2010 Comics In Review - Part 1

Hey, welcome to another round of Year in Review posts! For what it's worth, I changed the label for these posts from "best of" to "year in review". I felt "best of" only applied when I was ranking the series against each other, and outside of Part 5 of last year's posts (and likely Part 5 of this year's) I've only done that with the 2005 Comics in Review posts. So this seemed more apt - you really don't care, do you? Sorry. Onward! Today, we deal with the A's, because I bought a lot of stuff that started with that letter!

Action Comics #896 - And of course we start with a book I talked about just yesterday. Well, it's good to ease into these things. Let's leave it that Paul Cornell wrote it, Pete Woods drew it, and I shouldn't have bought it. Moving on!

Amazing Spider-Man #618-622, 627-633 - That's the most Amazing Spidey I've bought since at least 2005. I bought 1 issue in '09, 7 the year before that, I think 8 before I dropped it from my pull list in 2007, and 9 in 2006 (because of all the Civil War-induced delays). I didn't actually order 2 of these issues, but they're here anyway. I was buying based on the creators, which has been my standard when it comes to Spidey the last 3 years. Slott and Marcos Martin, Roger Stern and Lee Weeks, Zeb Wells and Chris Bachalo.

Not that Spider-Man fared all that well in these stories. Mysterio eluded him (though he didn't get to keep his ill-gotten money). Mr. Negative whupped him, so did Morbius' vamp ex-girlfriend. He managed to keep Juggernaut from killing a guy who attacked Juggy, which is sort of a win. Then he couldn't save Billy Conners from the Lizard, or apprehend the scaly fiend. Lotta stuff going in the loss column there, Parker.

High Point: Even though he didn't capture Mysterio, I'm going with 618-620, because I love Marcos Martin's artwork, and the story had a lot of humor to it. Some of it was rather dark, but some of it reminded me of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Low Point: Amazing #622. I'm not really interested in the story of Flash's attempts to recover from his war injuries, and the Morbius story didn't do much for me, either. If it had, I probably would have ordered it in the first place, don't you think?

Ant-Man and the Wasp #1 - One of two Marvel mini-series I bought the first issue of one week in November. This was the one I didn't continue purchasing. There wasn't anything bad about the story Tim Seeley wrote, and his art was generally good (that collar/necklace he had Tigra sporting still bugs me a little), but Pym's not a character I have a huge amount of fondness for (I liked him in Engelhart's West Coast Avengers, and that's about it), and I don't like Eric O'Grady, or believe he genuinely is trying to be a better person. Scott Lang Forever!

Atlas #1-5 - As far as covers went, it was a tossup between this and Atlas #3, but I like the group shot and the lovely car. I guess this is the last attempt Marvel will make with Atlas for awhile. The story was partially about a group of aliens from an "Echo World" possessing people in an attempt to destroy the people of Earth for the sake of the Echo World, and about working 3-D Man into the Atlas group.

Jeff Parker wrote all of it, Gabriel Hardman drew most of it, with Ramon Rosanas chipping in every issue for sequences either set in the past, or on a different Earth. Parker also drew a sequence in the last issue, set in the Mindscape between the worlds.

High Point: I'm going with the solution to the Echo Worlders problems at the end of Atlas #5. Up until now, Atlas has mostly dealt with threats within itself, or acted like crooks in their outside world dealings. So it was a nice change to see them help folks without punching.

Low Point: There wasn't anything in particular. I had this feeling reading that the story could have been going faster than it was. That might have been some of the exposition being delivered to potential new readers (presented as the cast explaining stuff to 3-D Man). I'm pretty up-to-date on the series, so it felt unnecessary to me. It's nice Parker did that, though, even if the book did get canceled.

Avengers Academy #6, 7 - I thought I'd give it a whirl. I like, or am at least occasionally interested in, the established heroes, and I'm willing to see what happens with the new characters, whether they can be heroes or not. I know I'm still buying it through March, but it hasn't been long enough so far for me to know whether I'll continue beyond that. Of course, since it's a Marvel comic, it's more likely it'll be canceled before I could decide to drop it.

Christos Gage wrote both issues, and 6 was drawn by Mick McKone, 7 by Tom Raney.

Avengers and the Infinity Gauntlet #1-4 - Impulse purchase. It looked like it might be fun, and if possible, I wanted to encourage Marvel to do more mini-series at $2.99, rather than $3.99. Brian Clevinger, Lee Black, and Brian Churilla do their own, somewhat stripped down and far more humorous take on Infinity Gauntlet.

High Point: I have to go with the sequence at the Star Stop, that stretches across issues 2 and 3. First off, you have Baron von Zeppelin and his band of space pirates. This is good. Dr. Doom makes several biting comments. Actually, he does this throughout the mini-series, and it's great. You have Spidey mocking Wolverine for being helpless in space, then needing Wolverine to save him during the fight, the Hulk refusing to fight because it's a boring fight.

Low Point: There really wasn't one. There were times I didn't love Churilla's art, but he drew an impressively intimidating Thanos. The big reset button at the end was a little annoying, but Starlin did the same thing in his version, so hard to fault Clevinger for it.

Avengers vs Atlas #1-4 - Atlas teams up with the Avengers to fight the Growing Man. Then Atlas fights the original Avengers. Then both sides team up against the Hulk. Then everybody fights the massive Chronovirus responsible for all the time stuff. It's Jeff Parker and Gabriel Hardman on the words and art, respectively.

It's an interesting mini-series to contrast with X-Men vs. Agents of Atlas, which ran two months prior. That one was sure, about a big old fight scene, but it also advanced an Atlas story, where they were trying to rescue Venus, while being drawn into conflict with the Olympus group, which would lead into an Incredible Hercules story. This one seemed more like a chance to just draw a big fight scene, though maybe it serves the purpose of letting other heroes know Atlas isn't actually a bunch of crooks (though X-Men vs. Agents of Atlas would have accomplished that if Wolverine had bothered to tell his Avengers teammates about it).

In addition, each issue had an 8-page backup focusing on one member of the Atlas group. Parker and Takeshi Miyazawa did a story about Namora. Scott Kurtz and Zach Howard looked at a typical mission for Jimmy Woo. Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk had Venus answer our relationship questions (not well, but she tried). Jason Aaron and Giancarlo Caracuzzo looked at the downside to being Gorilla-Man.

High Point: In #3, Hank Pym explains what they're up against, because he's processed the information Marvel Boy sent to him telepathically. Iron Man complains that Bob could have sent the information to him, he would have understood it. He built this suit. . . Which means Iron Man has become one of those characters I enjoy hating (which is still one step better than being a character I simply hate).

Also, Parker and Hardman know how to write and illustrate and good fight scene. As to the backups, I think the Namora one was my favorite, probably for the same reason I chose Amazing Spider-Man #618-620 as my high point with that title: Loved the art.

Low Point: As usual time travel makes my head hurt. Every time I read Pym's explanation for what's going on, I start out thinking I get it, then realize I'm lost again halfway through. I don't think any of the backup stories were bad, though I couldn't decide how seriously we were supposed to take Venus' advice. I'm sure she was accurate in what she told Deadpool and Hawkeye, but she told Hercules to shave his beard! We've been down that road before. It was stupid.

That's Part 1. Tomorrow, I'll actually make it a little farther into the alphabet. Only through "D" mind you, but that's still progress. All my books seem to be concentrated in the front half of the alphabet. The front quarter, really.