Beyond The Panels #23: My Top Comics Of The Year
So, being an opinionated asshole, I have decided to put out a list of my favorite comics from this year. I mean, shit, it's my blog and other places that write about comics do this, so I figured I should too. This is really just the first part of my year end stuff. Later on in the month, I'll be writing a post about my favorite writer, artist, and publisher from this year.
I won't be ranking superhero movies, because I'm not a basic bitch, but if you're wondering, the best superhero movie was Logan. If you think otherwise, well, I'm sorry there's something lodged in your brain that's messing with your cognitive functions. I hope the surgery goes well. I'm pulling for you!
So, let's get started. I've already spoiled two of my choices for this list in an earlier post, but if you didn't read that post, you'll be surprised.
Deadly Class
This is one of the books I said would be on here back in issue 21. I did a whole write up on it, but for those of you who didn't read that, here goes- Deadly Class is set in the 1980s at a high school for assassins. After the "rat hunt" that ended the previous school year, we get a new class of assassins dealing with the new power structure at the school and dangling questions from the previous arc are answered. Characters return, new relationships are forged, origins of fan favorites are revealed. This year's issues of Deadly Class have delivered more of what makes the books so great- killer action, characterization, and more fun 80s stuff. One of my favorite issues is when Petra (a goth) and Helmut (a metalhead) talk about their respective scenes and how MTV has and will ruin them. It's little things like this make the book so good. Rick Remender cares about these characters and it shows. Wes Craig's art is amazing, and the colors laid down by Lee Loughridge are some of the best in the industry.
Generation X
This is the other book I called that was on the list in issue 21. Much like the previous entry, anything I write here will mostly be repeating what I've already written. Generation X captures the feel of what an X-Men book should be better than any of the other X-Books being published- a team of misfits, learning about who they are and what they can do. It's full of interesting characters with interesting powers, most of which wouldn't fit in the big superhero adventures of the mainstream X-Books. It's a character book- the characters are the most important part of the book. They're what make the book so good- sure, there's some cool action and such (Amilcar Pinna's pencils are wonderful- expressive and detailed without being overwrought), but it's the characters, their powers, and their interactions that really sell the book. Christina Strain is a rising star and I hope this book allows her to write her own ticket. She deserves it- she's taken a concept that could have been very safe and run of the mill and took it back to it's weird roots.
Superman
Honestly, I could just have just as easily put Action Comics here, because right now is a fucking Renaissance for the Superman books. However, I picked Superman because it highlights something that is brand new in the character's life- his family. Seeing Superman as a father has been perfect since this book started, and this year kept it up. Superman has long been the father of the DC Universe, but this book shows us what he's like as a father and it's both exactly what you'd expect and nothing like you'd expect. The character of Jon continues to mature and get better. Lois is not just a supporting character, but an important of every story. This book is titled Superman, but it may as well be called The Kent Family Kicks Your Fucking Ass. Tomasi and Gleason are masters of these father and son books (they collaborated before on Batman and Robin) and it's going to be a sad day when they leave the book. Hey, speaking of Pete Tomasi, Jon Kent, and Damian Wayne....
Super Sons
Hey, do you like fun superheroics? Do you like odd couple shenanigans? Well, Super Sons has that shit. I remember after reading the first issue, everybody at my LCS agreed that the best way to describe the book was calling it fun. Damian and Jon are oil and water and their interactions are awesome- funny, well written banter with both characters giving as good as they get. Jorge Jimenez's art reminds me, paradoxically, of that American manga style that was going around in the 90s, except it's nothing like that. However, it shares a cartoony, kinetic quality with that style while being much better at proportions and such. Every now and then, I've toyed with dropping this book, but it's so good that it stays off the chopping block. It's not a heavy character study or anything like that, but it's fucking fun, well written, wonderfully drawn, and action packed. That's enough sometimes.
Doom Patrol
So, this is easily one of my favorite books when ever it comes out.... and that is the problem. This book would be ranked a lot higher if it came out more regularly. That said, when it comes out, it's always one of the best books that came out that particular month. Some people call it Morrison-lite, but I think that it's very different than Morrison's Doom Patrol- Gerard Way builds on what Morrison did long ago: shit gets weird, but there's more whimsy to the whole thing than there was in Morrison's run. Each issue is a conceptual tour de force- concepts are introduced and thrown at the readers, only to have another concept introduced a few pages later. In a lesser writer's hands, this would just be weirdness for weirdness's sake, but Way makes sure to pay it all off, layering them into the story or having them be Easter eggs for the next story. In the hands of any other art team, this would be a good book, but in the hands of Nick Darington and Tamara BonVillain it's great. A lot of the whimsical feel of the book comes from their art- cartoonish yet highly detailed, and lushly colored. I'm okay with waiting for new issues because their art is worth the wait. As good as it is, though, it's not the best Young Animal book. That prize goes to.....
Shade the Changing Girl
Shade the Changing Girl is a fun and heavy look at identity and what it means. Alien Loma Shade takes over the body of the head mean girl of the school Megan and becomes something new. Loma grew up watching TV broadcasts from Earth and she finds that life here is much different than she thought. The character is a fish out of water in the body of a girl who was a manipulative monster, trying to make friends, and be "normal", while also trying to make sure her own people don't get the Madness Vest she stole, which subtly changes reality to her whims. Every issue was a little better than the one before, exploring Loma and the characters around her. I don't know if I'd say Loma learned what it meant to be human, but by the end (the book's last issue was #12 and it's on hiatus now, which makes me very sad) she had become something completely different from who she was in issue #1. Cecil Castellucci and artists Marley Zarcone and Marguerite Sauvage (Sauvage drew a few issues and they were stylistically different from Zarcone's while still capturing the hallucinatory feel Zarcone had set as the book's main artistic flavor) have created a wonderful comic that works on multiple levels and I can't wait for it to come back from hiatus.
The Wicked and The Divine
I wrote an entire issue about this book (#17, in case you're wondering) and I'm putting it on this list for all of the reasons I talked about there (go back and read it if you're wondering what those are- I'm not going to fucking re-write it because you're not enough of a fan to go back and read previous issues) and more. This year's crop of books have answered a lot of questions- do the gods really die after two years? What's with Woden? Is anyone going to do anything about Sakhmet? #33 ends on a shocker that made me rethink everything I thought I knew about what was going on in this book. It's on a short hiatus (although a Chrstmas special comes out this month, it's set in the past) and I really wish it wasn't. I need this book. Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie kill it. Don't believe me? Fucking read it, then.
Old Man Logan
This book started the year continuing Jeff Lemire's amazing story and Lemire would end up turning in one of the best stories about Logan ever- a character study of a broken man who realizes that the pain of the past doesn't have to define the present. Andrea Sorrentino was putting on a master class of page layout. Seriously, if you like Wolverine or just good comic stories in general, get all 24 issues of Lemire and Sorrentino's (along with fill in artists Filipe Andrade and Eric Nguyen) run. Issue 25 brought a new creative team- Ed Brisson and Mike Deodato. Now, Mike Deodato is one of the best Marvel artists of the past twenty years, so I knew artistically the book would be in good hands. I wasn't disappointed. While not as avante garde as Sorrentino's page layouts, Deodato experimented with an unconventional layout style that paid dividends with his already detailed kinetic art. I like how the the shading in the book is all done with little dots- it's a very retro look and I'm not sure if it's Deodato himself who did this or the colorist Frank Martin, but it's pretty fucking great. Ed Brisson is... well, he's a lot better than I had hoped for. He still falls into some of the tropes that Lemire set for the series- the flashbacks and the thematic connections between this series and Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's original Old Man Logan story, but he also writes an action packed, compelling narrative that keeps you coming back. I feel a lot of Larry Hama from his writing- Hama wrote Logan as a world weary warrior and Brisson's handling of the character feels a lot like that, down to the way he uses the character's inner monologue (that said, most Wolverine writers since Hama have done the same thing; Hama is an unsung hero of Marvel). It's only been seven issues so far, but the Brisson/Deodato run is shaping up to be pretty great. It's not as amazing as the Lemire/Sorrentino run, but that's okay- it's still one of my favorite books every month.
Dark Nights: Metal
Dark Nights: Metal is one of the best events of the past decade. Full stop. Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo are putting out a tour de force book and it single handedly is redeeming the whole event book thing in a year when Marvel has released several lackluster events. Now, I'm not a huge reader of Scott Snyder's Batman- I read the two Joker stories and the last three issues of Superheavy. That's it. He struck me as a good writer, but his Batman stories were Grant Morrison lite. Metal still borrows some stuff from Morrison, but it also borrows from all over the DC Universe, touching on all kinds of esoteric parts and touching upon them in ways that remind you of how great the DCU is and can be. You don't need to know everything about the DCU to like Metal- sure, it helps, but it's not necessary. Unlike Marvel's Secret Empire or Inhumans Vs X-Men, you don't really have to have been reading any certain book to understand what's going on- even though it pulls from Snyder's Batman, it also explains all of what you need to know in the book. There's tie-ins, but they do what tie-ins are supposed to do- add something to the story, not be something you have to read to get the story (Marvel does this way too much). All of this combines makes it a perfect event. It's not a perfect story, but it's damn good. I've watched Greg Capullo evolve since back in the day when he was on Quasar and X-Force at Marvel and his art has stepped up hard- it still has that little bit of McFarlane in it that he gained while drawing Spawn all those years, but his line work and detail are top notch and everyone he draws looks great. If you've been burned by event books, give Dark Nights: Metal a go.
And now, my favorite book of 2017 is.........
Mister Miracle
Mister Miracle is.... fuck, I don't know how to describe it really. Imagine being the greatest escape artist ever, but you're in a rut. Questioning yourself. There's nothing left to conquer. You've done it all. So, what's the one thing you haven't escaped from?
Death.
That's where Mister Miracle starts, with the attempted suicide of the titular Mister Miracle and it just goes on from there, getting more mind bendingly strange. Every issue, I develop a new theory as to what is going on, only to have to throw it out after I read the next issue. Four issues in and all we know is Highfather is dead, Darkseid has the Anti-Life Equation, New Genesis and Apokolips are at war, Orion is in charge and sort of a tyrant who might have been conspiring with Apokolips to kill Mister Miracle, and that Scott is in a funk. From there, Tom King and Mitch Gerard spin an amazing yarn that keeps you guessing and coming back. The book is heavy and dark, with the only light coming from the relationship between Scott and his wife, Big Barda. Barda is great in the book, part Scott's protector and part extremely dry comic relief. She's the rational rock of the book. As Scott sinks deeper into his mind and the things happening around him, she keeps things together for him.
As someone who has been through depression ad naseum, I understand what's happening to Scott and I love how the thing is handled- the panel's "vertical hold" sliding, the world outside his head becoming more and more fake to him. Whatever is happening in his head is causing him to question everything, making what is already a bad situation even worse. Still, Scott does his best to soldier on, fight what's in his head, and do what he has to do. It's a very real picture of what people suffering from mental issues do every day, writ large with a war of gods for the very soul of creation throw in for good measure.
Mister Miracle is masterfully written and beautifully drawn. It's pretty much head and shoulders over anything else being published. It's the best comic of 2017.
Next Issue: You know, I always come up with a lot of good subjects, but forget them when I get to this point. So, be assured there will be something (probably tomorrow night- I'm going to see a movie with a friend, but I shouldn't be home too late and should be able to get a post done). Want to now what it will be? Well, to find out join us next time on.....
Beyond The Panels!!!!!!!!!
I won't be ranking superhero movies, because I'm not a basic bitch, but if you're wondering, the best superhero movie was Logan. If you think otherwise, well, I'm sorry there's something lodged in your brain that's messing with your cognitive functions. I hope the surgery goes well. I'm pulling for you!
So, let's get started. I've already spoiled two of my choices for this list in an earlier post, but if you didn't read that post, you'll be surprised.
Deadly Class
This is one of the books I said would be on here back in issue 21. I did a whole write up on it, but for those of you who didn't read that, here goes- Deadly Class is set in the 1980s at a high school for assassins. After the "rat hunt" that ended the previous school year, we get a new class of assassins dealing with the new power structure at the school and dangling questions from the previous arc are answered. Characters return, new relationships are forged, origins of fan favorites are revealed. This year's issues of Deadly Class have delivered more of what makes the books so great- killer action, characterization, and more fun 80s stuff. One of my favorite issues is when Petra (a goth) and Helmut (a metalhead) talk about their respective scenes and how MTV has and will ruin them. It's little things like this make the book so good. Rick Remender cares about these characters and it shows. Wes Craig's art is amazing, and the colors laid down by Lee Loughridge are some of the best in the industry.
Generation X
This is the other book I called that was on the list in issue 21. Much like the previous entry, anything I write here will mostly be repeating what I've already written. Generation X captures the feel of what an X-Men book should be better than any of the other X-Books being published- a team of misfits, learning about who they are and what they can do. It's full of interesting characters with interesting powers, most of which wouldn't fit in the big superhero adventures of the mainstream X-Books. It's a character book- the characters are the most important part of the book. They're what make the book so good- sure, there's some cool action and such (Amilcar Pinna's pencils are wonderful- expressive and detailed without being overwrought), but it's the characters, their powers, and their interactions that really sell the book. Christina Strain is a rising star and I hope this book allows her to write her own ticket. She deserves it- she's taken a concept that could have been very safe and run of the mill and took it back to it's weird roots.
Superman
Honestly, I could just have just as easily put Action Comics here, because right now is a fucking Renaissance for the Superman books. However, I picked Superman because it highlights something that is brand new in the character's life- his family. Seeing Superman as a father has been perfect since this book started, and this year kept it up. Superman has long been the father of the DC Universe, but this book shows us what he's like as a father and it's both exactly what you'd expect and nothing like you'd expect. The character of Jon continues to mature and get better. Lois is not just a supporting character, but an important of every story. This book is titled Superman, but it may as well be called The Kent Family Kicks Your Fucking Ass. Tomasi and Gleason are masters of these father and son books (they collaborated before on Batman and Robin) and it's going to be a sad day when they leave the book. Hey, speaking of Pete Tomasi, Jon Kent, and Damian Wayne....
Super Sons
Hey, do you like fun superheroics? Do you like odd couple shenanigans? Well, Super Sons has that shit. I remember after reading the first issue, everybody at my LCS agreed that the best way to describe the book was calling it fun. Damian and Jon are oil and water and their interactions are awesome- funny, well written banter with both characters giving as good as they get. Jorge Jimenez's art reminds me, paradoxically, of that American manga style that was going around in the 90s, except it's nothing like that. However, it shares a cartoony, kinetic quality with that style while being much better at proportions and such. Every now and then, I've toyed with dropping this book, but it's so good that it stays off the chopping block. It's not a heavy character study or anything like that, but it's fucking fun, well written, wonderfully drawn, and action packed. That's enough sometimes.
Doom Patrol
So, this is easily one of my favorite books when ever it comes out.... and that is the problem. This book would be ranked a lot higher if it came out more regularly. That said, when it comes out, it's always one of the best books that came out that particular month. Some people call it Morrison-lite, but I think that it's very different than Morrison's Doom Patrol- Gerard Way builds on what Morrison did long ago: shit gets weird, but there's more whimsy to the whole thing than there was in Morrison's run. Each issue is a conceptual tour de force- concepts are introduced and thrown at the readers, only to have another concept introduced a few pages later. In a lesser writer's hands, this would just be weirdness for weirdness's sake, but Way makes sure to pay it all off, layering them into the story or having them be Easter eggs for the next story. In the hands of any other art team, this would be a good book, but in the hands of Nick Darington and Tamara BonVillain it's great. A lot of the whimsical feel of the book comes from their art- cartoonish yet highly detailed, and lushly colored. I'm okay with waiting for new issues because their art is worth the wait. As good as it is, though, it's not the best Young Animal book. That prize goes to.....
Shade the Changing Girl
Shade the Changing Girl is a fun and heavy look at identity and what it means. Alien Loma Shade takes over the body of the head mean girl of the school Megan and becomes something new. Loma grew up watching TV broadcasts from Earth and she finds that life here is much different than she thought. The character is a fish out of water in the body of a girl who was a manipulative monster, trying to make friends, and be "normal", while also trying to make sure her own people don't get the Madness Vest she stole, which subtly changes reality to her whims. Every issue was a little better than the one before, exploring Loma and the characters around her. I don't know if I'd say Loma learned what it meant to be human, but by the end (the book's last issue was #12 and it's on hiatus now, which makes me very sad) she had become something completely different from who she was in issue #1. Cecil Castellucci and artists Marley Zarcone and Marguerite Sauvage (Sauvage drew a few issues and they were stylistically different from Zarcone's while still capturing the hallucinatory feel Zarcone had set as the book's main artistic flavor) have created a wonderful comic that works on multiple levels and I can't wait for it to come back from hiatus.
The Wicked and The Divine
I wrote an entire issue about this book (#17, in case you're wondering) and I'm putting it on this list for all of the reasons I talked about there (go back and read it if you're wondering what those are- I'm not going to fucking re-write it because you're not enough of a fan to go back and read previous issues) and more. This year's crop of books have answered a lot of questions- do the gods really die after two years? What's with Woden? Is anyone going to do anything about Sakhmet? #33 ends on a shocker that made me rethink everything I thought I knew about what was going on in this book. It's on a short hiatus (although a Chrstmas special comes out this month, it's set in the past) and I really wish it wasn't. I need this book. Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie kill it. Don't believe me? Fucking read it, then.
Old Man Logan
This book started the year continuing Jeff Lemire's amazing story and Lemire would end up turning in one of the best stories about Logan ever- a character study of a broken man who realizes that the pain of the past doesn't have to define the present. Andrea Sorrentino was putting on a master class of page layout. Seriously, if you like Wolverine or just good comic stories in general, get all 24 issues of Lemire and Sorrentino's (along with fill in artists Filipe Andrade and Eric Nguyen) run. Issue 25 brought a new creative team- Ed Brisson and Mike Deodato. Now, Mike Deodato is one of the best Marvel artists of the past twenty years, so I knew artistically the book would be in good hands. I wasn't disappointed. While not as avante garde as Sorrentino's page layouts, Deodato experimented with an unconventional layout style that paid dividends with his already detailed kinetic art. I like how the the shading in the book is all done with little dots- it's a very retro look and I'm not sure if it's Deodato himself who did this or the colorist Frank Martin, but it's pretty fucking great. Ed Brisson is... well, he's a lot better than I had hoped for. He still falls into some of the tropes that Lemire set for the series- the flashbacks and the thematic connections between this series and Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's original Old Man Logan story, but he also writes an action packed, compelling narrative that keeps you coming back. I feel a lot of Larry Hama from his writing- Hama wrote Logan as a world weary warrior and Brisson's handling of the character feels a lot like that, down to the way he uses the character's inner monologue (that said, most Wolverine writers since Hama have done the same thing; Hama is an unsung hero of Marvel). It's only been seven issues so far, but the Brisson/Deodato run is shaping up to be pretty great. It's not as amazing as the Lemire/Sorrentino run, but that's okay- it's still one of my favorite books every month.
Dark Nights: Metal
Dark Nights: Metal is one of the best events of the past decade. Full stop. Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo are putting out a tour de force book and it single handedly is redeeming the whole event book thing in a year when Marvel has released several lackluster events. Now, I'm not a huge reader of Scott Snyder's Batman- I read the two Joker stories and the last three issues of Superheavy. That's it. He struck me as a good writer, but his Batman stories were Grant Morrison lite. Metal still borrows some stuff from Morrison, but it also borrows from all over the DC Universe, touching on all kinds of esoteric parts and touching upon them in ways that remind you of how great the DCU is and can be. You don't need to know everything about the DCU to like Metal- sure, it helps, but it's not necessary. Unlike Marvel's Secret Empire or Inhumans Vs X-Men, you don't really have to have been reading any certain book to understand what's going on- even though it pulls from Snyder's Batman, it also explains all of what you need to know in the book. There's tie-ins, but they do what tie-ins are supposed to do- add something to the story, not be something you have to read to get the story (Marvel does this way too much). All of this combines makes it a perfect event. It's not a perfect story, but it's damn good. I've watched Greg Capullo evolve since back in the day when he was on Quasar and X-Force at Marvel and his art has stepped up hard- it still has that little bit of McFarlane in it that he gained while drawing Spawn all those years, but his line work and detail are top notch and everyone he draws looks great. If you've been burned by event books, give Dark Nights: Metal a go.
And now, my favorite book of 2017 is.........
Mister Miracle
Mister Miracle is.... fuck, I don't know how to describe it really. Imagine being the greatest escape artist ever, but you're in a rut. Questioning yourself. There's nothing left to conquer. You've done it all. So, what's the one thing you haven't escaped from?
Death.
That's where Mister Miracle starts, with the attempted suicide of the titular Mister Miracle and it just goes on from there, getting more mind bendingly strange. Every issue, I develop a new theory as to what is going on, only to have to throw it out after I read the next issue. Four issues in and all we know is Highfather is dead, Darkseid has the Anti-Life Equation, New Genesis and Apokolips are at war, Orion is in charge and sort of a tyrant who might have been conspiring with Apokolips to kill Mister Miracle, and that Scott is in a funk. From there, Tom King and Mitch Gerard spin an amazing yarn that keeps you guessing and coming back. The book is heavy and dark, with the only light coming from the relationship between Scott and his wife, Big Barda. Barda is great in the book, part Scott's protector and part extremely dry comic relief. She's the rational rock of the book. As Scott sinks deeper into his mind and the things happening around him, she keeps things together for him.
As someone who has been through depression ad naseum, I understand what's happening to Scott and I love how the thing is handled- the panel's "vertical hold" sliding, the world outside his head becoming more and more fake to him. Whatever is happening in his head is causing him to question everything, making what is already a bad situation even worse. Still, Scott does his best to soldier on, fight what's in his head, and do what he has to do. It's a very real picture of what people suffering from mental issues do every day, writ large with a war of gods for the very soul of creation throw in for good measure.
Mister Miracle is masterfully written and beautifully drawn. It's pretty much head and shoulders over anything else being published. It's the best comic of 2017.
Next Issue: You know, I always come up with a lot of good subjects, but forget them when I get to this point. So, be assured there will be something (probably tomorrow night- I'm going to see a movie with a friend, but I shouldn't be home too late and should be able to get a post done). Want to now what it will be? Well, to find out join us next time on.....
Beyond The Panels!!!!!!!!!
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