Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Geek Goggle Year Ender 2007
As the calendar turns to 2008 I thought I would put some thoughts down in a review of what I found to be the good and the bad of 2007. When evaluating a year, though, some series don’t cooperate too nicely. For example, The Messiah Complex has gone through only nine of the thirteen issues so to keep it clean I wont include the overall story in the review. On the other hand, Ion wrapped up its arc in 2007, but the bulk of it was in 2006, so I am including Ion within this review. Make sense? No? I didn’t think so either. Here we go.
Annuals made a comeback in 2007. We saw several from both DC and Marvel.
Annual Worth Reading: Action Comics Annual #10. This comic had many small stories that had some relevance to the year’s story arcs. It had some Luthor, Kryptonite, Bizzaros, Mon-El and even Kandor. It was a great issue, made better with the inclusion of these ideas later on in the year in regular stories.
Annual Better Off Not Reading: Batman Annual #18. This comic had Ra’s actual resurrection from the dead. It took place a month or two before the actual arc. The problem was that the White Ghost gave up his body in this issue to bring back Ra’s. Only in the actual arc the White Ghost was not only alive, but gives up his body to give Ra’s a strong body to work with. What? I told you so. You were better off if you didn’t read this issue at all.
We had some crossovers in 2007. Some included a mini series as the prime comic (like World War Hulk), but I will focus on the ones that used existing titles to pace the bulk of the story.
Favorite Crossover: Green Lantern Sinestro Corps War. Wow was this out of nowhere. It was equally as satisfying between both main titles and had excellent story telling all the way through. All told, there were probably about five issues from each main title and then two or three really relevant one-shots worth reading. It was a manageable and very worthwhile crossover to read.
Most Disappointing Crossover: Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul. Boy did I have a love-hate relationship with this. It was only seven issues, but you have three other prelude type issues and between the ten I’d say only three were any good. I still don’t know why we went through this all. To find out that the White Ghost was Ra’s son? Who cares! Nightwing’s stories were excellent and Robin’s were dreadful. Where the overall editor was for this I don’t know. All along it felt like an issue was missing in the fray.
Next we have mini-series category, which could easily be in the crossover category. It’s a gray area.
Favorite Mini-Series: World War Hulk. Five issues and a prelude issue. It was fast, had tons of action and had some outstanding moments both with the art and the writing. Delays stole some of the steam, but it was outstanding. I realize Civil War officially wrapped up in 2007, but for me, World War Hulk was better. Much better.
Most Disappointing Mini-Seris: Ion. I have no idea what this was supposed to be. Was all this just twelve issues to kill Kyle’s mom? You’re kidding, right? Coming in close behind Ion was Dark Tower. I never read the books and this series didn’t make me want to anymore. The artwork was beautiful, but the story and the language was lost on me.
I made a category for one-shots. This is supposed to be stories that don’t have anything to do with the continuity. This is impossible, so I just basically used any issue that wasn’t part of an ongoing series or not really part of a mini-series (like 1 of 5, etc). Another gray area I suppose.
Favorite One-Shot: What If: Planet Hulk. This story had two excellent variations of how Planet Hulk could have turned out and both were outstanding. My favorite of the two had the Hulk and Banner playing cat and mouse with each other on a planet with no other intelligent life. It was a brilliant issue. Runners up include Transformers Spotlight for Galvatron, Green Lantern Sinestro Corps Special, Captain America Fallen Son: Wolverine as well as the GI Joe Special Missions: The Enemy. You pick up any one of these five I mentioned and who will like them.
Most Disappointing One-Shot: Captain America Fallen Son: Spider-Man. This issue was very weak. Sure Parker is mourning and fights the Rhino, but for the most part this issue stunk with dealing with the death of Captain American through Spider-Man’s eyes. What was contained in this issue could have easily been in a regular Spider-Man issue and covered on three pages. Runners up include Tales of Sinestro Corps: Parallax, Superman-Prime and the Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Special. All were flat for my tastes.
With lots of ongoing series having good years this next category was hard. Unfortunately for the dogs, though, the most disappointing had only two real contenders all along.
Favorite Ongoing: GI Joe: America’s Elite. Month after month this was my favorite read. This past year saw developments in character such as Duke and saw Cobra Commander become a behind-the-scenes mastermind. Each issue contains some action, some deception, some twists and a lot of plot movement. If you even remotely like this genre I would recommend reading this. Runner up goes to Star Wars Legacy. It’s Anakin Skywalker’s great-grandson dealing with new Sith, new Jedi and some old problems. Plus, the ghost of Luke shows up every once in a while.
Most Disappointing Ongoing: Wolverine. Where is this series going? They killed Sabretooth, but they didn’t just kill him, they made him the shell of a man he used to be. Almost to the point where he was brain-less at the end. With each arc I understand this character less and less. Runner up goes to Highlander. Characters come and go in this series without names and without purpose. We jump from Duncan to Connor without any development on either. This series doesn’t stick to the core that made the movies a success let alone the TV show.
Lots of characters and books had great years. Some had some really, really bad years.
Favorite Overall: Hulk. Oh sure, I could have gone with Green Lantern or Captain America or even GI Joe, but when has the Hulk been THIS relevant? The Hulk became cool in 2007. Hulk smashed. I hope he doesn’t fall into the Disappointing category next year.
Most Disappointing Overall: Flash. What happened to this character? They barely established Bart when they killed him off and the version of Bart they killed barely resembled the version that came onto the scene as Impulse. Then they tease that Barry is coming back and instead bring back Wally. But Wally is a parent now and all responsible with a seriously boring arc to start off his run. The Flash had about two issues all year that I’d call decent. Man, what a waste. Also in contention were Wonder Woman and Wolverine. Spider-Man had a down year as well I’d say.
Finally, some of my favorite moments of the year. No, cap getting capped wasn’t in this cut. Sorry, but I like main characters alive. In no particular order are the parts or lines from comics that I remember well from this past year:
* Iron Man drills Hulk into the Earth. Thinking he has won, the Hulk jumps back up with full force and all Tony can say is, “Aw Hell.” Dude got beat bad.
* Megatron “kills” Optimus, but Prime downloaded his conscience to his trailer until his body could recover. While Megatron is taunting the other Autobots you just see the eyes coming up from out the smoke behind Megatron and Prime tells his men, “I’m back in the game.” And he unloads on Megatron.
* When the great grandson of Anakin Skywalker is about to embark on a mission into the Sith Temple, one of his Jedi Masters gives him a gift to help him on his journey. The family heirloom: R2-D2. How that robot has survived all these centuries is anyone’s guess.
* Black Bolt uses his whisper to knock the Hulk back and blows up parts of the moon. Obviously Black Bolt thinks the attack is over until Hulk leaps out of nowhere and says, “I don’t want to hear you whisper. I want to hear you scream.” Epic.
* After a five issue build up of the whereabouts of the mutant baby we come to discover that the heavily armed Cable has the infant. It wasn’t too shocking, but it was outstanding visually.
* Discovering that the head of the Sith in Star Wars Legacy was A'Sharad Hett. The significance of this was that Hett was a Jedi who survived Order 66 and all the way past the Battle of Endor and another 100 years or so. I didn’t see it coming and it was a nice way to tie in some of the other Star Wars titles into this one.
* Okay, you got me. Captain America getting killed was crazy. Even when the rumors were abound I never thought they would off him. It sold a lot of copies too. Go figure.
* Batman being selected for a Sinestro ring. At the time I didn’t know what was up with the yellow ring grabbing Batman, but in retrospect it was pretty cool. Who was the sector 2814 representative for the Sinestro Corps anyway?
* Snake Eyes battled Firefly and lost. Luckily for Snake Eyes his girlfriend was there to bail him out. The best part was the fight came down to a knife fight in the sacred temple where it all started. It was a great sequence with a surprise ending.
* Dr Strange gets the Hulk to calm down and turn back into Banner. As Strange comforts Banner and tells him to relax that he’s got him, Banner reaches out his hands, grabs Strange’s hands and says as he turns back into the Hulk, “and I’ve got you.” Hulk and Banner were working as a team. How cool is that? Oh, and Strange took a pounding after that.
I’m sure there are things I’ve missed here, but you get the idea. It’s been a pretty good year to be a comic fan. Hopefully 2008 will be the same or better.
