to make him so damn evil and powerful again - never ever has Darkseid been this scary.

Favorite Team - MI:13 - Captain Britain, Pete Wisdom, Black Knight, Blade, Spitfire, Faiza. I love them all and it actually making me be proud of Britain which is a good surprise.

Favorite Moment - Thor and Steve Rogers - thought it was a beautiful written moment and something which comics can excel at - legacy and afterlife being taken seriously.

Worse Moment - The Kirkman Manifesto - how someone can completely miss the point so badly as that is untrue, I know he had good intentions but to get so public, lofty and high and mighty with an issue that isn't even an issue to most people in the business was a stupid move.

Favorite Comic Adaptation to Film - Dark Knight. Something which is overrated can still be damn good.

Favorite Series from any year you just so happened to discover this year - Scott Pilgrim. Damn funny and something I would actually suggest to anyone.

 

[Congo Jack]

Favorite Publisher - IDW

Favorite Writer - Ed Brubaker (CAPTAIN AMERICA, DAREDEVIL)

Favorite Up and Coming Writer - Does Zeb Wells from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN count?

Favorite Artist - David Aja (IMMORTAL IRON FIST)

Favorite Up and Coming Artist - Marcos Martin (AMAZING SPIDER-MAN)

Favorite Ongoing Series - CAPTAIN AMERICA (Marvel)

Favorite Mini/Maxi Series - TOR by Joe Kubert (DC)

Favorite One Shot - WOLVERINE: SAUDADE (Marvel)

Favorite Hero - Bucky Barnes / Iron Fist

Favorite Villain - Red Skull

Favorite Moment - "We get back to Earth, you're demoted to Excalisuck or some damn team."

Favorite Comic Adaption to Film - THE DARK KNIGHT

Favorite Series from any year you just so happened to discover this year - Nth MAN: THE ULTIMATE NINJA by Larry Hama and Ron Wagner

 

[samurai black]

BEST PUBLISHER: Always a Marvel Zombie @ heart

WORST PUBLISHER: Marvel, doesn't mean you can't still put out some of the worst crap too.

BEST WRITER: Geoff Johns (he'll probably be my 09 pick as well)

WORST WRITER: Jeph Loeb

BEST MARVEL COMIC: The Incredible Herc

BEST DC COMIC: Green Lantern

WORST COMIC: The Ultiimates Vol 3

FAVORITE UP AND COMING WRITER: Dan Abnett

FAVORITE ARTIST: John Romita Jr

WORST ARTIST: Leinil F. Yu

BEST MOMENT: Tough One. Thor getting payback on Stark or Fury declaring "Well, My God Has a HAMMER!" (both involving Thor).

WORST MOMENT: ONE. MORE. DAY.


FAVORITE MINI/MAXI SERIES: Salvation Run. Showed why DC will always have the best villians. Joker vs Luthor. Great Stuff

BEST COMIC BOOK MOVIE: Dark Knight (obvious)

WORST COMIC BOOK MOVIE: Punisher War Zone

BEST EVENT: Messiah Complex. A great X story where Wolverine played a small role. Cemented all Mutants place in the MU. Re-established Cyclops as one of the best team leaders in comics. Found a niche for some good characters (Cable, X-23, Angel/Archangel, Warpath)

WORST EVENT: Batman. R.I.P.- I can't even begin to discuss how.......irreversibly disgusted I was with this event.

BEST MARVEL HERO: James "Wolverine" Howlett. He was THE MAN this year.

WORST MARVEL HERO: The Sentry

BEST MARVEL VILLAIN: Red Skull. I mean, what other villian actually killed his nemisis and declared "This is only the beginning"?

WORST MARVEL VILLAIN: The Skrull Race. For all their prophecies, all their "It was writtens", all their planning, all their inventiveness. ALL they managed to do was kill the Wasp and steal Luke Cage's baby.

FAVORITE SERIES YOU HAPPENED TO DISCOVER THIS YEAR: Guardians Of the Galaxy

BEST NEW HERO: Kick-Ass

WORST NEW HERO: The Black Glove

BEST COMIC BOOK CARTOON: The Batman Brave and the Bold looks promising.

WORST COMIC BOOK CARTOON: Is Teen Titans still around?

 

[CaptainCanada]

BEST MOMENT: Tough One. Thor getting payback on Stark or Fury declaring "Well, My God Has a HAMMER!" (both involving Thor).

The first one was last year.

 

[samurai black]

The first one was last year.

Actually, I was referring to the ending remarks in SI 8

 

[sleepwalk]

Favorite Publisher - Marvel. This was a tough call as my favs from both of the big two are doing well and Dynamite is ripping phonebooks like they were take-out menus. It was pure partisanship from an old Marvel zombie (since 1984) that put "The House That Stan Built" over the top.

Best Writer - I'm going to start referring to this as the "Chuck Dixon Award for writing."
Noms: Ed Brubaker, Gail Simone, Joss Whedon, Dwayne McDuffie, Garth Ennis
Winner: Brubaker for his work on Cap and DD. Matt Murdock has never felt so complete. Not since Miller's "Man Without Fear" mini and Kevin Smith's "Guardian Devil."

Best Up and Coming Writer -
Noms: Peter Tomasi, Andy Kreisberg, Fred Van Lente
Winner: Tomasi. Requiem. Done.

Best Artist -
Noms:Mark Bagley, Frank Cho, Doug Mahnke, Jose Madureira, John Romita Jr
Winner: Uncle Frank is doing what he does best. Drawing athletic and curvy woman with strong wills and stronger lower backs. Carol Danvers has waited her entire continuity for this.
In Memoriam: Michael Turner. JLA covers alone get him a special award here.

Best Ongoing Series -
Noms: Secret Six, Detective Comics, Incredible Hercules, Justice League of America, Mighty Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, the Boys
Winner: Secret Six. The hilariously madcap adventures of hired killers is my favorite part of the month. Look at what we've got: Deadshot and Catman's buddy-action-movie vibe, Scandal Savage's relationship troubles and current need to explain them (in detail) to a confused Bane, Ragdoll being Ragdoll.

Best Mini/Maxi Series -
Noms: Secret Invasion, The Twelve, Superpowers, X-Men: Manifest Destiny, Front Line
Winner:Superpowers. Dynamite edges out the stalled shipments of Final Crisis and the deus ex machina ending of SI to give us a new universe. I'm getting a real Astro City vibe off of this project and the individual titles are getting started on my wallet already.

Best One Shot - Final Crisis: Requiem

Best Hero -
Noms: Batman, Cyclops, Nick Fury, Daredevil, Vixen, Captain America
Winner: Nick Fury FTMFW. The others did a lot in their books, including (in the case of new Cap) the damn-near impossible. Nick Fury returns to save world with a little kid, a portly magician and a muscle mary as his back up. You don't get any better than that. Honorable mention to Luke Cage for basically leading the Avengers and other heroes in a global war.

Best Villain -
Noms: Norman Osborn, Darkseid, Skrull Empress/Spider-Woman, Aleksander Lukin/Red Skull, Cavendish
Winner: Norman Osborn. The devil's second greatest trick was convincing the world he came to save them.

Best Team -
Noms: Justice League of America, Titans, Ms Marvel's Avengers, The Order, Captain Britain and MI-13
Winner: The Brits take it in a walk. JSA and X-men got the heave due to the insane membership right now. All Avengers shared a lot of time with Initiative kids, the other Avengers group and the Skrull side of things. Captain Britain (in the return of the year) meets up with Pete Wisdom, Black Knight (in the runner-up return of the year,) a smoking hot super-fast vampire, a Muslim fangirl and John Lennon. Then they saved all of magic and claimed Blade as their very own. So far, they're cleaning up.

Best Moment - Thor says goodbye to the captain.

Best Comic Adaption to Film -
Noms:The Dark Knight, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Justice League: The New Frontier
Winner: The Dark Knight wins in what was, possibly, the single most hotly contested category. Barely squeeks past a brilliant Robert Downey Jr and company. It hurts me to write that. This is like "Sophie's Choice" for geeks. Box office decided for me. I know that's weak but it will let me sleep today.

Best Series from any year you just so happened to discover this year - Y: The Last Man

Best surprise of the year - The Incredible Hercules

Most anticipated projects of 2009 -

Despite whatever the hell was going on with Bendis/Namor, Dark Reign looks to be next big event for Marvel and the concept (if not the payoff) always builds excitement.

X-men: Noir = 100% pure concentrated awesome

Heroes to Watch:
Thor- He's re-established Asgard in Oklahoma, broken off things with Tony Stark, mourned Steve Rogers and brought the Skrull Empire to it's knees. Now there are "Dark Avengers" and such on the horizon. The guy's gonna hurt someone.
Cyclops- The quintessential X-man has taken a very tough stand as of late. He tossed out Xavier, created a global sanctuary for mutants, defended said sanctuary with the attitude of a young Huey Newton and he's had Beast develop a means of genocide against the Skrulls. So far he hasn't had to do anything drastic. So far Sinister hasn't come back and Emma Frost hasn't joined an elite cabal of corruption and influence.
Hawkman- He seems to be on the front line of this Gog business and with a recent (unspoiled) development in JLA, Carter Hall's gonna be cracking some people's skulls open with a mace like you ain't seen in some time.
Nightwing- I don't think Batman's dead. I think some criminals in Gotham are going to be hoping he isn't.

Villians to Watch:
Gog- Liked Kingdom Come? I did. Wanna see the backstory? I sure do.
Dr Doom- Osborn has dared associate himself with Doom. Osborn assumes himself worthy of such association. Rogers is replaced by an amputee. Stark is alone. The thunder god is house keeping. The mutants are few and dwindling. Richards and his accursed family are distracted. It will soon be time.

 

[Blader5489]

Looks like IGN agrees with me on this year's best moment in comics.

That was such a great ****ing issue.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Some dumb judgements there; they give the Best Hero/Villain prizes to Batman and the Joker, citing their film appearances, when these are comics awards. Meh.

That was a very great Goblin moment, though.

 

[Colossal Spoons]

Favorite Publisher - Marvel, by leaps and bounds. DC is lucky I like Flash and GL so much or else I'd be a total Marvel Zombie

Favorite Writer - Pak. Haven't disliked anything of his this year.

Favorite Up and Coming Writer - Gage, easily

Favorite Artist - Paco Medina Mother F-ers!!!!111!!!

Favorite Up and Coming Artist - Stroman......hahahahaha

Favorite Ongoing Series - Incredible Herc, didn't expect it to be this awesome

Favorite Mini/Maxi Series - Secret Invasion Thor. It could have been about Thor and Beta Ray Bill taking a dump. I was just so glad to have BRB back.

Favorite One Shot - All the Thor ones to come out recently

Favorite Hero - 3-D Man. The character and his powers are dumb as hell though

Favorite Villain - Batroc the Leaper. Obscure as hell, I know. But I love watching him flip around while talkin trash to Bucky in French

Favorite Moment - Anubis' current avatar. in case he changes it soon, it's when Herc gave Cho the thumbs up after assuming he had sex w/ the amazonian princess.

Favorite Comic Adaption to Film - Iron Man. Hands down the best comic book movie since Blade 2. i was very skeptical about RDJ's ability to be Stark be he proved me wrong.

Favorite Series from any year you just so happened to discover this year - Elephantmen. Thanks to Photojones(R.I.P.) for turnin me on to the series.
__________________

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Looks like IGN agrees with me on this year's best moment in comics.

That was such a great ****ing issue.

Aw, I thought IGN was sucking less lately. Oh well.

 

[Darthphere]

Yeah, the choice has to do more with how mediocre comics were this year then that moment actually being good.

 

[Blader5489]

Yeah, the choice has to do more with how mediocre comics were this year then that moment actually being good.

Plus, that moment was actually good.

 

[Darthphere]

No, it wasn't, but thanks for playing.

 

[Blader5489]

Do/did you even read Thunderbolts?

 

[Darthphere]

I read everything.

 

[GNR]

Favorite Publisher - Marvel, by leaps and bounds. DC is lucky I like Flash and GL so much or else I'd be a total Marvel Zombie

Favorite Writer - Pak. Haven't disliked anything of his this year.

Favorite Up and Coming Writer - Gage, easily

Favorite Artist - Paco Medina Mother F-ers!!!!111!!!

Favorite Up and Coming Artist - Stroman......hahahahaha

Favorite Ongoing Series - Incredible Herc, didn't expect it to be this awesome

Favorite Mini/Maxi Series - Secret Invasion Thor. It could have been about Thor and Beta Ray Bill taking a dump. I was just so glad to have BRB back.

Favorite One Shot - All the Thor ones to come out recently

Favorite Hero - 3-D Man. The character and his powers are dumb as hell though

Favorite Villain - Batroc the Leaper. Obscure as hell, I know. But I love watching him flip around while talkin trash to Bucky in French

Favorite Moment - Anubis' current avatar. in case he changes it soon, it's when Herc gave Cho the thumbs up after assuming he had sex w/ the amazonian princess.

Favorite Comic Adaption to Film - Iron Man. Hands down the best comic book movie since Blade 2. i was very skeptical about RDJ's ability to be Stark be he proved me wrong.

Favorite Series from any year you just so happened to discover this year - Elephantmen. Thanks to Photojones(R.I.P.) for turnin me on to the series.
__________________

Stroman has been around for a while I think,he did stuff for Image back in the 90s.

I totally forgot about SI:Thor,that was a good read.

Another series I forgot to mention was Inhumans by Jenkins and Jae Lee.Powerful and gripping all the way thru,easily one of the top 5 stories Marvel has told in the past 10 years.

 

[Colossal Spoons]

Stroman is making my eyes bleed over on X-Factor.

 

[random_havoc]

Worst Comic - Ultimates 3
AMEN!!!

Favorite Series from any year - 3-way tie: Supreme, Hitman, and Mark Waid's Flash

How the crap is Supreme in this list?!
I thought Supreme was awesome when I read the first 3 issues. Superman with an ego and violent streak, sweet. But then he quickly lost his powers. Then he was suddenly a different guy with no explanation where the real supreme went. Then Alan Moore came along and took away any original aspects of the character and made him an exact Superman clone with just the name's changed.

I read the whole series, having bought the whole thing on ebay after loving the first 5 issues. Then I sold everything except the first 10 or so issues cuz everything after that point was crap.