Best of 2008: Can we just finish this please?

Best Ongoing Series of 2008: Green Lantern

I just can't get enough of this book. Though some of Geoff Johns work seemed slightly off to me this year he continued to put out his finest work issue after issue on this title. The character arcs have been interesting, the stories have been huge, and the art is the best DC has to offer right now.

I really was not looking forward to the Secret Origins storyline. For one thing I get sick of origin stories and for another following up Sinestro Corps. War with something so seemingly small scale seemed like a poor idea. I was so wrong. Not only was this a wonderful introduction to Hal's origins but it set up so many other story lines and Johns expertly wove them in with already-established GL lore. Fantastic book month in and month out.

Best Mini or Maxi Series of 2008: The Flash: Rogues Revenge

I'm a die hard Flash nut. A huge part of that is due to his rogues gallery. When I was just getting back into comics John's Flash run was one of the first series' I collected and I grew to love all the characters that inhabited Keystone. Particularly Captain Cold.

I know it was a stacked year with both of the big two unleashing their mega events but sadly both of those series' let me down in some way. Rogue's Revenge did not. For one thing it redeemed characters who had been languishing in stupidity since Johns quit writing them. For another it reunited Johns with the characters he writes the best. There are so many great moments in this tiny three issue series that its hard to believe its as short as it is. Ignore that whole Final Crisis tie in stuff. While it does tie in to the mega event this is simply a great revenge story staring the best villains in all of comics.

Best Storyline of 2008 in an Ongoing Series: X-Men: Messiah Complex

I'm not much of an X-Men fan. I just can't seem to get past the years and years of convoluted history that confuses me to no end. I loved this storyline. In fact I've loved everything Mike Carey and Ed Brubaker have been doing with these characters since they came on board.

Not only have they made these books accessible but they've written the best crossover event I've seen since... probably something to do with Batman from the 90's. While I was lost a couple times as to who was who and what their motivations were this storyline was like the biggest chase movie never filmed. Good job guys. I finally care about the X-Men.

Soooo how about that Bill Willingham?

Allow me to interupt my lumbering "best of" list (seriously, at this rate I'll still be writing it in 2010) and just bring up a little editorial/manifesto Bill Willingham recently posted on a site called Big Hollywood. I've never been to the site before but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's some sort of conservative thing just judging by the comments left after Bill's editorial.

First of all, I love it. Yep, I'm right there with Bill on pretty much everything he said. Unlike Mr. Robert Kirkman's manifesto last year, Willingham's is well thought out, and rather than attempting to rally the entire industry to his cause he merely lays out his thoughts on the offending topic and hammers home his own take and his plans to deal with the situation. I'm a fan of Willingham's Fables series but never have been entirely onboard with his work as a superhero writer. None the less I like what he says about writing them.

You see, I agree with his take on writing Superman, Batman, or heck any of the major characters created before 1960. Those characters were founded on certain ideals. Ideals which have been left behind with the passage of time. I like that he talked about Superman leaving the "and the American way." out of his credo. I was at a convention once where various comic writers (including Kurt Busiek who was taking over writing the character at the time) spoke about the need to let that expression go because Superman fights for everyone, regardless of country. While I respect the notion that Superman is a global hero I don't like the fact that it's considered passe to be representative of the country of America. Superman's adopted home country after all is America. It only makes sense. Not to mention that, though we are supposedly hated by every country in the world, America's ideals are the true standards to which every other country on this planet are judged. Excluding maybe Israel who I'm a rather big fan of.

I digress.

Willingham wants to put the "hero" back in superhero. Good, go for it. I'm all for it. Now the only area where that may not work are changing certain characters which were created with shady morally gray areas already as part of their psyche. But I like the idea that superhero comics need to be something that tries for a loftier ideal. Courage. Heroism. Honesty. Justice. So on. Folks, this is one of the reasons kids don't read comics. Why would a ten year old want to read about a Captain America who apologizes to a terrorist? Or a Superman who spends half a book crying because of a forest fire?

What I'm trying to say is that Bill Willingham is right. The big guns of both universes were created with certain ideals, standards, and morals in place. Don't take those things away from them in an effort to make them more prevelant in today's world. They have stood the test of time as they are. Leave 'em be what they are... heroes.

Best of 2008: Best Single Issue

Secret Invasion #6 is taking home this prize but it was a hard choice to make. Invincible, Captain America, Batman, and Infinite Crisis all featured single issues that were incredible taken apart from their larger story. However, in the end SI #6 featured just one iconic moment that pushed it above the others and was told in such a classy way by Brian Michael Bendis that it pulled ahead of the pack.

Leinil Yu did a tremendous job on the entire mini but on this issue he seemed to truly come alive, possibly even more so than he did in the two issues that preceded it. His handling of the various action sequences was skillfully done and the two page spreads at the end made me forget just what a time waster such a device usually is.

Bendis brilliantly started to pull all his loose threads together here and from a story telling perspective he handles it brilliantly. This is the moment in the story when things start to change from bad to worse to better and the volume is kicked up to eleven particularly in the final pages of the book. Sadly the rest of the series never reached the levels this single issue attained but that doesn't lessen it's impact.