My Marvelous Year: 1998

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• Haha, well, as others have said, this "Heroes Return" set of relaunches was like chalk and cheese compared to "Heroes Reborn". I thought The Avengers was the best - ballsy to move to launch straight into an alternate reality storyline the issue after bringing the characters back from an alternate universe, but so well executed. Top marks for making everyone think "Oh look, Avengers #1 has Loki as a villain" and then making it not so. Interesting harbinger to "House Of M", also. Iron Man and Captain America were top shelf, too, although I didn't enjoy Thor as much. Just not into the whole "Thor is a human dude who transforms into Thor" stories.

  Spider-Man was an enjoyable enough tale. Hulk was a bit confused due to not having read anything since #450 so it didn't really work for me. Deadpool was OK, not as good as last year's issues I thought. And the Iron Fist limited series I could take or leave.

  The MC2 stories were well executed but just not for me. I guess they were trying to pitch younger characters at a younger audience and introduce them to the optimistic fun of Silver Age Marvel rather than the Attitude Era. Nothing negative to say about them.. just not for me.

  And then the three Marvel Knights series, wow, what a start for that imprint. All of them gripped me and I'm delighted to see that all three continue into 1999's recommendations. I can see myself reading these runs in full, for sure.

• Man, this was a great year. All the heroes return stories get off to good to amazing starts (Cap and Avengers the strongest), Deadpool continues the best take on Wade, MC2 lays the groundwork for an exciting universe, and Marvel Knights begins with three great stories that'll soon become legends. This is definitely the beginning of modern Marvel.

• Wow what an improvement 1998 is over 1997. There was so much to like this week, and quite a lot I wanted to like…

  Let’s start with what I liked…

  The Heroes Return really gets top marks from me. Loved the Avengers. What a difference a real artist makes. (Do a side by side comparison of Leifeld’s Avengers #1 versus Perez’s. I dare you.) The story was fun and moved well, dialogue made sense. Characters were in character. I’ve read it a few times before, but Avengers Vol 3 is a great read. The same can be said for Cap. Shell Head and Thor. I hadn’t read these issues…have had them on deck for a looong time, but never got around to them. A pleasant surprise. All the restarts are bang on. Marvel did a great job here, they cleaned off thebarnacles, shinned up the old heroes and brought them back to true form. Busiek and Perez get top marks, with a nod to Waid and Romita.

  Inhumans was a real eye-opener. Well done, Mr. Jenkins, well done, sir. I actually want to read more, and that is the first time I have ever said that about an Inhumans comic. The art by Lee was excellent, too. He is hit or miss with me…but here he is showing a maturity that he didn’t on his earlier work on Namor.

  Daredevil is a hoot. A little verbose, but it reads well. Looking forward to reading more of this Volume…I understand that Brubaker takes over for Smith soon…has me interested in DD again for the first time in 15 years.

  I really wanted to like…

  The Hulk. Mr. David’s run is one for the ages. But I fear he did not end it well. I understand that there were some editorial conflicts that hampered his creativity, so I can forgive him a weak finish. Wanted to like it a lot, and it was a decent read this year, but he did not nail the dismount.

  Spider-Girl. Cute concept, and a decent read, but (and I’ve said it before) a writer Tom Defalco is not. A good writer could have made this a great homage to the original Spider-Man, and a good story in and of itself. But it came across as hackneyed and as a cheap imitation rather than a good book. The dialogue was so poor. It's too bad they couldn't get someone with some experience writing Peter and Mary Jane to to the dialogue so that they would seem more in character...

  Iron Fist was also weak. Not really sure what they had hoped to accomplish with this…maybe sales? Could have been better done in an issue or two in Heroes for Hire.

  I did not know what to expect with A-Next. I tried to go in with an open mind, but right way it let me down. It suffered from all of the problems that Spider-Girl did: bad plotting, hackneyed dialogue and seemed to be too much of an imitation of 60s style Marvel books. But it was just too much so. The dialogue was horrid, the plot jumped around in bits and starts, and the homage came across as just amateurish. And the art was the worst.

  Amazing Spidey has long been one of my favorites, but this was really the pits. Defalco has really hit rock bottom with this. The plotting was atrocious, jumping from point to point with little or no transition. The quick insertion of the Surfer and his equally quick resolution made the whole thing weak. Normally I like short stores as opposed to long drawn out crossovers, but this time it really should have been done in three or four issues to flesh out the plot.

  Full disclosure: have not read and not sure I will read Deadpool…

• Is anyone else having a problem with marvel unlimited where it keeps sending you back to the first page on some issues? It's made iron fist 2 and black panther 1 unreadable for me.

  • I've experienced this problem recently, too. I am not sure exactly what causes the problem or how to fix it. I can say that I had better luck when I placed the phone flat on the desk to keep it steady or after I tilted the screen for a two-page splash.

• I found this year mostly average until Marvel Knights started at the end, and then the quality (mostly) goes through the roof. I will say that there was nothing I found totally bad, which makes for a good year in my book. Let's do this:

  - The Heroes Return issues were fine, but nothing too exciting. I didn't find any of them compelling enough to keep reading past the first three issues, but I did enjoy all of them, especially Cap and Iron Man. Thor I found more odd than anything else, and Avengers had some great splash panels, but at this point I'm in serious Avengers versus Loki mode.

  - Carnage and Silver Surfer? That was NUTS. Not sure it was the best comic ever, but it was fun and I found the Surfer/Symbiote history intriguing, though at this point I feel like we've had three different Symbiote origin/genocide stories.

  - Hulk was all over the place. Betty's fate was movingly told, though the "twist" at the end wasn't exactly the biggest surprise ever. After that, David's final issue, with Jones taking the place of David saying he was done telling stories, was utterly bizarre and I have no clue what continuity that story took place in. Then the next issue was more or less business as usual. Strange stuff, though not a bad read.

  - Deadpool was great, though I found it a bit weaker than the run from last year. Still, the Deadpool origin story was awesome, and Ajax got my vote for Villain of the Year. I also like how there are two characters who are obsessed and in love with Death in the Marvel Universe: Thanos and Deadpool.

  - A-Next was fun and very old school. It didn't make much of an impression on me, but this along with Spider-Girl introduced me to the apparently short-lived MC2 universe, so that was a cool bit of history.

  - I enjoyed Iron Fist, though I thought the story telling was a little bit muddled. A rare instance where I thought one or two more issues would have helped the story breathe a little bit and be less cluttered. Still, there was some great info in here for when the Iron Fist show happens.

  - I enjoyed Spider-Girl quite a bit, though for anybody who hasn't read it, start with Issue #0, the origin story, and then #1/2, which is not how it's indicated to read the run in the Reading List. and also not how it's listed chronologically in Marvel Unlimited. I found Mayday to be a great and quirky character without anywhere close to as much angst as teenage Peter Parker, which was refreshing. A fun, breezy read.

  - Ah, Inhumans. This series is one of my all-time favorite comic book runs. I can see how it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but I find everything about it spectacular, from the haunting Black Bolt writing to the gorgeous and unsettling artwork. I also appreciated this reading of the series much more thanks to this Reading Club, as I realized in context that we haven't seen the Inhumans in a very long time. This got most of my votes for the year.

  - I've always been torn with this Daredevil series. Not surprisingly, Kevin Smith writes WAY too much text, though thankfully he's talented enough that it's at least mostly engaging to read, and the artwork is great. I do find the whole Messiah arc to be odd and I'm honestly not remembering how it resolves despite having read this fairly recently (last year).

  - Black Panther is tricky for me. It's clearly super high quality and the artwork is fantastic, but I find the non-linear approach off-putting somehow. It's not even that I find it hard to read, I just think it walks a fine line between being non-linear in order to tell a more intriguing story and being non-linear just to be different and edgy, and I'm not sure which side of the line it falls on for me.

  Overall, a solid year that ends on a high note with Marvel Knights. Onto 1999!

  • Quick edit (is there a way to edit comments?) to the first paragraph. I meant to say that I'm in Avengers vs. Loki fatigue mode. I wonder if anyone here feels the same way.

• Heroes Return is a mostly decent beginning for each of the returning characters, primarily because they used the regular Marvel writers and artists instead of the Image folk. The best of the bunch is Mark Waid's Captain America. Besides the opening issues, there is also the outstanding American Nightmare arc in #9-12. I give issue #1 my Issue of the Year, Mark Waid Writer of the Year, Nightmare Villain of the Year, and Captain America Hero of the Year.

  The other highlight is the beginning of Black Panther. Mark Texeira's pencils and inks are amazing and elevate an offbeat, nonlinear story to something spectacular.

  Deadpool is still a solid read with Joe Kelly as the writer.

  Honorable Mention: Uncanny X-Men was very hit or miss, but one hit was #359. If you like Rogue, read it!

• When someone says "Avengers" this period is what I think of. Busiek and Perez. There were some great runs in the past, and there will be some great stuff in the future...but the epitome of what the Avengers should be are these.