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| Lucid Comics – December 30th |
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Look Back at 2009
Best Writer: Matt Fraction
They’re two vastly different books, but Invincible Iron Man and Uncanny X-Men have one thing in common: the tremendous talent of Matt Fraction. In Uncanny, Fraction shook up the X-Men status quo by moving the team cross-country to San Francisco and then pitting them against Norman Osborn, the Dark Avengers and Osborn’s hand-picked team of Dark X-Men. Meanwhile in Invincible, Fraction did the nearly impossible by making Tony Stark someone you can root for again during the “World’s Most Wanted” storyline. In the Marvel writing pool, Fraction is definitely one of the sleeper agents.
Worst Writer: Jeph Loeb
Over at DC, Jeph Loeb was a superstar talent crafting seminal stories like Batman: The Long Halloween and Superman For All Seasons. But his recent work at Marvel has been the exact opposite. After wrapping the wholly unengaging Ultimates 3, he went into the mega-event Ultimatum where the main thrust of the story was all about killing as many characters as possible in as many horrible was as possible. As for Hulk, it’s still having trouble finding a voice and at its heart Hulk merely seems an elongated set-up for the upcoming “Fall of the Hulks” crossover. Between this and getting fired from Heroes, I know a writer that desperately needs to find his mojo again.
Best Artist: Ivan Reis
It may sound simple to turn some of the well known heroes and villains of the DC Universe into super-powered zombies, but Ivan Reis just made it look that way. Geoff Johns may be the architect of Blackest Night, but Reis is the one that’s realized it in vivid detail.
Worst Artist: Rob Liefeld 
Lord knows that people like to junk pile on Liefeld, but all those years of rest haven’t seemed to cure him of the desire to draw all his characters with pouty lips and stubby arms. His work in Image United definitely stands out, but not in a good way.
Best Series: (Tie) Captain America and Invincible Iron Man
Two of Marvel’s flagship characters took new risks and kept their edge, even as 2010 looks to be an even bigger year for Captain America and Iron Man. Ed Brubaker on Cap managed to find a way to keep Bucky’s continuing quest to fill Steve Rogers boots as the Star-Spangled Avenger the emotional centre as he explored the more fantastical elements in bring Rogers back to life. With Iron Man, the aforementioned Matt Fraction created a compelling, action-oriented storyline that combined super-heroics with espionage thrills, which resulted in a fresh new direction for the series. Spidey and the Avengers may bring in the bank, but Brubaker and Fraction are keeping the foundation of the Marvel U safe and secure.
Worst Series: Hulk
What can you say about a series that took a year to explain the origin of one of its main characters? Well, I don’t know what you call it, but I call it sloppy writing. And when the origin of Red Hulk was finally explained, I almost wished they had left well enough unexplained. The book seems like a gigantic excuse to get “Rulk” to fight everyone in the Marvel Universe, and to me that’s just not a good enough reason to buy this monthly.
Best New Character(s): The New Batman and Robin
It’s bizarre to consider characters as old as Batman and Robin being fresh and new, but that’s just what the Bat-team have done in developing the post-Bruce Wayne Dynamic Duo. Trading their traditional roles you now have an optimistic Batman in Dick Grayson taking a pessimistic (and possibly sadistic) Robin in Bruce Wayne’s son Damien, under his cape. The result was electric, and when you factor in the new and broody Tim Drake as Red Robin, you have a newly re-energized Bat Family.
Worst New Character: Red Hulk
He was created by MODOK and a bunch of the Marvel U’s baddest, biggest brains. That’s the answer we’ve waited a year and a half for? Red Hulk is a giant science experiment? How utterly dull. Much like the Red Hulk himself. Why is this book still on the shelf?
Best Crossover: Blackest Night
What’s ostensibly a Green Lantern story is made as big as the entire DC Universe in the hands of Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis. Not only are the zombified Black Lanterns creepy as hell, not only is the story about the multi-coloured lantern corpses surprisingly easy to follow, but it looks like the main heroes of the whole enterprise are going to be The Flash and Green Lantern. It’s about time these two characters shouldered a decent chunk of the spotlight. Still, a vivid and lively crossover that isn’t weighed by years of build-up and continuity.
Worst Crossover: Ultimatum
What started off so boldly soon became an example of excess in disgust. Character after character was killed in pointless fashion, and some of them, like the Blob’s eating of the Wasp, was repugnant without any redeeming artistic value. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, Cyclops blows up Magneto’s head and Quicksilver blows Cyclops brains out with a sniper rifle, and that’s pretty much how the whole thing ends. The whole series has the smell of having been done purely for shock value. And if I had three wishes, I’d use one of them to take back Ultimatum.
Best Trend: Wednesday Comics
This little item came out of nowhere from DC, a 12 week run of large, broadsheet comics pages, like the ones you get in the Saturday or Sunday paper. Different sets of creators were approached to do 12 strips built around several of DC Comics’ key characters like Superman and Batman. The result was a smash success and it offered fans an exciting new way to enjoy their favourite characters. More then that though, it had comic fans requesting more newsprint. Weird.
Worst Trend: Marvel’s Re-writing History
It started quite innocently with Chris Claremont picking up where he left off at the end of X-Men #3 in X-Men Forever. The result was poorly written and kind of confusing, but still rather harmless. Then someone got it in their head to revisit the Clone Saga. What if the most reviled Spider-Man story of all time had been allowed to play out as originally intentioned? I’ve got tell you though, truncating the Clone Saga to six issues didn’t make it any better.
Best Comic Movie You Didn’t See: Wonder Woman
As one the entries in DC’s direct-to-video animated movie series, Wonder Woman was not without its flaws. But if there’s one thing it did do, it was prove that making a Wonder Woman movie should be a lot easier than it has been. One part Xena: Warrior Princess, one part 300 and one part Moonlighting and you’ve got a Wonder Woman to write home about. Now they just have to do it for the live-action version.
Worst Comic Movie You Did See: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
What should have been an awesome, Fight Clubesque, R-rated superhero flick with an eye-patched Wolverine looking for trouble in Southeast Asia was turned into a bloody mess where every mutant that couldn’t be fit into the X-Men movies was shoved in here. Liev Schreiber’s Sabretooth was pretty spot-on though, but aside from that it’s no wonder that Fox ran back to Bryan Singer for X-Men: First Class.
Biggest Comeback: The Image Founders
The comic book industry was partying like it was 1992 as Image Comics founders Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri. Erik Larsen, Jim Valentino and Whilce Portacio put their pencils to paper more in the last year than they have in the last 17. Not the least of which was the long in the works Image United, which saw all the founders (with the notable exception of Jim Lee) return to pencil their characters in a universe-spanning crossover. Second to that though, may have been the launch of Haunt, a new series co-created by McFarlane and Robert Kirkman. Between these events and odd appearances drawing a random issue or cover at DC or Marvel, it was almost the 90s all over again. Almost.
Biggest Disappointment: “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?”
Maybe it was the buzz around Neil Gaiman writing Batman, or all the hype around the Death of Batman storyline coming out of Final Crisis #6, or the allusions to a classic story by Alan Moore, but when the two-part “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader” arrived, it arrived with a thud. Although the first half of the story with its mock funeral for the Dark Knight had its merits, the second half and its Bat-version of “Good Night Moon” strained patience. All-in-all, not nearly the classic it was intended to be.
Biggest Cop-Out: “Archie Marries Veronica”
Can you say “stunt.” The hype was pretty huge when the publishers of Archie Comics announced earlier this year that Archie had chosen to end the longest romantic stalemate in comic history by having the ginger-headed teen propose to Veronica. But upon reading the landmark Archie #600 you realize that it’s but a dream. A delusion. And after three issues of taking matrimony with Veronica for a spin, Archie literally takes the other path and sees what life would be like married to Betty. Boo to Archie Comics for the fake out, but bonus points for the Robert Frost reference.
Biggest Deal of the Year: Disney Buys Marvel
Shortly before the Labour Day weekend it was announced that Spider-Man, Captain American and the X-Men would be joining the ranks of Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Capt. Jack Sparrow as the latest acquisitions bought by Disney Studios. Marvel Comics is now one of the staples of the Magic Kingdom, and in the process throws a whole world of contracts into lame duck limbo. Movies, animation, video game agreements made by Marvel are spread across several major production houses, and for Disney’s part their comic contracts are currently being printed by BOOM! Studios. So what happens next? Sufficient to say that 2010 is going to be a very good year for contract lawyers.
Runner-Up: Wizard Buys Paradise Comic Con
After taking a year off, the former Paradise Comic Con in Toronto is ready to come back with a vengeance after being purchased by Wizard Entertainment. The new and improved Wizard World Toronto launches in March and special guests already signed up include Leonard Kirk, Dale Keown and Gail Simone. With the newly annual Toronto Comic Arts Festival now taking up the mantle for indie comics and comic creators, Toronto Con can give Fan Expo some competition, and the convention calendar some much need balance. 
Most Overused Character: President Barack Obama
The man isn’t even a superhero, but you couldn’t turn sideways at your comic book shop in ’09 without running into the 44th President of the United State’s mug on one comic book cover or another. From being saved by Spidey at his inauguration, to dishing out orders to Youngblood, to thanking Savage Dragon for his endorsement, to being a mute soldier rebuilding Chicago after an alien invasion in Drafted: 100 Days, putting Obama in your comic was a license to print money and re-print special edition issues.
Runner-Up: Norman Osborn
Naturally, as leader of the world peacekeeping force H.A.M.M.E.R., it was only natural that the former Green Goblin would get a lot of face time in comics across the Marvel Universe. But at one point it seemed that Norman was in so many books on a monthly basis that it’s hard to belief he had time to plot his fiendish brand of super-villainy.
