Dropping Balls 2013: Rob’s Favorite Comics Of 2013

So it is New Year’s Eve, which means that I am are literally down to the wire to address my favorite comics (and comic moments) of 2013.

I had a bit of a hard time pulling this together this year. Last year, I started this process off by actually drafting a list of my least favorite comics of the year. And while it was published later than my list of favorite moments, starting that way was just too much to contemplate this year. Sure, I haven’t ruled out putting together a similar list maybe tomorrow, but between the conclusion of Before Watchmen, the weird and arbitrary firings and replacements of creative teams at DC, and the overall lackluster nature of each of the Big Two’s event comics this year, I’d hate to tear down a road that makes me bummed out about the year in comics.

Because there was a bunch of good stuff that happened in comics in 2013. So what I did was go back through each review I wrote this year, starting with January, to refresh my memory about the truly good stuff. So in mostly chronological order, here’s what I think is the best stuff of the passing year:

Morbius, The Living Vampire: This one was a pleasant surprise, mostly because I wasn’t expecting anything out of it. Maybe that was naive, considering what writer Joe Keatinge was able to accomplish in Image’s Glory in 2011 and 2012, but Keatinge took a vampire character and tacked away from the recent trend of making vampires tortured, sparkling fuck machines with an unrealistic attraction toward teenaged girls (seriously: have you ever tried to talk to a teenaged girl? It’s like talking to a stroke victim who can only access the parts of their brains that remember the dullest of autotuned popular music. Either the vampires in young adult fiction have a terrible taste in women, or they have the relentless sperm count of a 13-year-old boy with nanny software on his computer and no lock on his door). Instead, we got an entertaining tale about a guy with a bad medical condition trying to handle it, and a neighborhood where no cop, let alone, superhero, would ever go.

Death of The Family: I’ve read a million stories about Batman fighting The Joker, and like most people, I actually remember about four of them. And while Death of The Family had some problems (the only way Joker could accomplish some of what he did in this story would be with a supply of cash so unlimited he could easily get himself transferred out of Arkham and into one of those cushy rehab hospitals that consider handjobs as therapy for psychosis), it built up some solid suspense along the way, along with some seriously creepy moments and consequences that lasted well beyond the final page of the story. Everything from the Scott Snyder’s dialogue to Greg Capullo’s depiction of Joker in workmanlike coveralls moved the story forward, and it wound up being one of the best Joker stories in recent memory.

Guardians of The Galaxy: As a child of the Star Wars era – being five years old on May 25, 1977 places one firmly in the Star Wars era – I never had a lot of time for Guardians of The Galaxy. But as an adult in the Firefly age, this barely-finctional spaceship crew and their Brian Michael Bendis banter have really hooked me in, and done something that I would never have thought possible: it made me care about a comic with a main character named Rocket Raccoon. A raccoon (but Jesus, don’t call him that) whose catchphrase is, “Boom! You’re murdered!” Guardians of The Galaxy is fun space opera… and in a year where Marvel’s big event crossover was a bombastic, overblown, self-important space opera, it was nice having a little character-driven fun.

Powers: Bureau: Brian Michael Bendis’s and Michael Avon Oeming’s Powers stories are always good. It makes the list this year because more than one issue actually was released in 2013.

Daredevil #25:  Mark Waid’s work on Daredevil for the past couple of years has been generally excellent. But the villain in this issue, combined with the reveal of the nature of that villain’s powers, made for one of the best single comic issues of the year.

The Deep Sea One Shot: The Deep Sea was yet another Lovecraftian story in a year and a half or so that seemed packed with them. But Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray made one important variation on the classic elements of that kind of story: rather than going mad at the sight of Elder Gods, real Americans would get even. Even at gunpoint. This was one hell of a lot of fun, and I’m hoping we can comehow get a second chapter in 2014.

Hawkeye: Hawkeye is, bar none, one of the best comic books currently being published. Writer Matt Fraction not only has captured lightning in a bottle by focusing on Clint Barton out of costume and just trying to live as a dude in New York, dealing with street-level crime and personal problems, but he put together a killer story where, across multiple issues, we see the same story from the point of view of multiple characters… including one from the viewpoint of Pizzadog. It’s just a blast.

Daredevil: End of Days: Ostensibly the final Daredevil story, Brian Michael Bendis and David Mack put together a killer whodunit story that concluded with an intimation that being Daredevil is a curse, and one that cannot be avoided. And while I felt utterly cheated by the whole “Mapone” Maguffin at the time, well, Mack went out of his way to set me straight that my problem was my American public school education and its terrible lack of geography instruction:

Boston Comic Con: When we last attended Boston Comic Con back in 2009 or so, it was in the basement of a hotel with just a few big-name creators on site, and a lot of local jamokes selling self-printed comics that weren’t worth the matches it took to use them as the fireplace kindling they were only good for. This year, after a postponement due to the Boston Marathon Bombing, it transformed itself into a big regional convention with A-List creators, good panels, and a line around the block to get in. While it’s still clearly going through some growing pains, it has expanded to three days in 2014, and you can be damn sure we’ll be attending again this year.

Sex Criminals: Yes, another Matt Fraction book. This is one about a couple who can make time stop whenever they orgasm (meaning that if Suzanne, the female protagonist, were my girlfriend, she would never know she had superpowers. Hey-yo!), and use those powers to commit crimes. Which is a silly premise, but Fraction commits to the characters and he and artist Chip Zdarsky give plenty of winks and nods to the over-the-top premise. It’s not a book to give your kids unless you want to answer a lot of embarrassing questions and / or become a grandparent as early as humanly possible, but it is a lot of fun for us adults.

Mighty Avengers: Sure, it’s generally B-List heroes (minus Luke Cage and The Superior Spider-Man), but writer Al Ewing has committed to the characterization over dumb action, putting together a super team that bickers as much as they get along, with a wicked and fun sense of humor about itself. It’s not the highest profile Avengers book currently going, but considering it’s an Avengers book that isn’t utterly convinced of its own epic self-importance (hi, Jonathan Hickman!), it’s a breath of fresh air in the post-Bendis age of Avengers.

Locke & Key: Alpha: Locke & Key has, over the course of our publishing this crappy little rag, gone from a book I resisted perusing due to it’s intimidating mythology, to one of my favorite limited series of all time. And when it comes to the two-issue conclusion, Writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez gave us the best, most satisfying and logical conclusion, with heart, that we saw in 2013 that didn’t involve a remote-controlled machine gun in the trunk of a 70s muscle sedan.

The Extinction Parade: Another vampire comic that not only clearly has no love for the prissy mournful sexpots we have been stuck with since Anne Rice got tired of writing fairy tale themed slashfic, but one packed with zombies to boot. Writer Max Brooks uses his familiar turf of a zombie apocalypse to examine what would happen when these idle rich prettyboy monsters had their food supply taken by the walking dead. And considering so far the answer seems to be, “die starving in squalor,” it’s good reading for anyone who has ever considered making a “Twilight Ruined Comic-Con” placard.

Afterlife With Archie: If you had told me that I would even remotely enjoy an Archie comic book during 2013, I would have called you a lying scumbag. But what writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and artist Francesco Francavilla have accomplished with Afterlife With Archie is not only a pretty solid PG-13 horror story, but one that treats the Archie gang seriously, and as if they could exist in real life. And that can be dark, from the black magic of the first issue to the implied incestuous relationships and substance abuse of the second. This series is treading on Twin Peaks style ground here, and it has really been one of my surprise favorites of 2013.

And that’s pretty much that… except that due to the holiday tomorrow, today is a rare Tuesday new comics day. So soon we will be off to our local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to remember that not only does no one wants to see the ball drop until midnight, but that they are referring to a completely different ball, to get the final books of 2013. And if one jumps out, well, you’ll hear about it here tomorrow. As well as (possibly) Amanda’s favorite books of 2013.

But until that time…

Happy New Year, suckers!