ILC Best of 2004 Prep Thread

If you don't vote for She-Hulk, it's because you haven't read She-Hulk, and I will exponentially kick your ass. VOTE SHE-HULK! A vote for She-Hulk is a vote for Awesome Andy!

And conveniently, the entirety of the run thus far came out this year, so it's not like with a lot of titles where a storyline might be TORN ASUNDER BY JANUS HIMSELF as he does his doubletake between the years. Nope, this is solid gold 04.

I'd put it in the same company as Powers and Top Ten -- while those titles create new superhero universes and make them more fun or interesting than the Marvel and DC universes that inspire them, She-Hulk takes the existing Marvel universe and manages to tell brilliant stories because of it, not in spite of it -- stories that aren't epic, don't rewrite continuity or change the universe. It isn't edgy, it isn't satire, it isn't dark, it isn't even nostalgic so much as it's simply informed.

It doesn't have no effect on the universe, one of the best things about it is that along with being entertaining and well-characterised, it fills in little bits, like how to get superheroes to testify, or how to have a secure super-prison. It's a toolbox. And if I understand correctly, establishing some rationale for how Jennifer's superstrength works is past due.

It reminds me a bit of DC series Chase from about 7-8 years ago.

Fuck you guys. Now you've made me interested in She-Hulk. SHE-HULK!

Yeah, it's not that it has no effect at all, but it doesn't rewrite the whole thing, either, or close the doors -- Oeming's Thor run, for a counter-example, is the best Thor I've seen in a long time, but it brings about Ragnarok and changes everything about the character and his mythos.

I don't know when I'm going to get to my comic shop for the last few weeks of stuff, but I may cheat and stop by the one that's really close-by just to get this trade today.

Read it, Huck! You know you must! Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Green Lawyer!

My faves this year are Astonishing X-Men and We3. Non-shocker.

we should maybe have a long gap between nods and votes so that people can check out recommended stuff (gmail should be utilised here).

Astonishing X-Men is definitely around in .torrent -- I haven't seen We3, but then it's still got an issue left. Yeah, I'm voting for both of those, too -- and gotta bring up Fables, which has lately seen its best stuff since it began.

I'm trying to think of good one-shots from this year, or miniseries from the beginning of the year.

did you like the eightball? that was a oneshot

Fables has become my default comic to recommend to non-comic readers. It's got such a good balance of everything and makes it seem so effortless.

Stuff I will draw attention to (not necessarily advocate, I'm just picking the stuff that jumps out at me here):

Smax (issues 4 and 5 were 2004)
Superman: Birthright
The last three issues of 1602
Oeming's Ragnarok/end of the gods arc in Thor
BD loses leg and helmet in Doonesbury
Sleeper season 2
Hulk Grey
My Faith in Frankie
Thessaly: Witch for Hire
Ultimate Carnage arc of Ultimate Spider-Man
Some of Runaways
The Escapist comic
Losers
Bone Single Volume (does this count ... ?)
Plastic Man
Captain America & the Falcon
She-Hulk
Walking Dead
The Pulse
Eightball
Fantastic Four (Waid/Ringo)
The end of X-Statix
Astonishing X-Men
Grendel: Devil's Reign
Seaguy
Identity Crisis
New Frontier
Batman - Hush (that was this year, wasn't it?)
Hard Time
Swamp Thing
Promethea
Powers moves to Marvel
Spider-Man: GwenSpawn
Avengers: Disassembled

I know that list is slim on indie; it's the stuff that jumped out at me, either because I read it or because I've heard it talked about, and the "not Marvel, not DC" section of the lists is spammier with Dynamic Forces releases and so on.

Hush was last year, surely?

I dunno, I don't normally read Batman and only read Hush through CBRs recently -- there were some Hush action figures on the shipping lists, so I wasn't sure if maybe it ended this year.

i bet trudeau wins a pulitzer this year for doonesbury

some indie schmindie i can think of:

blood orange (great stuff!)
optic nerve (part one of who knows)
carnet de voyage

Hush was one of the first things I started picking up regularly after I started reading comics again (when I had NO idea what was around), and that was a couple of years ago.

Or maybe it just seems like it.

Damn. I would've voted for it! (I had one or two problems with it, but all in all I really liked it -- it sort of combines two of my favorite Batman periods/styles.) Well, there's plenty to weigh over, even so.

Yep, it looks like Hush started December '02. It's pretty 'meh' in retrospect, but I enjoyed it at the time.

Some other things Tep has missed out:

Mary Jane
Cerebus #300
Flash post #200
Marvel Knights 4
Ultimate Fantastic Four
The Moth
BPRD: Plague Of Frogs
The Goon
Howard Chaykin's take on Challengers Of The Unknown (brilliant until the final issue)
The return of Planetary
Global Frequency concludes (with probably the best issue)
Two-Step

There's probably a lot more once I think about it.

Though I missed a few issues, Flash from #201 to #206 was awesome. It's had moments of brilliance since, like #214, where it was revealed that Barry Allen had a secret, then #215 kinda tanked when that secret was revealed, but #216 kicked ass when we learned what the secret really meant.

Other random things:

DC Presents (Adam Strange, the Atom, etc.)
Daredevil (Bendis/Maleev)
Lucifer (I haven't been reading it for terribly long, but it seems like some big things happened, including a really great origin story for #50)

I'm mixed on Lucifer, because I think the best is both behind and in front of this year, but #50 was very good. None of it's been bad, though.

You're saying the best is yet to come?

I think so, yeah -- I'm pretty confident Carey is going to pull something terrific out of his ass for the finale in a couple years. The whole series has been one of those things where I never am able to predict what's going to happen, and yet it never seems forced, out of character, or out of left field. I'm not sure how he does that.