The 10 Best Comics of 2016

Here are my top 10 favourite comics of the year that were also published in 2016:

Scarlet, Book 2 Review (Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev)

In my March 2012 review of Scarlet Book 1 I optimistically mentioned that Book 2 would soon be out - over four and a bit years later and the second five-issue arc has finally completed! And Brian Michael Bendis isn’t a slow writer either, this guy cranks out scores of comics each year! Anyway, good things come to those who wait and Scarlet Book 2 is very good.

Men of Wrath Review (Jason Aaron, Ron Garney)

The Raths are a cursed family. Since great grandpappy Isom stabbed a man to death over some sheep a hundred years ago, the Rath men have lived bloody lives. Today, Ira Rath is the most ruthless hitman in the south, coldly killing men, women and children with brutal efficiency. But as good as he is at dealing out death, everyone meets the reaper in the end and Ira’s just received news that he has lung cancer. He’s also been given a new contract: his estranged son, Ruben.

The 10 Worst Comics of 2014

Lotta good comics came out in 2014 – lotta bad ones too. Here are my picks for the crappiest comics of the year. These all came out in 2014 so they’re the dregs of those published this year, as opposed to just bad comics I read this year, otherwise New 52 Savage Hawkman would run away with the worst of the worst!

Men of Wrath #2 Review (Jason Aaron, Ron Garney)

Ruben Rath has fallen in with some bad people who’ve hired a dangerous man called Ira to kill him. Except Ira is Ruben’s dad. And while Ruben’s outrunning the cops, Ira’s in Ruben’s house with his pregnant lady… 

One of these days I’m gonna have to visit the American South. I have to see if its as intense as the stories - and not just Jason Aaron’s - make it out to be; a place where humans and animals, life and death, nature and instinct swirl together in a heady melange. 

Men of Wrath #1 Review (Jason Aaron, Ron Garney)

In his afterword, Jason Aaron says that from the way it opens Men of Wrath may be his darkest comic yet, and I have to respectfully disagree. Have you read his Punisher MAX run from a few years ago, specifically the Bullseye issues? That was some pitch black shit. Men of Wrath #1 is on par with that and if you don’t know what that means, a man is stabbed to death in the (almost biblical) first scene and in the second a family is executed - father, mother and, yes, baby. Aaron and artist Ron Garney are not messing around with the tone - it is firmly established! 

Kick Ass 3 Review (Mark Millar, John Romita Jr)

Mark Millar and John Romita Jr’s Kick Ass was a surprise hit, both as a comic and a movie. It was wild, different and very fun and introduced us to the brilliant Hit Girl, a tiny Tazmanian Devil of violence. Then we got the sequel and the Hit Girl spin-off - neither were as great as the first book but they were still pretty decent. And now we have the threequel, which is also the final Kick Ass instalment - and it was one too many. 

Mindy, aka Hit Girl, is in jail while Dave, aka Kick Ass, is on the outside, kinda committed to breaking her out with his “superhero” team, Justice Forever, but also kinda not. Because there’s this hot girl he wants to sleep with. And he doesn’t really feel like being Kick Ass anymore. Meanwhile, cliched Italian mobsters are out to be cliched Italian mobsters and Mark Millar shows us just how few ideas he has left for this series. Then it’s over. Thank fuck for that! 

Kick Ass 3 didn’t need to be 8 issues long. There’s so little to this final instalment that it could’ve easily been a 3-issue miniseries, or Millar could’ve left it as it was at the end of Kick Ass 2: Mindy in jail, Dave lucky to be alive. That would’ve been preferable to this bloated pile o’ nothing. 

The whole book is made up of half-formed plotlines that are abandoned before their end. Dave plans to break out Hit Girl with Justice Forever before realising none of them have the skills necessary to do anything quite so risky, so they leave Hit Girl behind. Dave then pisses about for the whole book living out his superhero fantasies. This is Dave’s motivation in the book: to re-enact Batman’s big entrance scene in Year One. That’s his goal for the entire book! It’s so pathetic.

Justice Forever is kinda falling apart but who cares because no-one in the book does, least of all Millar or the reader, while Mindy treads water in jail until her inevitable escape and ensuing bloodbath of revenge. The Italian mobsters do mobster-ish things while they wait to be killed by Hit Girl. Chris Genovese was bad but now he’s kinda good - whatever. None of this shit is even remotely interesting. 

And that’s the worst part of this book - it’s super boring. Kick Ass was never boring before but it is now. Dave’s struggling with the superhero side of his life alongside his real one, mob guys are being evil, “superheroes” are being killed - it’s all stuff we’ve seen before. There’s an extended look at how Mindy became Hit Girl but it’s totally unnecessary as we know how she became Hit Girl: Big Daddy made her do terrible things. Again, we’ve seen it before, so what’s the point of showing it again? Filler. 

There were a few moments here and there that were good. The way the ending mirrored the beginning of the series was a nice touch, and it was funny seeing Mindy’s psychologist, Dr White, looking exactly like Walter White from Breaking Bad. John Romita Jr’s art is good too and shows that he put much more effort than Millar put into his script. 

But overall, Kick Ass 3 is an overlong, dull slog through an uninspired storyline without any ideas to a rote finish. 

It’s pretty clear that Millar’s more or less given up on working hard at his comics’ scripts and is now totally focused on movies. His comics are now elaborate pitches aimed at studios rather than stories for the comics crowd. Kick Ass 3 is just another of his recent books that’ve been sub-par - The Secret Service, Jupiter’s Legacy and MPH are all very poorly written despite having phenomenal artists like Dave Gibbons, Frank Quitely and Duncan Fegredo attached. 

The final chapter of the book ends like a Marvel movie with a credits sequence followed by an after-credits scene. The after-credits scene in a Marvel movie is supposed to be a teaser for the audience to make them want more but the effect after reading this book is the opposite - guys, seriously, no more, just STOP!

Kick-Ass 3

Kick Ass 3 #6 Review (Mark Millar, John Romita Jr)

Read my review of Kick Ass 3 #6 here: http://whatculture.com/comics/kick-ass-3-6-review

Painkiller Jane: The Price of Freedom Review (Jimmy Palmiotti, Juan Santacruz)

Painkiller Jane - whose superpower is a healing factor not unlike Wolverine’s - helps out a Saudi Arabian princess escape assassins and protect her from them. That’s the comic in a nutshell! 

I realised reading this that Jimmy Palmiotti doesn’t write complex comics. I’ve read a few of his other comics before but this one really underlined it for me. It’s not a bad thing but the non-stop action and gratuitous boob and butt shots (Jane is stacked, of course!) make this feel like any number of brainless Hollywood action movies. 

Jane and the princess run from explosions here, then they run from assassins there, then they separate and Jane has to rescue the princess from some beefy bad guy, there’s a shootout and it’s done. It’s written in a very formulaic fashion. 

It’s enjoyable for what it is which is just one action set piece after another, and at first it’s inventive enough. The scene at the airport where Jane’s got to save the princess, avoid the cops and a flying drone is really cool, but the action becomes more rote afterwards. Fisticuffs, guns, car chase - I get it, it’s “exciting”, I guess, but I’m reading it and feeling completely uninvolved in what’s happening on the page. 

It doesn’t help that Jane’s indestructible and that she can get shot and smashed into walls and thrown off buildings, and so on, and be absolutely fine a few panels later with a couple bandages to show she’s been hurt. Because there are no real stakes, it’s not very tense to see things like knives and bullets being waved at her - she can get hit by all of them and she’ll live. 

The Amanda Conner covers are stunning and Juan Santacruz’s artwork is absolutely fantastic - the art team were far and away the best part of the book. But Palmiotti’s writing? It’s competent and definitely not terrible, but it’s also very pedestrian and uninspired. Painkiller Jane starts well but loses steam almost instantly after the first issue to become an average forgettable action story with your usual boringly invincible protagonist. If straightforward violent action with hot chicks thrown in is all you’re looking for, Painkiller Jane delivers completely.

Painkiller Jane: The Price of Freedom

Kick Ass 3 #5 Review (Mark Millar, John Romita Jr)

Read my review of Kick Ass 3 #5 here: http://whatculture.com/comics/kick-ass-3-5-review.php

Painkiller Jane #1 Review (Jimmy Palmiotti)

My review of Painkiller Jane #1 went up today - read the full review here: http://whatculture.com/comics/4-awesome-comics-must-read-week-6-november.php/5

Kick Ass 3 #4 by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr Review

My review of Kick Ass 3 #4 went up today - read the full piece here: http://whatculture.com/comics/kick-ass-3-4-review.php

Kick Ass 3 #3 by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr Review

My review of Kick Ass 3 #3 went up today. Read the full review here: http://whatculture.com/comics/kick-ass-3-3-review.php

Kick Ass 3 #2 by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr Review

My review of Kick Ass 3 #2 went up today - you can read it here: http://whatculture.com/comics/kick-ass-3-2-review.php

Kick Ass 3 #1 by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr Review Quoted

Back in June I wrote a review of Kick Ass 3 #1 for WhatCulture! Today I picked up my copy of Kick Ass 3 #2 and saw the second quote on the back cover was from that review: 

Very cool! You can read the full review of that issue here: http://whatculture.com/comics/kick-ass-3-1-review-mark-millar-and-john-romita-jr.php

Kick Ass 3 #1, Age of Ultron #9 and Thanos Rising #3 Reviews

This week saw the release of the third and final Kick Ass story arc from Mark Millar and John Romita Jr - and it was awesome! Full review here: http://whatculture.com/comics/kick-ass-3-1-review-mark-millar-and-john-romita-jr.php

Meanwhile, Age of Ultron ground on with issue #9 - thank god it's almost over! Full review here: http://whatculture.com/comics/age-of-ultron-9-review-brian-michael-bendis.php

And another top Marvel seller, Thanos Rising, continued its downward descent in quality with its third issue. Surprising too considered Jason Aaron's writing it. Full review here: http://whatculture.com/comics/thanos-rising-3-review-jason-aaron.php

Those are the comics I bought and reviewed this week. Next week - Superman Unbound, Batman: Zero Year, and Guardians of the Galaxy #3! It's gonna be a good one!