Below you’ll find our reading selections for the year of 2007, and once we’re finished reading, I’ll post the winners for hero, villain, issue, artist, and writer.
Feel free to discuss the comics and any related thoughts below in the comments!
2007 Comic Reading List
(Check Patreon for Full List & Bonus Round!)
| 2007 | Comic Book Title | Issues |
| 1 | Captain America / Civil War: Fallen Son / Captain America | #25 / #1 to #5 / #26 to #33 |
| 2 | Mighty Avengers / New Avengers / New Avengers: Illuminati | #1 to #6 / #27 to #37 / #1 to #5 |
| 3 | Thunderbolts | #110 to #115 |
| 4 | Amazing Spider-Man | #539 to #543 / #544…#545 |
| 5 | Immortal Iron Fist | #1 to #14 |
| 6 | Thor | #1 to #6 |
| 7 | Silent War | #1 to #6 |
| 8 | World War Hulk | World War Hulk reading order |
| 9 | Nova / Annihilation Conquest | Annihilation Conquest reading order |
| 10 | X-Men: Messiah CompleX | Messiah CompleX reading order |
Voting Results
Hero of the Year: Thor
Villain of the Year: Red Skull
Issue of the Year: Captain America #25
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Writer of the Year: J. Michael Straczynski
Artist of the Year: David Aja
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View Comments (10)
I was able to read everything this time around, and for the most part enjoyed this year quite a lot. I'll just cover some highlights and lowlights:
My favorite series by far was Silver Surfer: Requiem, which I just thought was unbelievable and utterly beautiful both in terms of writing and artwork; I was unprepared for how powerful it was going to be and was just floored by it and unable to read other comics afterwards. Sensational work. Other big highlights were Immortal Iron Fist, which is by far my favorite Iron Fist comic I've read, Annihilation Conquest (especially Nova's issues), Thor, and I very much enjoyed World War Hulk, though I definitely prefer Planet Hulk overall. Brubaker's Captain America continues to be excellent, and Target X was a great read.
One More Day was sort of well-written (or at least Straczynski salvaged it as best he could), but what a bizarre and ill-conceived idea by Quesada. Messiah CompleX was a very well thought-out and intense read, but I ultimately kind of felt cold after reading it; I do think it's one of the best X-Men events I've read for sure. Daredevil was well-written but was just so relentlessly bleak that I did not enjoy reading it at all. Silent War was also well-done but I found it kind of odd and like Daredevil incredibly depressing.
In terms of runs I didn't like, I've never really liked Irredeemable Ant-Man, though I appreciate the subversiveness of it (and the letters pages get hysterical when people start writing in claiming that they're still in the womb). I just find the anti-hero to be almost too terrible of a person, and it gets to be too much after a while. I'm also not at all a fan of Modok's 11, and I found Mighty Avengers to be a big let-down given the artistic team behind it.
I thought the Ultimate Universe took a bit of a downturn quality-wise this year, though I mostly enjoyed it. Ultimate Spider-Man is still by far my favorite (with The Talk being a particular highlight and truly the end of an era with Bagley leaving) and Ultimate X-Men was solid. But I'm not in love with the Ultimate Fantastic Four (or at least the stories that are being told; the characters themselves are fine), and I did not enjoy Ultimate Power or Ultimate Vision much at all.
Overall, a very good but not outstanding year. Onto 2008!
Every year gets more and more massive, I'm not even going to try to go through items one by one!
But the events..
World War Hulk was the only big thing that I'd read before. Loved it then, re-read the core issues and loved it again. Like Civil War, the Front Line series was a high point.
Annihilation: Conquest hit the mark too. I remember reading the Phalanx Covenant back when I was buying comics in the 90's. That wasn't exactly the X-Men's highest point, but the Phalanx were a terrifyingly villainous villain, and blowing them up into a cosmic-scale threat was a great idea. Good to see Warlock and Adam Warlock both back, good to see the Guardians of the Galaxy we know from the films taking shape. A lot of fun.
Messiah CompleX was the high point of the events, for me. Now THIS was like a GOOD 90's X-Men crossover. Deadly serious, brutal as hell, and a big storyline wending its way across a bunch of X titles. Ed Brubaker was my writer of the year, not only for this, but this was great.
Outside of the events..
Captain America and Daredevil were both gold. Brubaker killing it.
Back In Black was strong, the tension was great, and the showdown between Peter Parker and the Kingpin was glorious. Then One More Day shat all over the goodwill Back In Black had earned. Terrible in every way.
New Avengers was quality. Mighty Avengers less so - we've talked about the weird though bubbles elsewhere in these comments. Thunderbolts was some top shelf Warren Ellis and I highly recommend it.
Irredeemable Ant Man and Avengers: The Initiative were both good fun, and I was pleased to see that Ant Man was joining the Initiative lineup next year.
New X-Men and X-Factor I read all year, not just for Messiah CompleX. Runaways, also, I continued reading. All three were strong again this year. Highly recommended.
Some quality limited series, too. X-23: Target X was great, and I particularly loved the art. Voted Mike Choi my artist of the year. Silver Surfer: Requiem was powerful stuff, I voted the final issue my issue of the year. Silent War was well worth a read too, but the artwork on that one was.. well.. it was appalling. Can't say anything nice about it.
I hit the wall back in mid-July. Went on vacation, took all the 2006 and some 2007 (I anticipated) comics with me. Got through Planet Hulk and just stopped reading. I want to get back on the year, but it'll be hard to catch up.
I think part of it is that 2007 has One More Day and Brand New Day. One More Day is a great read, but a really bad idea. Brand New Day started out pretty poor. It took a couple years to get on track. And in the end I still think they the whole retcon was just not needed.
I doubt I will ever forgive Quesada for "ending" my Spider-Man.
1. Captain America #25 is just fantastic. The Winter Soldier stories in CA #26, 27, and 29-31 are also very well done.
2. The Avengers standouts are Mighty Avengers #1 and New Avengers #28, 34, and 35.
3. Thunderbolts #110, 111, and 114 are high quality stories.
4. Amazing Spider-Man #539 and 540 get my nod as worthy issues.
5. Immortal Iron Fist #1-6 and 8 are all great comics.
6. Thor #2-6 are wonderful. Straczynski is always welcome in any comic I read.
7. Silent War was okay.
8. World War Hulk was an average event in the main miniseries. The better issues were World Breaker, X-Men #1-3, and Incredible Hulk #107-111.
9. Nova and Annihilation: Conquest: The best issues here are Nova #1-9, Guardians of the Galaxy #1 and 5-6, Quasar issues, and Starlord issues. I did not care for the Wraith miniseries.
10. Messiah CompleX is important and well-told, but I thought most of the issues were just average. The exception is X-Factor, which was at the top of its game and had 4-star issues for all of the event.
Bonus:
Silver Surfer: Requiem #1-4 is an amazing mini-series, and I rated all four issues as five stars.
I liked X-23: Target X #2, Astonishing X-Men, Iron Man #15 and #19-20, Irredeemable Ant-Man #12, and Super-Villain Team-Up #1-5.
Ultimate Spider-Man: "The Talk" and the following issue from "Death of a Goblin" were the highlights of the year.
Ultimate Fantastic Four: Most of the issues were standard fare with a few fun moments, but I very much enjoyed #50-53, "The Thanos Saga."
The snide thought-bubbles in mighty avengers are making this series almost unreadable.
I feel like they would have worked better elsewhere. Something like Nextwave? Snide thought-bubbles would have been a treat. In the Avengers? Just seemed weird and ill-conceived.
Why is there an ellipsis between Amazing Spider-Man #544 and #545? Is there something that should be read between those two issues?
2007 has a ton of good reading, so I won't mention everything that is good but not on the list. I wanted to highlight three issues that I consider 5-star, best of the best material, though. They are She-Hulk #15, She-Hulk #21, and Sensational Spider-Man Annual #1. All of Dan Slott's She-Hulk run is worth a look if you like those first two issues.
It looks like that ellipsis is supposed to contain the other two issues that make up One More Day. The reading order should be ASM 544, Friendly Neighborhood 24, Sensational 41, ASM 545. Worst retcon of all-time or worst retcon of all-time?
On a nicer note, Iron Fist is fantastic!! One thing I love about the reading group is I am reading series I would have never of given the time of day before.
It was a thrill to finally read One More Day, perhaps the most infamous storyline in Spider-Man's decades of history.
My take? Worst retcon of all-time.
I'd already decided that I'd carry on with She-Hulk from 2006. Have read the first arc ("Planet (without a) Hulk") so far, and am continuing to love it.