Best Surprise of 2008

Fin Fang Doom says: Build-Up to The Blackest Night!

When Sinestro Corps War ended last year, I expected a little bit of a break before we jumped right into the buildup for the next big crossover, Blackest Night. But buildup is pretty much all that happened in the Green Lantern titles in 2008. Green Lantern Corps focused on the Sinestro and Star Sapphire Corps while the main book introduced Red and Blue Lanterns into the mix, with Orange soon to follow. It made for some great reading, but more importantly it’s made me more excited about the upcoming Blackest Night crossover than any other crossover Marvel or DC has put out for years.

Jim Doom says: Batman RIP!

After being so disappointed with Grant Morrison’s start on Batman that I actually dropped the book, and after being unimpressed with the first chapter of Batman RIP, I ended up getting totally sucked in and ended up loving it. It made me go back and reread older comics. It made me speculate about what was going to happen, which I rarely do. It renewed my interest in Final Crisis. I think the best thing, though, was that it encouraged me to start thinking harder about some comics I was reading. That doesn’t happen very often.

Honorable mention: Daredevil got good again

I was getting increasingly tired of Daredevil. I had decided to drop it (several times). It was about to be the latest casualty in a year of growing apathy that saw once must-haves JLA, JSA, Legion of Super-Heroes, Batman, Detective, X-Factor and Uncanny X-Men stay on the shelves. Lady Bullseye changed that for me. This has been a great story, and I’m as interested in Brubaker’s Daredevil as I’ve ever been. It just occurred to me that this arc might also result in the added bonus of writing Milla out of the book.

Doom DeLuise says: The Return of Nick Fury!

While it’s no secret that I disliked Marvel’s Secret Invasion, there was one really cool twist that not only was a huge surprise but also made complete sense.

When Nick Fury came onto the scene, there was a moment where I was shocked and perplexed, but, yet, the beauty of the surprise was that, several seconds later, as I was still staring at his big splash-page return, my delayed reaction was, “OF COURSE!”

It was such a brilliant twist that had been plotted out so far in advance that the payoff was one of the best surprises of the year.

Here’s what surprised us most in 2007:

Doom DeLuise: All-Star Batman and Robin was Awesome
Jim Doom: ASSBAR Kicked Ass
Doominator: The Death of Captain America
Fin Fang Doom: The Sinestro Corps War Special