Every comic you've read in 2014

[Donomark]

Caught up with Ms. Marvel #8 (2014). Was dreading going into this issue preparing for typical sitcom new pet dog hijinks. This book is written so much better than that. I love Kamala's first reaction to seeing Lockjaw being utter delight. The look on her face on those panels is great.

[Venneh]

Flesh Feast of the Devil Doll: Part of the Grindhouse series from Dark Horse, by De Campi and Erskine. Fun inversion of the camp by the lake/virgin sacrifice tropes, neat art, and great writing besides.

Valentine: by DeCampi again, a tale of fairy set in the 1940s and later in the 2000s. Pretty typical getting tangled up in Fairy story, that has some nice twists and potential with what they do later one. First volume, would read the rest.

Skullkickers 1-4: one of the "this is your friends' fuck up D+D group" comics that are catching on something fierce. Good fun read.

Captain Britain and MI13 1-3: good introduction for a new reader; not always entirely sure what's going on due to continuity, but Cornell gives you enough of a background to explain and trusts the reader to be able to figure it out. Blade showing up halfway through is definitely a thing. Faiza is pretty fantastic, as is a post-Kitty Pete Wisdom. Would read more if he did it.

Battling Boy: Pope's OGN, feels real fucking Kirby in it's scale and detail. Supposedly a movie is already being made out of it. What. Vol 1 is a good setup, though we probably aren't seeing the rest anytime soon.

Young Blueberry: aka Moebius does a civil war story. Holy beautiful, Batman.

[Venneh]

Battling Boy: The Rise of Aurora West: Spinoff OGN that Pope is writing, and has other people on art duties. Focuses on what is likely going to be the female half of our team, and the time leading up to the first volume of Battling Boy. Definitely interesting.

Criminal: The Deluxe Edition 1 + 2: Brubaker and Phillips kill it on every arc here. And it gets even more heartbreaking the more you read it and recognize all the callbacks. Basically, don't exist around Christmas in a Brubaker story. It won't end well.

Incognito: The Deluxe Edition: Brubaker takes on superheroes and pulp at the same time. There are no feels left standing by the end of it.

Air 1-4: Basically conspiracy theories/mystical plane flights several years before Lost was even a thing. Fun, light read compared to everything else I've been reading today.

The Incal: Jordowsky and Moebius do space opera. Kirby on crack, basically. And also I'm pretty sure at least halfway through your brain melts out the back of your head.

The Metabarons: Jordowsky does what he would've wanted to do with Dune. Hoooooly shit.

[Dread]

New X-Men vol 1 E is For Extinction

Fantastic Four: 1234 #1-4

Marvel Boy TP

Superior Foes of Spider-Man #1-15: Okay, Marvel has a book I like other than Daredevil. This is fucking great. Every issue has at least one hilarious moment. It's smartly written and beautifully drawn. Spider-Man only shows up once, too! And it's the Doc Ock Spider-Man! Bonus!

Trades: 66
Comics: 764
Omnibus: 8
Graphic Novels: 21

[Dread]

New X-Men vol 2 Imperial: This is where it catches its stride.

God is Dead #17-19: Hickman has stepped back to allow other writers to tell his stories, which has to be a first fro Avatar (other than Crossed I guess.) It's still amazing.

God is Dead Book of Acts Alpha: Kind of an anthology book. Three stories. One of them written by Alan Moore features Alan Moore trying to convince people his snake god is a real god. Pretty funny.

God is Dead Book of Acts Omega: This changes fucking everything! Whoa!

Trades: 67
Comics: 769
Omnibus: 8
Graphic Novels: 21

[Venneh]

The Question vols 1-6: The original Denny ONeil run. Absofuckinglutely amazing work. Dream of Rorschach is some lovely cross promotion and still manages to be hilarious. The ending of the series, though? Everything is made of pain. In my top ten favorite series.

Question: Five Books of Blood, Final Crisis Revelations, and Question: Pipeline: Renee Montoya's first outings as the Question. Some painful callbacks to Hub City. Renee does pretty well coming into her own, but compared to Vic, she's a bit eh.

Akira Vol 1: seminal manga classic. Whole other different monster than the movie, in several ways. If you can get your hands on this, definitely worth a read.

Queen and Country Vol 3: you thought this was going to get better? Ahahahahahahaha. Oh sweetheart. Another amazing and depressing collection of stories, including Chris Samnee on possibly the most brutal and depressing story of the entire run to this point (which is saying something).

Sleeper Seasons 1 and 2: Basically a superpowered spy story, featuring a double agent who is, to say the least, in over his fucking head. This, combined with the Criminal and Incognito runs in less than 24 hours, is a hell of a thing.

Suburban Glamour: so, turns out Jamie McKelvie did a suburban England fairie story back earlier in his career. Neat little one shot, featuring him in his early stages.

Spider Man: Black Cat: contains a neat little arc that features Felicity as she has a run in with the Kravens and one of their loyal servants. Good art, fun story.

Final Crisis DANCE: collected trade of the Dance miniseries. Interesting little diversion in the larger fc universe, neat to see this little section that has almost nothing to do with any of the other DC material I've seen to this point.

Dogs of War: three neat little stories about the uses of dogs in three different wars, and their boys. Includes the Christmas Truce and Vietnam, in the stronger of the stories. The last one is a real heartbreaker.

[Dread]

Genius #1-5: a young girl who witnesses her parents gunned down by LA police grows to teenagehood as a military strategic genius and unites the gangs of LA in one last stand against their true enemy. Great concept. Unfortunately, I felt like it was a little too heavy handed. Instead of five issues, if it were 4 it might have cut down on the schmaltz and stayed with the tense thriller it started out as. Pretty good though.

Jailbait #1: An original series from Bluewater Comics (the company that gave you the brilliant biographical comics of such worthy individuals as Sarah Palin and Stephanie Meyer) about a teenage girl who lures creeps in and beats them up before leaving them for the cops. It's a weird idea, but it isn't without merit. There's a tinge of Hard Candy in the idea, but the problem with this is that she does it by turning into a superhero that looks EXACTLY like Witchblade.

For comparison, here's a shot of Witchblade (technically Witchblade II, but the blonde hair made for an even better comparison/ripoff example)

and here's Jailbait:

I tried calculating the ways in which this series is wrong, but I can't find my abacus.

Trades: 67
Comics: 775
Omnibus: 8
Graphic Novels: 21

[Dread]

Multiversity: Society of Super-Heroes: Doc Fate, the Ladies Blackhawk, Atom and Immortal Man face zombies and magical evil in a pulp world? Drawn by Chris Sprouse? Yup. I'll take more of that. This is a far better read than the first issue. This is a complete story with implications of things happening later rather than a whole issue implying things would be happening. Absolutely fantastic.

God Hates Astronauts #1: the ongoing started after the success of Ryan Browne's kickstarted earlier series. It's comedic genius. It really is. Ryan Browne is going to be a huge name in 10 years. Fucking huge! I want this in hardcover to match the kickstarter edition.

Trades: 67
Comics: 777
Omnibus: 8
Graphic Novels: 21

[Koete]

Are the astronauts in space to prove God isn't real? Is that why he hates them? Is one of the astronauts Kevin Sorbo-as-Dr. House?

[Dread]

Are the astronauts in space to prove God isn't real? Is that why he hates them? Is one of the astronauts Kevin Sorbo-as-Dr. House?

Well, there's nothing in the story that negates it, but there is a superhero whose head was blown off and was amalgamated with the glowing head of a ghost cow. There is a race of space tigers who are always eating hamburgers. There is an army of bears in superhero costumes. And there's a character based on Carl Winslow named Gnarled Winslow who has cybernetic arms. And plus there is swearing.

[Dread]

Threshold #1-10: Avatar Press, before they became the go-to place for popular guys to write their profane epics, were a harvest ground for bad girls comics that went a little farther. For as bad as the bad girl craze is remembered, it really just was the first shot across the bow of faux-feminism that is more prominent in films of today. You know, a "strong female character" means a woman who kicks ass in high heels. But, Threshold has that, in the sci fi/fantasy area, with soft core tendencies. This shit is awful There's like fifty someodd more issues, but I don't want to read them.

Trades: 67
Comics: 787
Omnibus: 8
Graphic Novels: 21

[Dan]

Marvel Comics 70th Anniversary one-shots: in 2009, Marvel celebrated their 70th anniversary (marking the first time they celebrated the fact that they published comics before 1961). To this end, they released a number of one-shots named after most of their titles from the Golden Age, featuring characters from the 1930s and 1940s.

Marvel Mystery Comics with Captain America, the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, the Angel, and Ferret

All-Select Comics with the Blonde Phantom and Marvex the Super-Robot

All-Winners Comics with the All-Winners Squad

Captain America Comics

Daring Mystery Comics with the Phantom Reporter

The Human Torch Comics

Miss America Comics

Mystic Comics with the Vision (Aarkus)

Sub-Mariner Comics

USA Comics with the Destroyer

Young Allies Comics with Bucky and Toro

By and large, these were actually very good. The only one that really left me cold was Daring Mystery Comics, but what surprised me was what I really liked. Marvel Mystery Comics was written by Tom DeFalco, someone I can usually take or leave, but this was incredibly fun. Roy Thomas wrote the hell out of Sub-Mariner Comics, and I normally have no use for Namor at all. All-Select Comics has a strong Mark Guggenheim Blonde Phantom story, as well as an outright comedic take on Marvex by Michael Kupperman (where he just rips into the ridiculousness of the character). USA Comics sees John Arcudi and Steve Ellis on a very dark Destroyer story that plays up his anger, and the backup (every issue features reprints from the Golden Age) has a strong Stan Lee story working on his very first creation. This was some really amazing stuff.

[Dread]

Astro City: Through Open Doors-Busiek is back. What a return to this universe! Holy shit! I've fallen out of like for Brent Anderson's art style, but he's the only one who's right for this series anyway.

X volume 3: Siege-nasty, dirty and mean-spirited smart superhero comics. Pretty good. I'll buy volume 4.

Trades: 69 (up top, my brother!)
Comics: 787
Omnibus: 8
Graphic Novels: 21

[Donomark]

I recently learned that All-Winners was a thing sometime last year. Always found that a peculiar name for a team.

[Dread]

Somewhere I have a pitch for the All-Losers Squadron, a Great Lakes Avengers style WW2 tale.

[Molly]

That honestly sounds like a crossover between The Losers and The All Winners Squadron. And I love it.

[Dread]

And it kind of is. It's not as joky as I made it sound, but it features a lot of the second/third tier Timely guys facing a threat far worse than anyone their level should be facing.

[Dread]

Cable & X-Force: This is Dennis Hopeless' series from Marvel Now, you know, before Marvel Now Now or whatever they're doing Now. The bulk of this is pretty damned good. Hopeless has a pretty good grasp on these characters and their mission and Larocca's art is beautiful. I never cared about Hope before this, but she's pretty great in this series. Later on, though, they resolve running plotlines in other books, and the ultimate slap in the face is that the series ends on part 3 of a 4 part crossover with X-Force, which is a team I hate, at least in this permutation (Puck, Spiral, Storm and Psylocke? Come on!). Overall, pretty good.

Trades: 69
Comics: 806
Omnibus: 8
Graphic Novels: 21

[Dread]

Monster Massacre: since this includes one reprint (a great Simon & Kirby Black Magic story that I have in at least three other collections) I will count this as a trade. This is an anthology of monster stories from A1 Comics and Titan Books out of the UK. They dipped their feet into the comics anthology world earlier this year and this is the first, I think. It's not good. Not even Ron Marz and Tom Raney can save this book. Their's is actually one of the worst. Bonus: there is a female Thor in this one too.

The Eyes of the Cat: Jodorowsky and Moebius in one of their many collaborations. This is a short graphic novel that works out to be more of a tone poem.

50 Girls 50 #1-4: Frank Cho writes (!) a tale about 50 women on a space ship. There are women of all sorts of races, hair colors and attitudes, but rest assured they all have the same rockin' bod! This is a turd. Grindhouse Doors Open at Midnight at least had the balls to go full exploitation. This doesn't.

Hell, Nebraska vol 1: a manga influenced story about a teacher who kills bad people to collect their souls in order to use those souls to build a new Hell...in Nebraska. I could really relate to this.

Selen 1: Luca Tarlazzi is an erotic comics artist who is pretty damned amazing. His work is like a mix between Serpieri and Manara.

Trades: 71
Comics: 810
Omnibus: 8
Graphic Novels: 23

[Dread]

Avengers 1959 #1-5: This is really funny in context with trying to fit it into continuity with First X-men. Overall, not bad.

Trades: 71
Comics: 815
Omnibus: 8
Graphic Novels: 23

[Dread]

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter vol 1 Conquest: This is an amazing reboot of the original series. Closer to the Gold Key series than the Valiant one, this one goes even farther and looks at it from the point of the English Crusaders bringing their dinosaurs to the New World in the 13th Century. Beautiful art and a simple, yet effective story. One of the better comic debuts of this year.

Nightworld #1: a story about a demon drawn in a Kirby-ripoff style. i like it, not a lot. But I like it enough to grab the first trade.

Red Sonja #0: I'm not sure why this is a zero issue. No reason for it. Simone doesn't show that she gets Sonja here. She's very generic so far. Perhaps this was a bad first issue to try.

Birthright #1: Okay, this is halfway between Unwritten and something I've been working on story-wise, but I really enjoyed the execution here. I read the eight-page preview in the Image preview book and didn't like it. This issue sold me. It moves super quickly too. I feel like a lot of writers would do a four issue arc with the story that's in this first issue.

Brides of Helheim #1: I actually like this first issue than I did the first series' trade.

Bucky Barnes The Winter Soldier #1: This goes down as the worst written comic I've read this year. Terrible. The only saving grace is some gorgeous art. Still, never going to give it another issue.

Cutter #1: I enjoyed this, but it feels like it's somebody's failed slasher script turned into a comics.

Death Vigil #3,4: Great little series. It moves at a glacially slow pace but the character moments and the simplified cartoony art from Sejic makes it worth it. Great characters. This should be a movie series a la Twilight and it would be the most popular thing in the world.

Death of Wolverine #2-4: Issue two is one of the best comics I've read this year. Including a two page fight sequence on 12 panel grids that makes for one of the best pieces of comic art I've seen in a very long time. The following issues weren't mindblowing, but as a send off for a character that will be back inside of 8 months, it wasn't bad.

Death of Wolverine Logan Legacy #1: Yikes. It makes it evident that a lot of the appeal of DoW is the art. Steve McNiven is a revelation. This guy on this book is plain awful. So is the story, really.

Trades: 72
Comics: 827
Omnibus: 8
Graphic Novels: 23

[Venneh]

Uncanny X-Men: the Complete Collection by Matt Fraction: Found this remaindered for half off in the basement of the Harvard Bookstore. collects all (and I mean ALL) of Fraction's run on Uncanny X-Men (512-519, Dark Avengers/Uncanny XMen: Utopia and Exodus, Dark Avengers 7-8, Dark Reign: The List and the Cabal). We get to see Utopia formed, the riots in SanFran over mutant presence, the continued torrid fuckery that is Emma and Scott, and a fun little bit of time travel. Really interesting to see how this era plays out and how it moves into the current status quo for XMen. Especially interesting to see how Magneto starts to play into things.

Fatale vols 1-4: Brubaker and Phillips do the femme fatale trope with a heavy dose of Lovecraft. All sorts of spiralling stories with said trope that move towards the present story that serves as the framework and the forward motion for all of this. Really interested to see how it all comes together in the final volume.

Lucifer 57-59, 68, 74: Random back issues that I was able to find back in college. Assorted parts of the midway arc, and what is basically the final arc. I really, really need to find the collected volumes of this to put this all in context.

Batgirl 35: Alright, DC. You have my attention. Please don't fuck this up. Babs does amazing art (and I got this signed by her at NYCC), and Stewart and Fletcher basically went straight for the jugular with having their introductory villain be an incarnation of 4Chan/the Fappening. And it doesn't read like it's trying to pander to the modern audience at all; if you were trying to put everyone in a modern context like they are with the new 52, this makes sense. (thing that ruins this, though? The six page ad for Future's End. Trust me, DC, that is not the audience that would even remotely be interested in this.)

Birds of Prey: Dead of Winter: Real interesting to read right after Batgirl. Man, have either Knockout or Barda showed up in the new 52 yet? Also, as good as the new take on Batgirl is, I still miss Oracle. Most of this trade is Simone getting to cross over her two pet teams (Secret Six and the Birds), and a pretty epic final issue (108).

[Dan]

The Justice Society Returns: This was one of DC's "Fifth Week" events (something they would do to have something to sell for the two months a year with five Wednesdays without fucking up the schedules for their regular titles) for spring 1999. Brand new issues of Golden Age mainstays from DC's subsidiaries National Periodical Publications (Adventure Comics, Star-Spangled Comics), All-American Publications (All-American Comics, All-Star Comics, Sensational Comics), acquisition Quality Comics (Smash Comics, National Comics) and unrelated publisher Nedor Publications (Thrilling Comics), this was a giant nine-part Justice Society tale which led into the then-new JSA title. Featuring work from James Robinson, David Goyer, Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, Ron Marz, Tom Peyer, and Chuck Dixon, with art by Eduardo Barreto, Chris Weston, Michael Bair, Aaron Lopresti, and Russ Heath, this is by and large a very strong story that has Robinson (the ringleader) playing in the WWII sandbox that he was so good at back then. Very fun stuff that reminds me how strong a lot of DC's output was at the time.

[Dread]

That was kind of the bridge between his Golden Age and the actual JSA series with Goyer and Johns, right? I need to reread that.

[Venneh]

Ms Marvel 3-5, 9: Filling in my gap on the run, and the newest one. The gap does some amazing work with Kamala and her parents, and the new issue - man, I was honestly not expecting that. Two really good twists, that could've been super overwrought with teh dramas, but that's not the kind of book this is. Looking forward to seeing how they'll handle the new status quo going forward there.

Edge of the Spiderverse: Gwen Stacy: Spider Gwen! Spider Gwen! Does whatever a Spider Gwen does! No seriously, we come in kind of the middle of Gwen's story here - a good two page spread to give us context for where she is now, and a very light adventure to introduce her, with a good old gutpunch at the end, and establish the status quo. I'm honestly very interested to see where the ongoing could take this.

Captain Marvel (2014) 1-8: Carol! In! SPAAAAACE! Some timely crossovers with the Guardians, but mostly Carol getting to be awesome in space and recenter herself. Also Rocket and Chewie interacting will never not be hilarious. Not something I'm gonna follow month to month, but nice and light and fun.

Rat Queens 8: Flashback issue into Violet's past. Not so sure if I'm a fan of this happening in the middle of the not-Cthulhu thing they're fighting at the moment. Like, fun art, and cute story, but seriously, there is a massive battle going on out there that I'm a lot more interested in.