
Every so often, a comic book comes along that blows away all of your expectations. This past year, the best example of such a book was The Larfleeze Christmas Special. What started off as a joke became what was easily one of the best reads of the entire year. Geoff Johns continues to prove himself as one of the best writers the industry has to offer every time he releases something new, and even at the tail end of the year he continues to impress. This book stars everyone’s favorite Orange Lantern, Larfleeze, as he learns the true meaning of the holiday after seemingly being skipped over by Santa Claus on Christmas morning. The adventure starts on the first page and it’s non-stop fun all throughout.
Beasts of Burden/Hellboy: Sacrifice continued Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson’s streak of simultaneously breaking my heart and freaking me out real good, as the pets of Burden Hill continued to defend their town from supernatural threats, but this time with the added bonus of Hellboy. If we had a best collected edition category, Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites would be walking away with my vote as well. Honorable mention goes to Kieron Gillen’s World War Hulks: Spider-Man Vs Thor, which was more entertaining than any inventory-filling tie-in book had any right to be.
A relative newcomer to Marvel, finishing up this year’s co-writing with Diggle on Daredevil, Antony Johnston’s After the Fall sums up the previous era while setting the new stage for Hell’s Kitchen and the Man without Fear.
Without a doubt in my mind I can give this title fully and utterly over to Blood Ties: Jango and Boba Fett. As already well-mentioned in my full review of this four issue arc this piece is truly perfect. Perfect in art, perfect in literature, and perfect in Star Wars. Also, Boba Fett takes down a rancor.
This was a bitter sweet event. Since Annihilation, Marvel’s Cosmic books have been flying high and were very impressive. For a few years things kept getting bigger to the point where another Universe was invading out. Thanos got involved and the enemies had weapons that dwarfed Galactus and the Celestials. This story contained everything that made Marvel’s Cosmics unique and had an ending that left me satisfied as well as a bit sad to see certain characters go.
Glad to see a few Marvel properties up for it this year.