Fav Superhero Comics of Past Decade?

[Mr Light]

Exactly how many trades/issues did Ennis and Dillon do on Punisher? I got their original run back in the day and loved it, the one with Soap and the Russian and I think some ancient Italian female mob boss. I think it was a 12 issue run or something? And for the non-Dillion issues, how bad/good was the art?

 

[CaptainCanada]

So of course no one read it and it was canceled after just two arcs and declared non-canon.

It was never canon; Ellis quite explicitly wrote it as out-of-continuity (hence, how bizarre it is).

However (at least with Machine Man), creators have imported a lot of the characterization into the regular universe.

 

[Thrall]

Exactly how many trades/issues did Ennis and Dillon do on Punisher? I got their original run back in the day and loved it, the one with Soap and the Russian and I think some ancient Italian female mob boss. I think it was a 12 issue run or something? And for the non-Dillion issues, how bad/good was the art?

That would be the first arc of the first series, "Welcome Back Frank".

Almost a decades worth of books for Ennis. He went past a hundred by the end. Dillon only worked on The Marvel Knights run. That was the first series. It was a black comedy book a la Preacher and The Boys, although toned down considerably considering it was a Marvel Mainline book. Like instead of saying "Motherfucker" they say "Motherlover".

Of The Marvel Knights run, the non-Dillon stuff was decent. Not great but nothing awful. Of course I'm not picky when it comes to art. A lot of people think McCrea(the guy after Dillon) sucks as an artist. But again, I'm not terribly picky. Mostly because I grew up in the era of Rob Liefield, so I'm kind of numb to bad art.

The MAX run is the more well known of the two series. It's where Ennis is allowed to be Ennis, and just do whatever the hell he wants. It's fucking great, dark, twisted insanity. But not for the easily offended. When he has a crazy fellow vigilante who's lost both breasts to cancer, tie a wounded Castle up, takes off all of her clothes, then beat her captured evil Mafia sister to death with a baseball bat, then begins to rape/fuck Castle while covered in blood, before finally blowing her own brains out with a .44 as she climaxes..well...you can't really say Ennis just crossed a line, because he was too busy pissing all over it.

The art in The MAX run was generally good. Very gritty and dirty. Nothing amazing. But it did what it was supposed to do, and that was sell the characters and the world.

It was never canon; Ellis quite explicitly wrote it as out-of-continuity (hence, how bizarre it is).

However (at least with Machine Man), creators have imported a lot of the characterization into the regular universe

Either way, it's cancellation was further proof to me of what tools Marvel fans are.

 

[shivkala]

Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps has been going full steam and are very enjoyable. They were enjoyable before "The Sinestro War" but have been going full steam since then.

New X-Men: I'm a Grant Morrison fan, and while I know there are a lot of his detractors on this board, I'm sticking to my belief that he is a good writer. I was never a big fan of the X-Men, just enough to buy a few issues here and there before 2001, but Morrison made me a fan and Marvel lost me as a reader when he left the title.

Nova: I finally started to pick up this series and I have the TPBs for the Annihilation sagas on my wish list. Like GL at DC, it seems Marvel also is making good use of their cosmic heroes. The series is a lot of fun and easy for someone like me who really isn't a big Marvel fan to enjoy.

All-Star Superman: Over the past 10 years, I've been up and down with the main Superman titles. There's been good and bad, mediocre, and just plain boring. This title was spectacular and shows what could be done with Superman, if DC was willing to go full-out with the "in-continuity" version.

Superman: The only exception to the above was the first "One Year Later Storyline," which was "Up, Up, and Away." Both Geoff Johns and Kurt Busiek got to the heart of who Superman was, and the storyline had one great moment after another. The finale of the Superman/Luthor battle at the end was brilliant.

Flash: Geoff Johns' issues only. Pure genius and this includes Rogues Revenge also.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Oh yeah that was other terrible thing about Morrison's X-Men, all the HORRIBLE art. It's like one Quietly issue (who I think draws some of the ugliest women in the world) and then three "fill ins" by some absolutely terrible D-lister artist. Ugh.

And they MUST be bad if they make Quietly look good by comparison.

Quietly is the worst so-called artist to curse the pages of Marvel since Mark "Crosshatch" Texiera...

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps has been going full steam and are very enjoyable. They were enjoyable before "The Sinestro War" but have been going full steam since then.

Green Lantern has been in self-destruct mode ever since the Editors that Be forced them to bring back Hal.

 

[shivkala]

^
Sorry you feel that way, I believe the opposite is true. Love or hate Kyle, his run on the title really started to decline after the Ion storyline, and then tanked when Raab took over. It was time for a change, one way or the other.

As for the art on New X-Men, while Quietly's style may be a matter of taste, it should be mentioned that Igor Kordey's art was rushed and the poor guy has had to bear the rap for the poor artwork for a while now. Don't get me wrong, I dislike the artwork on the issues he was on the book for, but at least, once I learned about that, it explained why the art was so poor.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

^
Sorry you feel that way, I believe the opposite is true. Love or hate Kyle, his run on the title really started to decline after the Ion storyline, and then tanked when Raab took over. It was time for a change, one way or the other.

I agree Kyle was left drifting. My reading of the behind the scenes politics going on at the time is that the EIC didn't like Kyle and told the title editor to keep the writers from doing anything important with him, as they were already planning the "return of Hal" at that early date.

The way to end the Kyle era would have been for Ion to give up his cosmic level power to restore Oa and found a NEW Corps under the Lanterns' direct control instead of the Guardians'. Leave Kyle on "New Oa" as GL Prime and bring in a new GL for earth (NOT Hal).

Instead they hit the stupid ass "reset button" and effectively undid Emerald Twilight.

 

[Thrall]

Kyle is great character who suffered from some of the worst writing and worst character development in the history of comics. All they would have had to do was bring in one good writer - JUST ONE - and he wouldn't have had so many problems. He was set up to fail from the beginning because of what happened to Hal. How he was brought in split the fanbase bitterly, so Hal fans were really not going to give him a chance.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Kyle is great character who suffered from some of the worst writing and worst character development in the history of comics. All they would have had to do was bring in one good writer - JUST ONE - and he wouldn't have had so many problems. He was set up to fail from the beginning because of what happened to Hal. How he was brought in split the fanbase bitterly, so Hal fans were really not going to give him a chance.

I think he was well written initially as the "everyman" GL. But that trope ran out, and the EICs wouldn't let the writers take him to the next level.

 

[Supervisor 194]

All Star Superman by Morrison and Quitely, and Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes by Johns and Frank have easily been the best Superman stories not only in this decade but in the last several decades.

 

[Ben Sisko3]

Superhero only, eh? Okay then...

Alias (Bendis & Gaydos)
All-Star Superman (Morrison and Quitely)
Astonishing X-Men (Whedon & Cassady; Ellis & Bianchi)
Astounding Wolf-Man (Kirkman, et al)
Avengers (Busiek, Perez and others)
Avengers Forever (Busiek and Pacheco)
Cable & Deadpool (Nicieza and others)
Captain America (Brubaker, et al)
Daredevil (Bendis & Maleev)
DC: The New Frontier (Cooke)
Immortal Iron Fist (Brubaker, Fraction & Aja)
Invincible (Kirkman, et al)
Iron Man: Director of SHIELD (Knaufs only)
Nextwave (Ellis & Immomen)
Promethea (Moore & Williams)
Silver Surfer: Requiem (Straczynski & Ribic)
Sub-Mariner: The Depths (Milligan & Ribic)
Superman: Red Son (Millar, et al)
Thor (Straczynski, Coipel, et al)
Thunderbolts (Ellis & Deodato)
The Ultimates I & II (Millar & Hitch)

The best comic of the last ten years, though, is not a superhero book, but rather Brian K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man, and if you say otherwise, I will send Agent 355 to your home to murder you in such a way they will never find your body and the police will never be able to find any evidence of your existence.

 

[ClayinCA]

- Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman (2003-2006); one of the three writers in the inter-Crisis period (1987-2006) who really got Diana. Rucka jousts with Perez for the title of best Wondy writer, and, had he been allowed to finish his run instead of being jettisoned for the Heinberg garbage, I suspect he would hold that title unquestionably. As it stands, "Stoned" through "The Bronze Doors" is an incredible run of stories. Diana v. Medousa is one of comics' best fight scenes.

I agree totally with this. A friend of mine was one of the editors on that run - I'll tell him you what you said.

Superman Last Son (the Richard Donner Geoff Johns story) is coming out in paperback on June 16th, I'm looking forward to it. Hey that reminds me, I've read Superman Brainiac and New Krypton Part One and there isn't a single mention of Chris Kent. What happened to him? (Good riddance, I hate the idea)

Read Last Son, and also

Spoiler: information about Chris Kent

current issues of Action Comics

for the answer.

The best comic of the last ten years, though, is not a superhero book, but rather Brian K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man, and if you say otherwise, I will send Agent 355 to your home to murder you in such a way they will never find your body and the police will never be able to find any evidence of your existence.

And this is right-on as well. I'd also recommend Vertigo's Fables and the new series The Unwritten, # 2 of which just came out today. The best Vertigo book since...well, since Y: The Last Man and Fables, really.

 

[Mr Light]

John McCrea did the art for Ennis' Hitman and I loved him there, so I'm sure I'd love him doing Punisher. ... I forgot about Whedon's run on X-Men. I thought it was very good and a real call back to the halcyon early Claremont days. Particularly the big finale on an alien planet. Great art, too!

 

[grabmygoblin]

It was never canon; Ellis quite explicitly wrote it as out-of-continuity (hence, how bizarre it is).

However (at least with Machine Man), creators have imported a lot of the characterization into the regular universe

Either way, it's cancellation was further proof to me of what tools Marvel fans are.

this doesn't change poor taste of most Marvel fans, but Nextwave wasn't really canceled... Ellis wants to work solely with Immonen and so the stories have to be on hold until the two have a schedule to work together.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I forgot to add Ex Machina (even though it's primarily a political superhero comic but still it's one of my favs and Y The Last Man). There's probably a slew of other stuff that I'm not even remembering right now. Also even though it just came out I'm going to add Batman and Robin onto the list...I can't wait until the first arc "Batman Reborn" comes out later this winter because I glanced through the first issue and Morrison does a great job with the new Batman and Robin. Everything he put us through with R.I.P. and Final Crisis leads us to this book.

 

[DarKush]

Superheroes:
Superman-Birthright, Last Son, Brainiac, New Krypton, Red Son
Batman-Batman & Son, Heart of Hush, Resurrection of Ras Al Ghul, Battle for the Cowl
Captain America-Death of Captain America & Bucky as Cap, The Truth
Black Panther-Who Is the Black Panther?, new Female BP arc
Iron Man-Extremis, Execute Program
Wolverine-Get Mystique, Evolution, Enemy of the State
Hulk-World War Hulk
Thor-JMS's run
Spider-Man-Character Assassination
Moon Knight-The Bottom
Punisher-Garth Ennis's Run
The Boys
Dynamo Five
Supreme Power
Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire
Green Lantern-Geoff John's Run
Identity Crisis
The OMAC Project
Civil War

Non-Superhero
Scalped
Y: The Last Man
Incognegro
Walking Dead
Star Wars Legacy
Star Wars Republic
Star Trek Klingon: Blood Will Tell

 

[Mr Light]

Oh yeah, Wolverine Enemy of the State was amazing. The ultimate Wolverine story basically and involving just about every hero in the MarvelU. And John Romita Jr art one of my all time favorite artists!

 

[Admiral_Young]

Speaking of Wolverine...I'm enjoying Mark Millar's One Man Logan at the moment and looking forward to when it comes out in Hardcover later in the fall. Star Wars Legacy has been pretty interesting as well.

 

[Mr Light]

I can't wait to get Old Man Logan in trade! Millar + McNiven + Wolverine + Post Apocalyptic Future where Super Villains rule the Earth? Hell yeah!