Thor's Comic Column 2008 YEAR IN REVIEW

You lost me once you began praising Brand New Day.

I know it's the popular thing to have Quesada's Spidey mandate, but God, that was a bad year of comics. Paper Doll, Anti-Venom, Freak...blech.

Agreed, but more so for the attitude Quesada and co. took towards the fans who didn't like it - very snotty.

I'm more inclined towards Eric Cordo's take, though I felt the same way a couple of years back. Nothing in 2008, big event or otherwise really grabbed my interest. In 2009 I can wait for the eventual trade of Blackest Night and save time and money in the process.

I thoroughly enjoyed THE TWELVE.

I was let down immensely by PROJECT SUPERPOWERS, which was THE TWELVE minus the fun, the intrigue, or the writing. Say what you want about JMS, the guy can tell a story. The problem is that most people don't like the stories he tells, but that's another ball of wax altogether.

Lost interest in FINAL CRISIS after one confusing issue (hence my thread: "Final Crisis: WTF?").

Found SECRET INVASION to be another Big Event That Will Shake The Status Quo that changed nothing, and was stretched out ten times too long (in other words, like everything else Bendis writes).

Liked the new direction for FANTASTIC FOUR and DAREDEVIL. THOR was great. HULK was fun for an issue or two until I realized the mystery angle was going to be dragged out to the point of exhaustion and then promptly lost interest.

It's a shame SPIDER-GIRL is getting axed, more for the tenacity of the fans who have kept it alive than for the book itself. Harmless and inoffensive.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN lost me. I tried: I really, really did. I wanted Fun Spidey back as much as the next guy, but it was too childish, and there's been neither pay-off nor justification for the changes.

BATMAN: RIP was a storyline filled with great ideas, but in the end, no pay-ff. Haven't gotten to WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE CAPED CRUSADER of BATTLE FOR THE COWL yet -- been too busy. DETECTIVE was insubstantial for me, as THE HEART OF HUSH storyline seemed like a cheap cash-in featuring an inexplicably popular character. The BATMAN: CONFIDENTIAL storyline featuring an ugly Batgirl and an equally ugly Catwoman that went on for six months with no pay-off turned me off of the book.

ALL-STAR SUPERMAN was a book that did nothing for me, despite the hype. Same for it's sister book, BATMAN AND ROBIN.

TRINITY featured the worst Mark Bagley art I've ever seen, and a storyline that went far beyond stupid.

SPAWN was supposed to feature the return of McFarlane and Whilce, but when that book ships on time, I'll get back to you.

Those terrible EC Comic wannabe's really fucked up my day when I saw them. TALES FROM THE CRYPT for the AMERICAN IDOL audience. Go fuck a dog.

KICK-ASS was fun, but too inconsistently published to care too much about.

Ah, we do ramble on, don't we?

If by "ramble" you mean "discuss multiple titles in a thread dedicated to summarizing the overall product of 2008," then yes, I'm rambling.

No, I meant us. The writers of the article. I'm one of them.

Why isn't anyone reading FEAR AGENT? You all should be reading FEAR AGENT.

Folks, give this more attention. These guys have been unsung parts of the site a long time.

It's true. We are rarely sung.

Aquafresh, I find Fear Agent (what little I've read of it, which is the first two series) to suffer from an even greater version of the symptom I described in talking about the last year of The Goon--it ought to be flat-out fun, but too often it's just angsty and depressing.

I enjoyed the first dozen or so issues of Fear Agent, but I did feel a sense of diminishing returns after that. Not a bad series, certainly, but not one I feel compelled to keep up with.

I started reading Thor months ago, Nick. It's great.

One of the other guys at the shop reads Fear Agent, and the last few issues he's been picking it up begrudgingly, saying that it's been going downhill every month. I was thinking of reading the collection eventually, but I don't know how much of an investment I want to make in a series that starts strong but sort of dissipates after that.

I thought Batman: RIP was pretty great, except that Morrison did that thing he sometimes does where too much of the story happens right at the end, even though it should have occurred linearly earlier on. Anyway, in this case, the payoff is Batman's "death", and since Morrison is apparently confirmed as coming back to the book, I got all I needed for now.

Final Crisis is a bit of a mess, but I think that's unavoidable given the way they do Event Crossovers these days. I remain convinced that telling the "main story" of the Event in a standalone miniseries is generally a mistake, and that the proper way to do it is to weave events in throughout several books, with one title being the main focus. That way every title can keep its own continuity, no matter how it impacts the others.

It also helps when you've got one or two people overseeing the whole line, which is why they always worked best under Stan n' Jack. They could weave a story throughout several titles because they were writing and drawing all those titles themselves.