Alright, this is my first time posting here, so I'm just going to rattle of the comics that I've read over the past year:
Old Man Logan- 1/5- It just feels like bad Wolverine fan fiction. I tried reading it years ago, and I thought it was dumb, but after seeing that it was hailed as one of the greatest comic book story-lines of all time, I thought I was missing something. The art is great, but I think the plot is really weak. The set up an old Logan in a post apocalyptic world is cool, but Millar doesn't develop any of the characters for me to care about them, and he does nothing interesting with the universe. Unless, you just want to see graphic corpses of heroes ripped apart. Deadpool vs the Marvel Universe was a pretty graphic comic, but it wasn't gratuitous, and it had a really interesting message about the comic book industry. I don't want to spoil anything, but this book just reflects everything I don't like about modern Wolverine. Marvel made their characters way too overpowered over the years, and ruined what I like about them. To me, Marvel's strength is in their on-going down-to earth character soap-operas, whereas DC is better for their larger than life good vs evil plots. Marvel sacrifices making compelling villains to develop their heroes, which is fine—that's why most of my favorite heroes are Marvel characters—and DC has better villains so the superhero aspects are more compelling. Captain America is the exception to that though, as I think he's got the best villains outside of Batman.
Daredevil End of Days 3/5- Brian Michael Bendis' run on Daredevil and Ultimate Spider-man are two of my all time favorite comic book runs, so this was very disappointing. His Bullseye is garbage, and the whole "mystery" in this book doesn't pay off. I never knew why fans hated Bendis so much, but now I think I understand where they're coming from. In the same way I hate Joss Whedon writing everyone like a clown (I know I'm in the minority but I hate his X-Men), Bendis makes a lot of his characters snarky and the lack of variation with his characters can be tiresome. The art is great, and it's an alright end for Daredevil, but it's a lot of fan service. I am a Daredevil fan, so I enjoyed most of it.
Deadpool by Joe Kelly- 5/5 On an issue by issue basis, the issues are good, but as a whole, this run is awesome. Deadpool is just a despicable guy, but he will pull at your heartstrings. The character has been watered down throughout the years into a vulgar Daffy Duck (Although, I think Cullen Bunn got him back on track with the great Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe, Deadpool Killustrated, and Night of the Living Deadpool miniseries.. I don't like fan elitism when fans say "You have to read or watch this to be a REAL FAN," but with this run I get it. I always see comments of "If you don't read Joe Kelly's Deadpool, you don't understand Deadpool," and I wrote them off. After reading this run, I get it. The character is absolutely amazing and is deserving of the huge fanbase.
Iron Man by Matt Fraction- 4/5 This is the best run I ever read for Iron Man. I read a lot of Iron Man from the 60s and I was shocked to see how static of a character Tony is in comparison to the movies. While it doesn't necessarily make it better for me, I like that they address Tony's tendency to regress. It actually makes him more realistic, but he's not very compelling of a character to read beyond this run for me. This run actually made me appreciate what Iron Man 3 did with the Mandarin because, in my opinion, he's a lame villain. I've read other stories with him, and never liked him, so I like that they made a joke of him. He's no arch-villain in the leagues of Joker, Lex Luthor, Kingpin, Bullseye, Red Skull, Sabertooth, Magneto, Reverse Flash, Sinestro, Black Adam, etc. I don't even put him in with C-listers like Deadshot. He's a weak character and since he's the end game villain of this run, it left me kind of cold in what started as a great the series—starting with the Five Nightmares arc. There's also a few supporting characters that feel really shoehorned in, and they're very underdeveloped—and unfortunately they also come at the end of the run.
Spider-man by Howard Mackie- 4/5- I just finished reading this, it totally re-kindled my love for Spider-man! I was a big Spider-man and X-Men comic book fan growing up, and after reading One More Day, my love for the character dropped. Ever since that story, Spider-man has been written like a whinny man-baby loser by Dan Slott, and it drove me where I didn't even want to look at the character. I now have to go back and re-read JMS' Amazing Spider-man (my favorite run on the character). I just have to ignore the new stuff. Hopefully, I can do that with the X-Men again.
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