Below you’ll find our reading selections for the year of 2010, 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!
2010 Comic Reading List
(Check Patreon for Full List & Bonus Round!)
| 2010 | Comic Book Title | Issues |
| 1 | S.W.O.R.D. | #1 to #5 |
| 2 | Realm of Kings | Reading Order |
| 3 | Secret Warriors | #11 to #16 |
| 4 | Thor / Siege | #604 to #606 / Reading Order |
| 5 | Fall of the Hulks | Reading Order |
| 6 | X-Men: Second Coming | Reading Order |
| 7 | Fantastic Four | #575 to #588 |
| 8 | Amazing Spider-Man | #648 to #650 |
| 9 | Black Widow | #1 to #5 |
| 10 | Guardians of the Galaxy / Thanos Imperative | #25 / Reading Order |
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Wow, the final My Marvelous Year post! This is a great year to go out on, as there were a lot of different kinds of comics and events to consider. For some reason, though I usually ramble on a ton here, I sort of feel like just pointing out the highlights for the year, and glossing over the rest. I didn’t find anything truly bad this year, even in the Ultimate Universe which I think had a great creative resurgence in 2010. So here goes:
– I absolutely loved Secret Warriors, one of my favorite of all Marvel comics. The pacing and writing is on another level, and the artwork was terrific. I ended up reading the entire rest of the run and it did not disappoint. Hickman at his finest, and my Series of the Year.
– Siege was a very satisfying ending to Dark Reign and indeed to much of the Bendis Era starting with Avengers Disassembled. For once, it didn’t seem like most of the numerous tie-ins were superfluous, and the stakes were incredibly high throughout. One of the better events.
– X-Men: Second Coming was incredible, one of my absolute favorite X-Men events. It was very well plotted and was intense throughout. It also has, much like Siege, an extremely satisfying yet brutal and consequential ending. Thumbs way up.
– Hickman on Fantastic Four continues to be, well, fantastic. He just gets them in a way very few other writers do, and the stories are great fun. An absolute pleasure to read.
– Black Widow was excellent, especially Liu’s dialogue, but for whatever reason I especially loved Daniel Acuna’s artwork, enough to get my nod for Artist of the Year.
– Thanos Imperative was wonderful and a great ending to the modern Cosmic Era of Abnett and Lanning. Just satisfying and well written throughout.
– SWORD, Fall of the Hulks, and Spidey were all just ok to me. SWORD didn’t stand out much to me, Fall of the Hulks was interesting (and the origin story of the Intellgencia was awesome) but kind of overstuffed and confusing, and although I love Dan Slott in general, I think his zany humor is almost too much for me with Spider-Man, though in theory it’s a match made in heaven. Nothing wrong with any of them, just not my faves of the year. None of the bonus issues were particularly notable to me outside of Uncanny X-Force, which was insane; the Horsemen in particular are among the scariest villains Marvel has ever produced.
– The Ultimate Universe was mostly great this year and really got back on track after some very questionable last couple of years. Probably my favorite thing was the Ultimate trilogy of Enemy, Mystery, and Doom, but Ultimate Comics X was great, and Ultimate Spider-Man in general was excellent as always. As I’ve said before, I’m not the biggest Mark Millar fan, so his Avengers comics here were not my faves but were OK. Everything else was solid but not exceptional.
Ultimate Spider-Man 150 was the final issue of the My Marvelous Year run that I read, and it was an incredibly satisfying ending to MMY with its beautiful summary of what it means to be a hero and going through many beautiful portraits of the heroes of the Marvel Universe. Thank you, Dave, for an incredible two-year journey through much of Marvel Comics, and thanks to everyone here for the great comments and insights. Excelsior!
S.W.O.R.D. is a solid but mostly unremarkable story. The art is good, and it is better if you like Hank McCoy, Abigail Brand, and weird aliens.
Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova were the best parts of the Realm of Kings event, and Inhumans was decent.
Secret Warriors was not great for me, but it picked up around issue #20.
Siege is a good wrap-up of the Dark Reign story. The best issues are The Cabal #1, Loki #1, Siege #1, Embedded #1, and Uncanny X-Men: The Heroic Age #1. Siege #2 is necessary to know the story, but it is super gross.
Fall of the Hulks: Alpha is the high point, Gamma is okay, and the rest are mostly okay with a couple weak Red Hulk issues.
X-Men: Second Coming is fine. The Hellbound and X-Force issues were not to my liking, though.
Fantastic Four was amazing. If I hadn’t already voted for Loki for Hero of the Year (thanks, Kieron Gillen!), they would take it. #584 (Congratulations Mister Grimm, You’re Handsome Again) and #588 (the final regular issue at the time) are 5-star high points of Hickman’s run.
Amazing Spider-Man is terrific.
Black Widow was nothing great for me.
Guardians of the Galaxy #25 is another great issue, and The Thanos Imperative is a decent story all the way through.
For the rest of the list, I can recommend Ultimate Comics Spider-Man and Ultimate Comics Thor (Bendis and Hickman know how to write comics, and their artistic collaborators are also good).
Part way through! Lot of events!
I read X-Necrosha, which you didn’t end up recommending .. was OK, didn’t hate it, but the pacing seemed a bit off, slow start and excessively quick finish.
Siege was a great endgame to Dark Reign, I really enjoyed that one. It really rang true the way Osborn had finally over-extended and had everything come crashing down.
Realm of Kings was mostly good, Son of Hulk was a complete waste of time that I didn’t bother finishing, the Nova issues didn’t do a whole lot for me, but everything else was strong. And then the whole thing flows into The Thanos Imperative which was also extremely enjoyable.
Fall of the Hulks / World War Hulks took a while to get into because I hadn’t been reading the Hulk titles that preceded it, and damn, that’s a lot of different confusing Hulks. But it hooked me in eventually, the Intelligencia were an entertaining set of villains.
Second Coming was another top shelf X-Men crossover, really brutal high-stakes stuff. Apart from the X-Men: Hellbound limited series (which seemed a distraction), this was up there with the best.
Black Widow #1 to #5 – excellent. Imus Champion seems a particular deep cut villain, this makes me want to go back and read the Avengers’ previous clashes with him.
Onward we go! Currently reading a bunch of the Heroic Age arcs, both ones on this list and not. So far particular thumbs up to Avengers Academy #1 to #2, Secret Avengers #1 to #5, Captain America #606 to #610 and Uncanny X-Men #526 to #529.
Just wanted to drop and say thanks for the shout out in the email.
I dropped out of the MMY a few months back as I felt I had completed what I wanted to and what came after was not as compelling as trying to cover what came before.
I was thinking about this over the weekend. I hit the wall with the transition from ASM’s One More Day to Brand New Day. A big part of the MMY, for me, was reading through key favorites, like Spider-Man. Now, with some hindsight, I can look back and see that there were a number of key phases in Marvel history in general and in ASM in particular.
ASM up to the Night Gwen Stacy Died is the first act. Then up to issue 200 with the death of the burgler the second. And in alot of ways 1-200 was one big story. Through to Michelinie – McFarlane was the third act, then from them to the Clone Saga was the fourth. The fifth Act, in my mind went from the restart of ASM up to One More Day.
All through those different “Acts”, even with the wild wacky clones, deaths and rebirths, carnage and reboots of sorts, it was still my Spider-Man. The guy I grew up with. And, for me, the cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. But with the start of Brand New Day, my Spidey was gone (curse you Quesada!). I never really go over it.
A lot of what came after was good, don’t get me wrong. Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, Siege, Hickman and even some decent Spidey. But that smack in the face of Brand New Day was hard enough the first time around. When I got to it the second time, here with the MMY, having read just about every ASM issue leading up to it, I just couldn’t go on.
I am sure I will someday get back to Marvel. I’d like to get through all the MMY years left (thanks Dave), but it will take me some time to get that bitter taste out of my mouth again. In the meantime I’m working on some of the Best Comics of All Time! (Thanks again Dave) and Star Wars (when will that My Star Wars Year kick off?)
Thanks again to all here at the Year, it was great reading.
-C