Gabo's 2009 Comic Book Picks Pt. 1

Hello, my name is Gabo and I’m a geek. I’m not ashamed to admit it, but it’s something that needs to be said as what will follow deals with one of my passions: comic books. I’m really into them (some would say disturbingly so).
I won’t go into my comic book background because I doubt anybody would be interested, so I’ll go into the meat of this post.
Basically, I originally wrote this as a response to an episode of a comic book podcast that I like: Alternate Reality. They did an episode where they discussed the year 2009 in comics; they had several categories and they each had their ‘Best’ and ‘Worst’ selection. What follows are my picks for said categories. If you’re not into comics or are not familiar with them, then this won’t be of much interest. Still, I figured I might as well post it up here as it’s been forever since I (or any of the other caballeros) have written anything for the blog.
Here we go:

Best Series: I’ve always thought that Thor when handled right, was the best Marvel character, and under J.Michael Straczynksi, he was handled right. What I didn’t like about the title though was that it wasn’t always on time and that’s frustrating for a monthly. I also thought of books like Guardians of the Galaxy and R.E.B.E.L.S., but ultimately went with the book that gave me the most enjoyment and left me feeling completely satisfied after reading it: INCREDIBLE HULK! I was surprised with this book because I thought it was a just a marketing ploy as it first came out, but was very much surprised at how they handled Hercules and Cho’s characters and their relationship. The book shows Herc at his best, it’s filled with clever, smart ideas, cool guest appearances, great art and it’s plain FUN without being dumb.

Worst series: There were a couple of contenders for this category. A bunch of stinkers. First off I considered the whole Superman line, specifically Superman and Action Comics. This is mostly from the fact that they bored me to tears; that’s their biggest problem. Justice League was also bad, both story and art. The book had little to no direction, no reason to be read.
I have to go with Hulk as my worst series, though. Loeb is killing me. One could argue that the book is pretty to look at, but that art style doesn’t really do much for me and what is drawn just hurts me. Horrible book.


Best Event: This is a tough category. I didn’t think this year produced that many good events. I’d have to go with Marvel cosmic’s War of Kings. I enjoyed the characters in it and the story overall was pretty good, plus the reintegration of Darkhawk into continuity is great. The problem I had with this was the pacing; it seemed too rushed and didn’t give enough time to go into the repercussions of the events taking place. In fact, I wish this event had taken place a year or two in the future, to give time for other titles to tell their stories (Nova, Guardians basically) before jumping into another status quo. Also, the fact that this leads directly into another ‘event’ doesn’t sit well with me. I’ve loved everything Marvel cosmic, but I wish they would give it time to develop and tell stories without feeling the creators feeling the need to shake things up every other month.

Worst Event: Another category with a lot of possibilities. I’m not sure if Dark Reign is an event; it feels much more like an overall storyline or something like that. It’s being marketed as an event though, so that’s what I don’t like about it, it feels to scattered and imprecise to be a single story.
Flash Rebirth hasn’t been good. First of all, I’m against the idea of bringing back Barry. I’m a Wally guy, I hate to see him diminished in his role as Flash, specially being replaced by a boring old dude. Also, the idea of Zoom doing every nasty little thing in Barry’s life? Absurd!
Somebody mentioned Ultimatum and that was very bad (LOEB!!!).
Captain America: Reborn was also a disappointment ; so Steve wasn’t dead at all and is now coming back but is doing some time travel in his mind before. Whatever.
To me, the worst event though is Blackest Night. I know EVERYBODY loves this, but I’m so sick and tired of it. I was excited at the idea of a war of light with all of the different colored corps, but the build-up to it was so long and over-extended that by the time it started, my excitement had diminished. To top it off, it turned out to be DC Zombies! Overall, the series has been a disappointing and is uninteresting.

Best Single Issue: Easiest category to pick: INCREDIBLE HERCULES # 136. Hands down, the best issue I read last year. This was the culmination of a storyline that had Hercules impersonate Thor after being tricked by the dark elf Malekith. In this particular issue Hercules (impersonated by the real Thor) challenges Thor-Herc to a fight in order to prevent the bad guy’s plan coming to fruition. This issue has it all: good art, great storytelling, fabulous and witty dialogue and even character development, where the essence and greatness of Hercules is defined by both Thor and the Warrior’s Three. Big fights! Big villains! Raunchiness! And best of all, it’s all a LOT of FUN.

Worst Single Issue: I could go with any of the Blackest Night issues, but that’s a bit of cop-out. Instead I’ll go with Flash Rebirth # 5, where we see why Zoom is the pettiest and most ridiculous of all villains (pushed Barry down the stairs when he was a kid? Jeez!).


Best Moment: The fight between “Thor” and “Hercules” in Incredible Hercules #136. I hadn’t enjoyed a book this much in ages.
A runner up was the ending of Boom’s “The Unknown: The Devil Made Flesh” # 1. It’s a shocker if you read the previous Unknown mini.
Also enjoyed the reveal in Avatar’s “No Hero”:*the main character turns out to be a “bad” guy and is in league with the people killing off all of the “heroes”* Twisted, freaky and gory!

Worst Moment: Probably the entirety of Blackest Night # 1. At least the point where I realized that all the lead up to this pile of crap was Zombies. Ugh.

There's more, but I'll cut it off for now. Stay tuned for the conclusion of the post!