I
got a lot of comics in 2011, and as people often do at the end of a year, I’m
taking this week (week does not include Playing Favorites Tuesday, It’s the
Magic Friday, Weekend Music Saturday, or Sunday) to reflect on my purchases and
share the resulting insights with you, the unwary reader.
Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller
Daredevil
is not and will never be on a top ten list, except for possibly “Top Ten Things
Called ‘super’ That Can Stub Their Toes on Florescent Orange Safety Equipment,”
a category in which he would take nine slots out of ten, ultimately losing to a
comatose Miss Marvel.
His momma
so fat—oh, right his mother left him as a child and never loved him so her body
proportions are unknown.
Born Again
is about The Kingpin learning that Matt Murdock is Daredevil and destroying
Matt Murdock. Murdock gets better. The end.
Chronowar #3 of 9
Warren
Ellis freely admits the influence of manga on many of his works. I’m sure that
there’s a lot of give and take in the comics world between manga and good,
clean God-loving American comics (written by British people). Chronowar is 100
percent aesthetically manga, mind-blowingly contained in an American comic
format. Only a few things happen in the comic itself, but it recaps fluidly and
I’m confident that by the time #9 rolled out, many more things had happened.
Given the thorough rehash here, I’m wondering how convoluted it gets by #8, but
that’s nothing to hold against #3.
#10
Best
The Amazing Spider-Man Spidey Sunday Spectacular
by Stan Lee
Formatted
as a series of two page comics (front-to-front) that have their own action arcs
that create an overall story, TASMSSS gets in for its original style. It isn’t
afraid to recap, doesn’t shy away from spelling out motivations, and isn’t your
fancy-shmancy nuanced storytelling.
It’s
brazen, it’s different, it’s fun, and it’s good. People are fond of saying that
Stan Lee has “lost it.” I think that he’s just the top dog from a different
culture and era of comics. This is a benign incursion from that culture and
there, Stan Lee is, and will forever be, The Man.
#9
Best
Jane's World #3
Printed
in 2002, this is a black and white comic with simple art that—fuck the
objective descriptions; it's a self-important female reporter from the city in the
newspaper of a stereotypical rural area. The panel layouts are sometimes
original, but the story becomes so intolerable even the writer gets bored a few
pages in and decides “aliens” is the way to go. Imagine the last panel of each
strip says either “That’s not how it should be” or “How socially awkward.”
In
a blow to all progress of the human race since 2002, this comic is still being
made.
#3
Worst
What If: Venom
Possessed Deadpool
A
Superman/Batman comic from a few months ago questioned--via time travel and questionable physics--comics’ obsession
with The Silver Age. WI:VPD is like that, but incinerates comics’ most
indolent, vapid history in a pyre of its own idiocy, with enough time left over
to snark on every fan who clings to that history.
The
comic is fun on a *#&$ing stick. I can't seriously recommend enough that
every comics reader who would get something out of this should read it and
everyone who can't get something out of this should be beaten savagely with it.
“Save
me, Lord Mephisto!”
#7
Best
The
greatest stories are not about things that happen, but about life in a
universal sense within those happenings. Movies like “Contagion” show
dimensions of events with a cast of dozens and a budget of millions. With
anthropomorphic characters rendered in simple black ink, Art Spiegelman reminds us that the perspective of one man can still
show us depths of something as complicated as The Holocaust. The realities of
his father’s story aren't consistent with the preconceptions of The Holocaust I
believe many of us have. Everyone—cliché at it is—owes it to themselves to pick
up these books.
#2
Best
X #1
As
you might have guessed, this comic was made in the nineties. You can point at
just about any other comic you like, but I think that the special limited
edition, foil-covered X #1 pretty much takes the grimdark cake with monologues
which really don't think we understand how machine-like the city of Arcadia's
politics really are. It tries to blend space alien crazy, gritty
S.W.A.T. Team realism, and figure of destiny bullshittery into one mediocre
comic. X’s powers are left undefined, but we do know he’s fond of luchador
boots and kevlar girdles (I’m assuming it’s kevlar. [It is.])
#6
Worst
—he thought
she was a futon!
1 comment:
SUPER blog !
Post a Comment