USA Today's Year in Comics 2011, part 2

Continuing our look at USA Today's year in comics 2011...

Best Ongoing Series: USA Today - Locke and Key. Joe Hill's Locke and Key has been fabulous, absolutely, but I question its description as an "Ongoing series". I may be over technical, but I see it as a series of mini-series.

So...

Evil Genius Comics - a tie between Marvel's Thunderbolts and Boom Studios's Incorruptible. Marvel got my attention back when I found out the Man-Thing was joining up. Throw in Juggernaut and you've got two of my favorite Marvel characters and I can't just pass it by. But more importantly, Jeff Parker has made the comic exciting and unpredictable, as a series about super villains trying to reform should be. He made us feel bad for Juggernaut before he got his hammer to join in the "Fear Itself" campaign. He brought in a second team of Thunderbolts including Centurious, Boomerang, and Mr. Hyde, untrained and poorly screened leading to a group of Thunderbolts jaunting through history fighting alongside Captain America and the Invaders in World War II and back further to England and Jack the Ripper.

Mark Waid had made headlines with his series Irredeemable about a Superman level hero turning on humanity and ravaging the world for his own, still unknown, reasons. But as fun as that series has been, his second series, Incorruptible, about Max Damage, a villain scared straight in the wake of the Plutonian's rampage, has been more eagerly looked for in the Evil Genius labs. More so than the Thunderbolts do we see how difficult fighting against our past can be.




Best Miniseries: USA Today - Mark Millar's Superior. I picked this series up briefly, but it didn't hold my attention,

So...

Evil Genius Comics - I would say Locke and Key. Keys to the Kingdom finished in 2011 and Clockworks began. They also gave us thee Guide to Known Keys which carries the titillating hint of other keys yet to be found. In Clockworks we've been getting some of the back story of Key House all the way back to the Revolutionary War. The taunting caption on each cover counting down the number of issues until the end remind us that the fanciful ride which started in 2008 is almost over. We can't wait to see how it ends but desperately don't want it to end.






Best Book You May Not be Reading: USA Today - Gladstone's School for World Conquerors. 


Evil Genius Comics - Agreed. Yes, it's for all ages. Get over it. That doesn't make it childish. I love my villains and enjoy seeing how evil they can be, but young villains learning the world they were learning to terrorize and the parents they idolized aren't really true is a universal story of growing up and the loss of innocence, an ironic concept when dealing with villains, admittedly. Being able to read an issue and hand it to one of my children, the eldest being 9, is just an added bonus.


Best Comic Book Movie: USA Today - Captain America - *cough* Um, seriously? Ok, I liked it, yes. But it's number four of, well, four. X-Men: First Class was a more entertaining period superhero flick and Green Lantern has better action and humor,

but...

Evil Genius Comics - Thor - Thor had it all. Great action. Effective humor. Serious drama. All blended together into a wonderful story. They stayed true to the characters better in Thor than in First Class, Tom Hiddleston's Loki was more realistic than Hugo Weaving's Red Skull, which is not to belittle Weaving who played an excellent Johann Schmidt and should reprise the role for Avengers 2.

Best Comic-Book TV Series: USA Today - Walking Dead - I don't watch television until it comes out on DVD and I still haven't gotten a copy of Walking Dead season 1 (you hear that Santa?), but a friend Tivoed the first three episodes and loaned it to me. Good stuff. And as USA Today points out, there's not a whole lot of competition this year. I haven't given up on Locke and Key which I heard was great and I didn't hear about Wonder Woman,

So...

Evil Genius Comics - Agreed.


Join us again tomorrow, or soon, depending, it is Christmas day tomorrow after all, for more on the USA Today's year in comics with Evil Genius commentary.