Most Excited You've Been Between Issues aka BEST CLIFFHANGERS EVER!

*of course you can take this too far - Mark Millar's stuff has always seemed way too terse for me, kind of like the stories you write in junior school when every sentence begins "And then..."

I have no real answer to this. I was exposed to the internet before I started reading "proper" comics, and there was always more than enough answers to remove the tension.

Also it's easier to maintain excitement over a week than a month, obv.

I don't think I've ever been as excited about a comic than before the first issue of The Invisibles. Though the last issues of volumue 1 of that fine comic had some fine "And now we're all FuXoRed" moments.

For recent comics, the Xorn unmasking in New X-Men was pretty great in terms of "How's he going to explain THIS one?" In contrast, the big asteroid explosion a couple issues later was in the classic cliffhanger style but contained zero suspense (yeah, Wolvie and Jean just got blown up, right).

There have also been some good ones on the more 'arc-oriented' sci-fi tv shows, like Farscape and Babylon 5.

WHAT? Granted, it was a given that they weren't going to die, but the way it was done was magnificent and audacious. If you're going to put characters that will not die in perilous situations, you might as well put them in completely despairing situations that require some serious deus-ex-machina work - yeah, yeah, shoot, stab, decapitate, whatever, but throw them into the sun? For the record, my enjoyment of that moment came when I noticed the little Phoenix symbol in the close-ups of Jean's eyes. I think I acutally said, "Holy shit this is so cool!" aloud when I realized this.

By the way, I can't see how something can be in the "classic cliffhanger style" if it contains "zero suspense", unless you're talking about iterations on the damsel + train + moustache scenarios that don't show any sort of imagination or cojones.

You're right, what I said is oxymoronic, I just meant that he was going for a classic cliffhanger but it just didn't work for me. This is all in hindsight though, as I did enjoy reading all the stuff that came afterwards with them hanging out on the station waiting to die.

Recently, LXG #5 (Vol 2), springs to mind...

Best cliffhanger in recent memory is the Magneto/Xorn thing. I can't think of one that really compares... but all-time favourite is probably Bad Company. "If it'll make you more comfortable, I'll go on like that. If not, I'll explain.... everything." Genius.

Actually cliffhangers are standard in American TV nowadays, if not from episode to episode (e.g. 24 and Alias), then in the season finale. It's not a wholly recent movement, either, since the earliest cliffhanger I remember was ST: TNG's "Best of Both Worlds" two-parter. (Also see "Who Shot JR?")

errrr... I am now struggling to think of any other cliffhangers whatsoever. Brains gone... can't feel 'em.

WHAT? EH? BUT?!?!

Man AlIVE i was flummoxed all week waiting to find out how the HECK that had happened, it was FANTASTIC!

Er... yeah, so this Possibly Naughty clone had been through the justice system, but at the end they said "Ooh, you are too Possibly Naughty, here, prove you're actually GOOD by killing yrself with this lethal injection". So, he did. But it wasn't lethal, they all had a good laugh about it, and put him SECRETLY back onto the Streets as the new Judge Dredd. Whoo!

Unfortunately then The Sisters Of Nastiness (um...), who had created The Dark Judges turned up, perverted all the judges (espec. New Judge Dredd), turned mega city one into NECROPOLIS, killed MILLIONS of people and brought The Dark Judges back... whoo!

While all THAT was going on, Judge Dredd had got HORRIBLY BURNT and lost his memory in The Cursed Earth. He met some blind kid, and together they went on a voyage of discovery, culminating in him finding his badge and realising who he was, then going back to MC1 and KICKING SOME ARSES.

HOWEVER, the way it was told, we had NO IDEA what was going on - "Dead Man" was a seperate story, drawn by John Ridgway so DIFFERENT looking, which ran at the same time as JD was being discontented in his regular strip, so the build up to the long walk in the main story only began AFTER "Dead Man" had got to the big reveal. THUS, for me anyway, you had NO IDEA it was going to turn out to be Judge Dredd, and when the front page promised to reveal "Who is The Dead Man?" of a Saturday morning and you RUSHED through to the final panel, it was ONE HELL OF A SHOCKER.

It was ACE. And when it was all over Judge Dredd walked around with the lower half of his face STILL mutilated, SCARING CHILDREN for a few months. GRATE!

I remember feeling really pissed off when they first did that "I'm your replacement" story with the clone... luckily by the time all the Dead Man stuff started happening it was fairly obvious that this one would go the way of all other Dredd clones and turn evil. HUZZAH.

I reckon the New Rico Dredd might turn out okay, especially as Gordon Rennie seems to be setting up some New Giant/New Dredd partnership...

By the way Vic F is well on the galactic groats about that Bad Company cliffhanger - really spine-tingling stuff.