Marvel's Best & Worst of 2010!

Best Moment
Ares ripped in half by Sentry (Siege #2) (no other moment in Marvel more talked about, Copiel outdid himself, for sure)

Mention:
Nova & Star-Lord’s Finale (Thanos Imperative #6) (what a fabulous sendoff…)
Rahne “raining” on Rictor & Shatterstar’s parade (X-Factor #207) (the Rahne shines)

Worst…
Publishing O.M.I.T. by Joe Quesada (I STILL don’t get it.)

Mention:
Nightcrawler dies saving Hope (X-Force #26) (not exactly “bad” per se…but who kills Nightcrawler? Someone with real marbles loose, that’s for sure)


Best New Series
S.H.I.E.L.D. by Jonathan Hickman & Dustin Weaver (bi-monthly, and worth each and every 60 day)

Mention:
Secret Avengers by Ed Brubaker & Mike Deodato Jr. (Bru tight-lips his Uncanny doubters with a high octane espionage group either sci-fi-ing it, or battling the Chinese)
Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender & Jerome Opena (oh no! more Deadpool and Wolverine! With Fantomex, Archangel, and Psychlocke? Never better)

Worst...
Deadpool Corps by Victor Gischler & Rob Liefeld (really?)
X-Men by Victor Gischler & Paco Medina (vampires…suck)


Best Mini-Series
Thanos Imperative by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (they really put it all together, didn’t they? Both figuratively and literally)

Mentions:
Astonishing Spider-Man/Wolverine by Jason Aaron & Adam Kubert
Dark X-Men by Paul Cornell & Leonard Kirk (began in 2009, yet the Goblin reveal will never go away…much like the revamped Thunderbolts we enjoyed the surprising comraderie)

Worst...
Shadowland by Andy Diggle & Philip Tan (after such a promising little run post-Brubaker & Siege, this was just embarrassing..)


Best Series Revamp
Ultimate Comics Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis & David Lafuente (after Ultimatum, did anything have a chance? Bendis’ quips have never been better)

Mentions:
Wolverine by Jason Aaron & Renato Guedes (Ron Garney drew the majority of the prelude to the series, Weapon X)
Thunderbolts by Jeff Parker & Kev Walker (best team book on the market; Luke Cage saves the lives of all these struggling villains)

Worst...
Dark Wolverine by Daniel Way & Marjorie Lui (we get it, Daken’s full of mischief…)


Best Single Issue
Thunderbolts #144 by Jeff Parker & Kev Walker (never expected a struggling series like this to go beyond the call of duty)

Mentions:
S.H.I.E.L.D. #1 by Jonathan Hickman & Dustin Weaver (amazing)
Amazing Spider-Man #617 by Joe Kelly & Max Fiumara (Rhino reborn, can you think of any other issue more heartfelt?)

Worst...
Deadpool #21 by Daniel Way (poor Danny Way, his run on Deadpool is otherwise consistently funny but this Hit-Monkey laden issue was just BAD)


Best Artist
Dustin Weaver for S.H.I.E.L.D. (next level work, Dustin forever a household name now)

Mention:
Stuart Immonen for New Avengers (improved with every issue, the first issue of the revamp blew everyone away)

Worst...
Greg Land for Uncanny X-Men (recanting the same stiff, utterly stupid smiling poses)


Best Writer
Jonathan Hickman for Fantastic Four, Secret Warriors, & S.H.I.E.L.D. (no doubt about it)

Worst...
Jeph Loeb for Hulk (when Parker took over, fanboys rejoiced; the argument may be “Hulk” sold really well..)


Best Series of the Year
Invincible Iron Man by Matt Fraction & Salvador Larroca (no series more consistent, filled with immense moments of suspense and inTRAnational espionage)

Worst...
Wolverine Origins by Daniel Way (finally put to rest, thank you)

Pretty good list man.

Shadowland was the absolute worst.

I just can't get behind Invincible Iron Man as the best. I really do not like that book.

Thanks bigtymin, do you have any opinions you'd like to share? (darn I sound like a therapist now lol)

and Batman25, what would you consider the best Marvel series then? Remember, it has to be a series that was around last year (Thor, Captain America, Amazing, etc.) not a revamp....of those I listed I don't see as many faults in IIM as the others...some refer it to a slow-burn but to me, it beats the typical 3-issue arcs that consume the industry..

LOOSECANNON wrote:Thanks bigtymin, do you have any opinions you'd like to share? (darn I sound like a therapist now lol)

and Batman25, what would you consider the best Marvel series then? Remember, it has to be a series that was around last year (Thor, Captain America, Amazing, etc.) not a revamp....of those I listed I don't see as many faults in IIM as the others...some refer it to a slow-burn but to me, it beats the typical 3-issue arcs that consume the industry..

I don't want to hijack this into an Iron Man discussion but my issue with it is that I feel Fraction is kind of regurgitating the same basic story over and over. It just feels repetitive to me (others may not feel the same and I get that). This is why I enjoyed it for a long time but over the last 6 months I just started to feel I've seen it all before. I understand the slow burn aspect and I actually like those kinds of stories but it doesn't always mean they are good. I'm finding Iron Man to be slow, not slow burn.

But that's just me. However, those are the reasons I've gone from really liking a book to not liking it. Additionally, I will never eeeeever (in best Chris Jericho voice) like Fraction's dialogue - but I did tolerate it while I liked the overall story. Once I started to not enjoy the story the dialogue became extremely hard to take.

This thread's a good idea Loosecannon, I've just got to do a bit more thinking to provide my list.

LOOSECANNON wrote:Thanks bigtymin, do you have any opinions you'd like to share? (darn I sound like a therapist now lol)

I'm terrible at making best and worst lists, I always end up leaving stuff out lol. Maybe I'll attempt one later on...

LOOSECANNON wrote:Thanks bigtymin, do you have any opinions you'd like to share? (darn I sound like a therapist now lol)

and Batman25, what would you consider the best Marvel series then? Remember, it has to be a series that was around last year (Thor, Captain America, Amazing, etc.) not a revamp....of those I listed I don't see as many faults in IIM as the others...some refer it to a slow-burn but to me, it beats the typical 3-issue arcs that consume the industry..

I consider Captain America the best Marvel series.

I would do Batman, but the aimless Nomad back-up absolutely killed that notion.

^I just skip the back up and don't let its existence cloud my judgment of the book.

To be fair. Way had to fix the shitball of a story Loeb set up in Wolverine Origins. I think he wrapped it up as best he could with that Romulous mess.

Also I really liked Jason Aaron's Wolvering Weopon X series. I'm glad he is on the books now. He will be repairing the character a fair deal I hope. He actually "gets it".

Batman25JM wrote:^I just skip the back up and don't let its existence cloud my judgment of the book.

I actually dropped Captain America because I wasn't paying for that crappy backup. You can skip it all you want but when I skip something in my book, it gets cut because it's no longer worth the money I am paying for it.

jaydee74 wrote:

Batman25JM wrote:^I just skip the back up and don't let its existence cloud my judgment of the book.

I actually dropped Captain America because I wasn't paying for that crappy backup. You can skip it all you want but when I skip something in my book, it gets cut because it's no longer worth the money I am paying for it.

For me, the awesomeness that is Brubaker's Captain America far out shadows the shit that is McKeever's Nomad.

Batman25JM wrote:

jaydee74 wrote:

Batman25JM wrote:^I just skip the back up and don't let its existence cloud my judgment of the book.

I actually dropped Captain America because I wasn't paying for that crappy backup. You can skip it all you want but when I skip something in my book, it gets cut because it's no longer worth the money I am paying for it.

For me, the awesomeness that is Brubaker's Captain America far out shadows the shit that is McKeever's Nomad.

Nothing out shadows that Nomad co-feature. Nothing. Not worth the money.

jaydee74 wrote:

Batman25JM wrote:

jaydee74 wrote:

Batman25JM wrote:^I just skip the back up and don't let its existence cloud my judgment of the book.

I actually dropped Captain America because I wasn't paying for that crappy backup. You can skip it all you want but when I skip something in my book, it gets cut because it's no longer worth the money I am paying for it.

For me, the awesomeness that is Brubaker's Captain America far out shadows the shit that is McKeever's Nomad.

Nothing out shadows that Nomad co-feature. Nothing. Not worth the money.

I just don't see it as paying for Nomad. I see it as paying for Cap. I mean, I'm paying $3.99 for other books that don't have a backup (like the Avengers books or Green Lantern: Emeral Warriors) so paying $3.99 for a book with a backup that I don't read is pretty much the same thing.

The way I figured it is this: I dropped Cap around the time that the Nomad back-up started, hoping that other people did that as well. My thought was that if there was a drop in sales that started at the time of the back-up, maybe Marvel would get rid of it to get readership back to where it was before.

Batman25JM wrote:

jaydee74 wrote:

Batman25JM wrote:

jaydee74 wrote:

Batman25JM wrote:^I just skip the back up and don't let its existence cloud my judgment of the book.

I actually dropped Captain America because I wasn't paying for that crappy backup. You can skip it all you want but when I skip something in my book, it gets cut because it's no longer worth the money I am paying for it.

For me, the awesomeness that is Brubaker's Captain America far out shadows the shit that is McKeever's Nomad.

Nothing out shadows that Nomad co-feature. Nothing. Not worth the money.

I just don't see it as paying for Nomad. I see it as paying for Cap. I mean, I'm paying $3.99 for other books that don't have a backup (like the Avengers books or Green Lantern: Emeral Warriors) so paying $3.99 for a book with a backup that I don't read is pretty much the same thing.

I gotta disagree with this. I get Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors but the difference is I devour every page of that book and revel in all it's glory. The fact that I would skip pages in a comic automatically means that whether it's $3.99 or $2.99 it's not worth the price if I'm not enjoying each and every page of that book. Plain and simple.

^But there are the same amount of pages for the Cap story and GL:EW. I am only skipping extra content.

Batman25JM wrote:^But there are the same amount of pages for the Cap story and GL:EW. I am only skipping extra content.

And skipping anything in the book automatically means I'm skipping the book. I work hard for my money and there are a lot of comics out there. You need to make each and every page worth my wild or it's dropped. I don't care that it's extra content or not. If I'm skipping it, you lost me as a reader.

Okay. I just do not see a difference. I am paying $3.99 for 22 pages of Cap story and $3.99 for 22 pages of the GL:EW story. I may be skipping extra content, but at the core I am paying the same price for the same amount of story.

Also, I love Cap too much not to get it.

Batman25JM wrote:Okay. I just do not see a difference. I am paying $3.99 for 22 pages of Cap story and $3.99 for 22 pages of the GL:EW story. I may be skipping extra content, but at the core I am paying the same price for the same amount of story.

Also, I love Cap too much not to get it.

The difference is that I read each and every page of Green Lantern and I read it multiple times over so I feel I am getting my money's worth. With Captain America, I am not reading each and every page. Brubaker's story might be good but in the end, as a whole, the book is not doing it for me. The backup story brings the entire book down for me and therefore not worth my money. The fact of the matter is, I don't care how much a book is, if I don't feel I'm getting my money's worth, the book itself is not worth it to me. I like Captain America but not enough to get his book anymore.

shadowland. definitely the worst.

G_Zatara wrote:shadowland. definitely the worst.

Shadowland for me was just much more a disappointment for me. It had so much potential and it went absolutely nowhere. Even less than nowhere. It was just terrible.

LOOSECANNON wrote:

Worst...
Shadowland by Andy Diggle & Philip Tan (after such a promising little run post-Brubaker & Siege, this was just embarrassing..)

Billy Tan drew Shadowland. Philip Tan works for DC.