Jim Doom: Batman’s death! As I wrote at the time, “The Flashes (I can’t tell Wally and Barry apart) are discussing what they need to do to stop Darkseid. Ok, so Darkseid needs to be stopped. He is ‘…sitting at the center of a personal singularity beyond the reach of light,’ this Flash says. ‘To…
Fin Fang Doom: Invincible! Yeah, I know I said in my Best Artist choice that The Walking Dead was the best series currently on the stands, but Robert Kirkman also writes the best superhero comic on the stands, and this was really a great year for that series. For starters, Kirkman was able to stick…
Jim Doom: Justice League of America! While I am optimistic about 2010, 2009 was a dismal year from this book. Every time I checked in on it to see if it had gotten better, it seemed like it had gotten even worse. If I never read another comic book with Vixen and Red Tornado, it…
Jim Doom: Spider-Woman! Tone-wise, this book reminds me a lot of Alias, the Bendis book from years back. It’s this first-person series revolving around a strong female lead with a definite “Woe-is-me” quality to the narration. But this has super-powers and more action, and it features a character whose value in a solo book has…
Jim Doom: Ultimate Comics: Avengers! This series was so bad, I honestly thought Jeph Loeb was writing it. Seriously. I had started this entry complaining about Jeph Loeb some more when I went on wikipedia to do some fact checking and was reminded that Mark Millar was back to writing this series. My mind was…
Jim Doom: Blackest Night! In my old age, I’m learning to enjoy crossovers more that don’t actually cross over very much, so that I can enjoy a story without having to buy a billion other books (whereas long ago, with things like The Infinity Gauntlet and Ghost Rider and X-Men and Spider-Man and X-Force, I…
Jim Doom: Dark Reign! Marvel made the critical error of pissing me off with $3.99 cover prices as they unveiled this new era in their universe, and as a result, they sold ONE FEWER COPY OF A LOT OF BOOKS. No lie – I was genuinely interested in what was going to happen. Leave the…
Jim Doom: Batman Unseen! This was an awesome year for miniseries, as you will see in my 18 entries for honorable mention. But this was my favorite. It had some old-school charm, a fun story, a fantastic characterization of frustrated Batman, awesome Kelley Jones art, campy but lovable storytelling experimentation, and a reliable shipping schedule!…
Fin Fang Doom: the Blackest Night tie-ins! I was incredibly excited when Blackest Night started, but these completely unnecessary $9 stories took a lot of the wind out of its sails. It turns out that the zombie Lanterns weren’t even really the people they looked like, so Superman fighting his Earth-2 counterpart or Tim Drake…
Fin Fang Doom: back-up stories in $3.99 comics! Four dollars is a lot to pay for a comic book. It’s more than I’m willing to pay for a standard 22-page comic produced by DC or Marvel. But throw in an 8- or 12-page back-up featuring characters I like but don’t sell well enough to have…