2010 Comics In Review - Part 2

I had a headache all day yesterday. One of those "my neck's out of whack" headaches, but it wouldn't go away, no matter how many times my neck popped. Woke up this morning and it was gone. Let's hear it for sleep.

Yesterday's stuff was pretty Marvel-centric, which is odd, since Marvel was a lot smaller chunk of my purchases this year (plus I bought fewer new comics this year, 134 compared to 144 each of the last 2 years). I've been keeping track since I've started the blog, and Marvel's never been less than 69% of what I bought in a year (2008). This year it was just under 59%. DC was the beneficiary since it jumped from 18% to 35%, which is easily the best it's done with me in the last 5 years. The other publishers dropped from 10% to 6% this year. DC would do even better if I kept better track of when I bought back issues and trades, because I've focused most of my attention on them (Chase, Hitman, Major Bummer, Resurrection Man, Harley Quinn, The Ray) compared to Marvel (Ostrander's Heroes for Hire, Slingers, and a bit of Spider-Man 2099). Alright, enough numerical stuff. Today things are going to be a bit more DC-focused.

Batgirl #8-16 - I do miss Cassandra Cain, and I would have been completely fine with her as Batgirl and Steph as Spoiler, and a regular member of the cast. But this is what we have at the moment, and I've been pleasantly surprised by Bryan Q. Miller's writing. I've appreciated his approach to Steph's sometimes internal monologue, her interactions with Barbara and Wendy, and the humor in the stories. Grim doesn't really fit Stephanie. Miller made the cops look incompetent with how quickly they pinned Newton's murder on Batgirl, but most Gotham cops have not tended to strike me as being terribly bright anyway. If they had any brains, they'd go be cops somewhere without mass-murdering clowns.

There have been a host of different artists this year. Talent Caldwell did most of one issue. Then Lee Garbett and Pere Perez switched back and forth (and occasionally worked on the same issue) for about six months, and now it's Dustin Nguyen. Which means it's a very good-looking comic.

High Point: The 24 Draculas from #14 were a nice idea. I'm disappointed Miller introduced Newton only to kill him off an issue later. You can always use wacky scientists to help with problems (or cause new ones). I liked her and Wendy working together to bring down Calculator (bonus points for Babs whupping his butt inside their minds). Ooh, the brief appearance of the Blimp-Master!

Low Point: I was disappointed with the execution of #13, the whole "which Batgirl is the real one?" thing. The underlying idea that Clayface just really wanted that picture of wife was kind of sad, but still not a favorite issue. Wasn't a fan of Caldwell's art in Batgirl #8, either. Too rough-looking for my tastes.

Batman Beyond #1-6 - Who says I can't like something Adam Beechen wrote? It just can't involve Cassandra Cain. The story consists of one of Waller's projects escaping Cadmus and killing Batman enemies, old and young. There's a lot of friction between Terry and Bruce, and we get a new Catwoman out of the deal. See how that goes. Apparently Beechen and Ryan Benjamin did well enough to net themselves a Batman Beyond ongoing. Kudos.

High Point: I liked how Terry handled Bruce throughout. He was the good soldier up to a point, but when Bruce started giving him too much crap, he broke off communications, and in the cave, refused to put up with Bruce's "You haven't sacrificed as much as me, because my parents are dead" bull. Plus, he actually thanked Catwoman for saving him, which Bruce neglected to do.

Low Point: I'm not a fan of Beechen killing so many of Terry's enemies off. At the least, he took out Shriek, Mad Stan, and Stalker (though he wasn't really a foe the last time they met), and Beechen only introduced Catwoman as a potential replacement in the rogue's gallery. Mad Stan was a good filler villain if nothing else, and crazy enough to be amusing, like the Evil Midnight Bomber, What Bombs at Midnight!

Black Cat #1-4 - This was a good year for mini-series for me. Here we see Felicia dragged into something tangentially related to the Kravinoff's Grim Hunt plans for Spider-Man. The family isn't involved themselves, but Cat does get pulled into their line of fire. Jen van Meter does a great job with Felicia as a character, covering what's important to her, the conflicts she struggles with about where her lines are, and I thought it was great to give her a support crew, and make it clear that Felicia is a complete thief, not someone simply relying on powers. Like how Steve Rogers isn't just the Super Soldier Serum, the Black Cat isn't just bad luck powers. Javier Pulido all of issues 1 and 4, most of #2, and about 5 pages of #3. Javier Rodriguez did the rest. There is a noticeable difference between the two, but not to the extent the shift is jarring. Also, we had excellent Amanda Conner covers throughout.

High Point: I liked how van Meter presented the Black Cat/Spider-Man relationship throughout. The independence of each of them, the trust issues on Pete's part, the connection they have nonetheless. The rescue of Felicia's mother and the fact Felicia saved Vasili (however temporarily) from an ugly death was well handled too. That job Felicia's on at the very end was a nice touch.

Low Point: There wasn't one. Even though I did not care in the slightest about the Grim Hunt, this was distant enough it didn't matter. It's ultimately Felicia against desperately lovestruck Vasili. The Kravinoffs are shadows moving around in the background, motivators, but not active players until the very end.

Booster Gold #29, 31 - I used to think Jack was sending these to me because he forgot I took the title off my pull list summer of '09. Now I think it's that there's another customer whose pull shares a cubbyhole with mine, and he still buys it. Sorry about that, Other Customer. There wasn't anything in either of these issues to make me regret dropping the book. Maybe it's a different story with the current creative team, but I don't care enough to find out.

Brave and the Bold #35 - I bought this because an Inferior Five/Legion of Substitute Heroes team-up sounded like it would be suitably entertaining, even if I hadn't liked what I'd heard about JMS' work on the title to that point. It was fairly funny. It would have doubtlessly been more so if I'd bought the previous issue, the Doom Patrol/Legion of Super-Heroes team-up this is interwoven with. Not that this issue didn't make sense on it's own, but I think some of the gags would have worked better reading that issue, then reading this one to see the story behind the gag so to speak.

Darkwing Duck #1-7 - I love this book. Some of that's probably childhood nostalgia, but Ian Brill and James Silvani have been doing a great job of throwing everything out there, so the stakes keep building. Darkwing did have a wide array of weird threats and adventures to work from, and they've taken full advantage.

High Point: Oh jeez, this is hard. On the funny side, I'm going with #6's 'Are you a talking bowling ball? Yes. Everybody panic!' exchange. From the badass side of thing's the point in #4 when Darkwing's hanging partially out of the satellite, Bulba's bragging, and asks if Darkwing's willing to die for his friends. DW's response? 'Gladly.' Then he uses a bank shot to send Bulba out into space, before being dragged down himself.

Low Point: Again, there isn't one. Moving on.

Deadpool #19-24 - The last 2 years, Marvel's canceled practically every series I've bought for any length of time. It was 5 books in 2009, and another 4 in 2010. The exception was this series, which I finally grew tired of and dropped in the middle of the year. I couldn't decide if Daniel Way was trying to make a point or not. On the artist side of things, Carlos Barberi drew 5 of the issues, and Tan Eng Huat drew #22.

High Point: #22, I suppose. It was quick story, Deadpool actually handled things in a competent manner (which perhaps isn't the point with him, but it was nice to see). Plus, the idea of White Lightnin' was treated as seriously as it deserved.

Not related to Deadpool, necessarily, but the page in #19 where Spider-Man pummels Deadpool severely (because he thinks Wade killed a shopkeeper). It was possibly the most competently I saw Spider-Man handle a fight this year, which is a sad commentary on how he did in his own book.

Low Point: I hated Hit-Monkey. I know I'm not the audience for talking monkeys, because outside of Gorilla-Man, and maybe Detective Chimp, non-human primates in comics are not one of those things that gets me all excited. There were several things about the plot that didn't make much sense, but looking back at it, I feel like Hit-Monkey is the sort of idea you'd put in Deadpool to make fun of the whole trope of monkeys wearing clothes and doing people stuff in comics. But Way seemed to be playing pretty much straight. Hit-Monkey was a super-competent monkey assassin, who was sad he was a super-competent monkey assassin.

Deadpool #1000 - Don't roll your eyes, I really cut back on Deadpool purchases this year. If you count that Shang-Chi special he showed up in for 2009, there were 25 Deadpool comics. Only 7 this year. Wait, I said no more numerical stuff, didn't I? Sorry.

Anyway, Deadpool #900 had seemed like a good value the previous year, so I figured this would be worth a try, and generally it was. These things are always mixed bags, but it was more good than bad.

High Point: Toss-up. Either David Lapham's "The Maltese Bunny", or the Fred van Lente/Denys Cowan "Silentest Night" story. I'd still kind of like to see Deadpool in a full-length noir-style mystery story, though Deadpool trying for Bogart would no doubt be a disaster, but this was a funny enough fast-forward version. Oh, one other nominee. Chaykin's "Today I Am Da Man!" It sort of brought home that not all the craziness of Deadpool's life is him. The people he works for are just as messed up, just in less blaringly obvious ways.

Low Point: The Remender/Opena Appetite for Destruction story didn't work for me. Too many fat jokes. Though "Now Papa got what he need to make them bad guys bleed!" is a catchy line. So probably Michael Kupperman's Too Many Deadpools. I don't really need a multiple page story to tell me the market is over-saturated with Deadpools because fans like me are idiots enough to want that much Deadpool in our lives.

That's the end of Part 2. Tomorrow, I promise we'll make it to the back half of the alphabet. Barely, but it'll happen.