The Inevitable Best and Worst List of 2020 - Part I

I think we can all agree that 2020 has been a crap year. I don't think I have anything else to say that could more accurately capture that. Instead of focusing on all of that, let's get to my Best and Worst List of 2020. There was a pause in the comic industry at the beginning of the pandemic and then things picked back up. So even in the industry it was unprecedented. In trying to think back on this year with my old man brain, I will try to summon up my memories to capture them here.

I do know that my reading of Marvel Comics has continued to go up, while the number of DC titles have diminished to only really sticking with the Trinity of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Outside of Far Sector by N.K. Jemisin, I'm out of DC for now. I continue to read more and more independent comics from the other companies such as Image, IDW, Boom!Studios, TKO Studios etc.

I even found myself funding a number of Kickstarter projects this year to support black creators. This year, I even decided to add a few more categories. Favorite Graphic Novel and Favorite Maxi-series (series that go to 12 issues). This is so I can give some other books much needed love.
Anyways, without further ado, here is part I of my review of 2020.


Dearly Departed (The Comics I dropped this year)
Before I get into the rest of my list, a moment of silence for the number of comics that I dropped this year after giving a good go at it:

• New Mutants - Marvel
• Batman and the Outsiders - DC
• Undiscovered Country - Image
• Quantum and Woody Books - Valiant
• Excalibur - Marvel

Favorite Comic Book Movie of 2020 

Birds of Prey and The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (Warner Bros) - Because 2020, this was a pretty easy pick. At this point, there were only two comic book movies that came out. This movie and "The Old Guard" which is based on a comic book series written by Greg Rucka. The pandemic pushed everything else out to next year for all the major releases. Wonder Woman comes out December 25th, so we'll see if that changes my opinion. I doubt it though because this movie was really good. I will spare you my full review because you can find that here. It was a fun movie and shows the direction DC should head in with their movies.

Honorable Mentions: The Old Guard (Netflix)

Worst Comic Book Movie of 2020
Wonder Woman 84' (Warner Bros) - Oh man. On the flip side of DC movies, there is this film. What a way to end 2020. This came out in just enough time for me to watch it and come up with my opinion. It was not good. I had high hopes and this movie dashed them. This was an easy choice for worst comic book movie of the year. I won't say any more than what my fresh review says.

Honorable Mention: N/A

Favorite Comic Book TV Show of 2020
Harley Quinn - Seasons 1 and 2 - I realize these may not be new, but they were new to me and as I've stated before, it was slim pickings in 2020. Even still, this show probably would have won this hands down anyway. After backing into HBO Max (apparently having the HBO add in for Hulu is good enough), I quickly blazed through this series. Kaley Cuoco is perfectly cast as Harley Quinn. The rest of the cast is amazing, with special shout outs to Alan Tudyk as both Joker and Clayface and Lake Bell as Poison Ivy. The show is legitimately funny and surprisingly violent. They got this show just right and I can't wait to see more. I have not laughed this hard consistently in a long time.

Honorable Mentions: N/A

Worst TV show of 2020
The Boys - Season 2 - It's not that this show was bad, per se. I just didn't watch a lot of comic book based shows this year. I'm way behind in all of them. So this gets the spot. I will say, that I liked the first season better. The shock value in the first season was fresh. Here, they ramp up the shock value, but the escalation feels gratuitous. Also, the show felt a lot slower. I had more trouble taking the Boys seriously because our heroes spin their wheels doing a whole lot of nothing. Homelander is still just as menacing and I worry for any character that is in the room with him.

Honorable Mention: N/A.

The “Oh you still come out and I buy you” of 2020
Deadly Class (Image) - To be fair, I am still enjoying this book and I will keep buying it. However, it's schedule has been iffy all year and it comes out when it comes out. Problem is, I can't really remember what happened between issues most of the time. I'm glad I have this on my pull list, otherwise I would never remember to keep up. Sadly, the TV show didn't make it past one season and I wonder if that took some of the heat off this book. It hasn't made me want to drop it yet, so there's that going for it.


Favorite New Artist of 2020
Victor Bogdanovic (Superman, Wolverine) - In the spirit of this award, Victor is not new to comics, but I took notice of his work for the first time this year and really started to appreciate it. It is hard for me to describe his style, but it is a good mix of cartoony and serious. He has great panel layouts as well. I think of him as being a little similar to Art Adams. His is a name that will now sell me on trying out a book going forward.

Honorable Mentions: Joshua Cassara - X-Force (Marvel)

Worst Artist of 2020
Szymon Kudranski - Fallen Angers (Marvel) - Maybe he's better than this. I don't know. What I saw of the Fallen Angels series from Marvel was egregious enough that it was easy to put his name here. I saved it in my phone the moment I saw it so I would remember later. I don't plan to give any more oxygen to this argument.

Honorable Mentions: Dexter Vines - Batman and the Outsiders (DC), Mark Bagley - Spider-Man (Marvel), Neal Adams - Fantastic Four: Antithesis

Favorite Artist of 2020
Jorge Jimenez - Batman (DC) - Jorge has always been one of my favorite up and coming artists but he leveled up with his work on Batman this year. I don't have the words to describe it, but it is absolutely gorgeous. His cartooning is top notch and he draws a damn good Batman. Everyone looks good the way he draws it. I only hope that the amount of high profile books he gets only increases. There was a lot of good art this year, but this stands out the most in my mind.

Honorable Mentions: Dan Mora - Once and Future (Boom Studios), Chris Samnee - Firepower (Image), Pepe Larraz -X-Men (Marvel), Jamal Campbell - Far Sector (DC)

Favorite New Writer of 2020
Christopher Cantwell - Doctor Doom, Fantastic Four: Road Trip (Marvel) - I never heard of Christopher Cantwell, but I picked up the Doctor Doom book because he is one of my favorite villains. What I found fascinating about the story was how it humanized him, but also dealt with a little of behind the scenes stuff with how Latveria works. Also, this felt VERY Doctor Doom. He is the hero in his own story and they lean into that here. Also, a few weeks ago, one shot horror story of the Fantastic Four came out from Cantwell and that was also surprisingly good. Apparently he is a co-creator of the show, "Halt and Catch Fire". It's good to see a TV guy come into comics and actually do it right. You'd be surprised how the comic medium vexes some would be writers. You're not writing prose here.

Honorable Mentions: N/A

Worst Writer of 2020
Tini Howard - Excalibur (Marvel) - I honestly can't tell if my intense dislike of this book was due to Howard's writing or my lack of care of the content. I'm not a fan of magic in the X books and I definitely don't care for Captain Marvel. I really picked this book up because I like Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee and the art of Marcus To. What I got instead was a mess of a book in the writing department. She may be a great writer, but this book was not a good reflection of that.

Honorable Mentions: N/A. (I can't remember anyone else that should be on this list)

Wonder Woman 84'

Wonder Womaaaaaaaan

I really don't want to be doing this.  I loved about three-fourths of the first movie. I was looking forward to this movie. Even after all the delays due to COVID or Warner Brothers itself. What I got was a movie that I actively disliked. In the following paragraphs, I will go into more detail. I will warn you, there are going to be massive spoilers. I can't talk about what I didn't like without giving some explicit examples.

Let me start off by talking about the things I did actually like about this movie. The first ten minutes with young Diana is pretty great. We get to see how beautiful and picturesque Themyscira is. Seriously, why can't we spend more time here? These have the best shots of the movie each time. Lil' Diana is pretty precocious. I like that they are trying to set up the themes that will be essential to Diana's journey.

As with each time she steps into the role, I still really like Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. I feel like you can tell this movie means a lot to her and she absolutely gives it her all. She absolutely carries this movie and I wish she was in every scene. She instills so much empathy and compassion into the role. I hope she is considered everyone's version of Wonder Woman for years to come. It was also nice to see Chris Pine back. He and Gadot have an undeniable chemistry.

I'm afraid that these are all the good things I will have. Now let's get to the bad. Some of this will feel nitpicky, so I will preface it with the fact that this is only my opinion.

So where to begin? Let's start with the acting. Pedro Pascal is a great actor. He was good in Game of Thrones, he's good in the Mandalorian. So what happened here?! He is hamming it up all over the place and I have to wonder what direction he was given. He is way over the top. At some points you question if he is just a bad actor or if his character is acting badly in a poor way to fool people. The worst part is you will get a lot of him. We'll get into his character arc later in the review. 

I will be plain. I don't like Kristen Wiig. This movie does not change my opinion of her. At the beginning, she acts like any number of her neurotic characters from SNL. When she makes her villain turn, she is more tolerable. The problem is, she goes full comic book villain instead of reining it in. This was probably the direction she was given. 

All the extras in this movie ranged from bad to terrible. I don't know what was going on, but the scene in the mall at the beginning is especially egregious. It is not exclusive to this scene, but it is the one that stands out the most and started my turn against this movie.

The action is not as good this time around. I've had more than enough of slo-mo shots in movies and this movie uses them excessively. All the action scenes are just too much. They did a good job of showing Diana's strength in the first movie without going overboard. Here things are ramped up to 11 in a bad way. While we are talking about action, let me take a brief aside and say I have never hated an accessory more than I do Diana's lasso. In this movie, it is the personification of a deus ex machina. Whatever is needed to resolve a scene, that lasso is there. It is catching bullets. It is catching rocket propelled grenades and letting Diana ride it. It turns her into Spider-Man as she swings on to things. She is literally swinging on lightning. It is just too much. Let me add that in addition to making people tell the truth, now all of a sudden, it can make you SEE the truth. It is awfully convenient in this movie. I hated it so much. The CG to show it's use was always bad. It was almost as if they were told that we can't have Wonder Woman punch people, so just use her rope. It is such a weird choice.

Let's touch on a few elements within the story. We see why Steve Trevor is back and although it works in the context of this movie, I was not a fan. I get Diana missed him and she wanted him back, but let's not forget she knew him literally for weeks and then he was dead for about forty years. I'm not insensitive, it just feels weird in these movies how much she loved him in such a short time. Here and in the comics, I never liked the relationship with Steve anyways. I feel like it weakens, Diana. I get that they are trying to humanize her, but she is more than human. It is okay to lean into that. I don't need Diana to be like us. She is supposed to be something to aspire to. To show I'm an equal opportunist, I don't like the Lois/Superman relationship either for these same reasons. For a moment, we get teased with a relationship between her and Barbara and I would have been okay with that because it would have shown that has fully moved on. Unfortunately, that was just a swerve. Let's be honest, she grew up on an island full of women. It wouldn't exactly be a stretch that she would fall in love with another woman. I almost feel like these movies go out of their way to show that Diana is exclusively into dudes. 

Maxwell Lord. Barbara Minerva. This movie falls into the trap of many comic book movies. Trying to juggle multiple villains and using the thinnest reasons to do so. Their interactions in the beginning of the movie are truly cringeworthy. I would have been okay if they had just focused on Barbara here. I think her story and arc is more compelling. I get that it is a trope that the person that is constantly ignored turns to crime when given the chance. However, I think we could have spent more time with her and the movie would have been better for it. The way Maxwell Lord is portrayed here is similar to the way that Lex Luthor is in the Christopher Reeves Superman movies. You do not buy them as believable foils to our heroes. Lord's sole motivation is so to not appear like a failure to his son. Maybe you can start by listening to the advisors around you instead of being bullheaded. Instead of growing, he jumps at the first opportunity to become a literal wishing well so he can take the easy road to success. Like I mentioned before, Pascal's portrayal of him is way over the top. He was completely distracting in a bad way. At the end of the movie, he is left to go scot-free.

I want to go to one more point in the plot and this is just my personal preference. I hate that there are zero consequences. Let's not forget that humanity chose to make selfish wishes that ruined the planet. Then one wish undoes all of it and then we are back to where we started. Like the first movie, I don't like that magic was the reason that people were terrible. Some people just are. That fact would make Diana's struggle to always look for the good in humanity to be a much bigger crisis. She is a beacon of hope and I would have liked for her to have some doubt because people still messed up. One wish can't undo all that. I want to see her have that internal conflict. This movie had a real opportunity to address that and it really doesn't. 

The special effects are not good. I don't know what it is with the teams that Warner Brothers use, but they are not great. I never have this problem with any of the Marvel Movies and I mean that with the smaller ones like Ant-Man. Cheetah looks terrible and her fight with Wonder Woman at the end is a mess, visually. I mentioned above that the lasso looks bad at times. Whatever they do to make Wonder Woman run always feels weird, like's floating over the ground and not actually running on it.

This movie tries to lean into an 80's aesthetic. The costumes and the clothes do that. If you want to make the argument that the cartoonishness of the plot also reflect that, I can't buy that. There is a way to do a movie that feels like it is in the style of an 80's and then there is this movie, which fails at that. 

At roughly two and a half hours, this movie is way too long and it certainly felt like it. It is a slog to get through.

After the last movie, I really had high hopes for this one and it let me down. Do I want to see another Wonder Woman movie from this team? Absolutely. We also know that we are going to get it. We get a cameo at the end from Lynda Carter that gives me hope. I just hope they get it together for the next one. 

TKO Comics - Some Trades For You

I really meant to post this a lot sooner. I honestly can't tell you how I first learned about TKO Comics, the publishing company. I think it was one of those targeted ads that appeared on Facebook. We all know that Facebook knows us better than we know ourselves. 

What really caught my attention was that at the beginning of the pandemic, they said that they were giving 50% of the proceeds from your purchase to a local comic book shop of your choosing. I thought this was an amazing and very generous idea. For those that don't know, the comic book industry has razor thin margins, so something like a pandemic will absolutely wreck havoc with the comic book shops, which are all independent.

I looked at the talent that they gathered for these books and saw that I legitimately wanted to get over 80% of them, so I took the plunge and purchased a few, while also making sure it was going to help some of my favorite comic book shops. What further interested me, was the diversity and inclusion I saw with the titles, whether it was in the art team or the stories themselves. Over the years I have gravitated towards more normal comic books that are minus the super heroics. I just want good stories, so I don't always need someone flying around in a cape. Comic books have evolved to have more choices out there. This is why I'm glad a company like this exists and they can be successful to lure more talent and provide more offerings.

The other thing I want to call out and I didn't fully realize this until I got the books, but they are larger than the normal comic book size. They are sized more like magazines. I think this gives you a chance to really take in the wonderful artwork that you will see.

Anyways, let's talk about the books I read and my personal takes on them. These are just my opinions, so you can take them with a grain of salt. 

One thing about me. Whenever I read comics, I always read them in the order of what seems the most interesting to me. So I always start with what I consider "good" and then work my way to the bottom of the stack. This isn't an exact science because some times something on the bottom of the stack is better than what is on top.

Away we go:

The Banks

Writer: Roxanne Gay

Artist: Ming Doyle

There were many reasons this book went to the top of my stack. I like Roxanne Gay as a writer (World of Wakanda) and a person, having read some of her work and seen her in interviews. I really like Ming Doyle as an artist (Mara), so seeing these two combined was really intriguing. Also, it was a story about three generations of black female bank robbers. So this checked a lot of boxes for me. With a lesbian and black writer creating the story, I knew there would be an air of authenticity. It was not going to feel pandering because it comes from someone that truly knows.

Now the real question is, was it good? I would say a resounding yes. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is essentially a heist film and it layers in the history and family dynamics of the groups involved. There were not any world ending stakes and it did not end exactly like I thought it would, but I think it sticks the landing for the story it was trying to tell. The dialogue is all really good. The art is fantastic. It is a well put together package and I can say without a doubt that it was my favorite of the rest of these books I will talk about. 

7 Deadly Sins

Writer: Tze Chun

Artist: Artyom Trakhanov

I honestly had high hopes for this book. I saw that the main character was a black guy and it was taking place in the old West. Also, calling it "7 Deadly Sins" made me think of the Magnificent Seven, so I attached some pretty high hopes to this. What I found out is that I was severely underwhelmed and I can honestly say this book was my least favorite of the books I read. So that theory I had above about the best books not always being at the top of my stack and vice versa is proven out by this book. It is not what I thought it was going to be. They do try to spend time saying that our main characters are different personifications of the 7 Deadly Sins, but I just don't like the way the story unfolds. It does a great job of making the cast pretty diverse and the art is actually pretty good. I like the style. It's just the writing does not match the story. Some of these characters are terrible people and they just don't get any better. Others are almost TOO good, so it's a weird balance to try and strike. I just think this book misses the mark. I am a sucker for team books and this group never really feel like they gel as a team. You can argue that, "What do you expect? They don't know each other!". That's not the book I want. I want them to figure it out. Again, this is just my opinion.

Pound for Pound

Writer: Natalie Chaidez

Artist: Andy Belanger

This book was well done. The art was great and the story was pretty good. It was not a ground breaking revenge story, but I did like the cast. Dani Libra was a strong, female character that was grappling with her own demons. I liked that it focused a little on the world of MMA. It wasn't a huge focus, but it did give a tangible reason for why she was kind of a bad ass. It had more twists and turns than I expected, but I thought it went well. 

I also want to add that this is another book that felt like it had an authentic voice. Diversity matters in comics, so I was glad to read this and it Natalie Chaidez's dialogue did not feel force. I don't know who Andy Belanger is, but his art was really good here. There was some good action sequences here that were handled very well.

Sara

Writer: Garth Ennis

Artist: Steve Epting

This is a phenomenal creative team on this book. Ennis is a master of war stories and Epting is one of the best artists in comics today. He is a name that makes me jump onto a book if he is on art duties. So that is why I gave this book a chance.

I'll be honest, this book is technically great, but I can't say that I really enjoyed it a lot. I'm not that into comics dealing with World War II or wars in general, so that was already an uphill battle. I am into bad ass female characters and that is essentially what the titular character, Sara is. Past experiences have left her cold. The art is great, but the problem is the way the ladies of this special forces unit are drawn, they all look the same. They even sound mostly the same, so it is really hard to tear them apart. 

The story does a good job of showing how snipers acted in this war and some of the technical aspects of it, which are great. It just didn't blow me away like I thought it would. That is not to distract from how good it is, it's just not for me.

Sentient

Writer: Jeff Lemire

Artist: Gabriel Walta

This is the book that has gotten Eisner Award buzz. I can say that buzz is well deserved. This is a very good book. Some strong sci-fi, but with a human touch. This is a very good concept. I was totally engrossed, waiting to see what would happen next. It moved at a good pace and I'm glad it didn't overstay it's welcome. This is the kind of story I would love turned into a movie, provided you have some good child actors. The art is also very good. 

I want to say a whole lot more about this book, but I feel like I would give away some big moments that you have to experience for yourselves. It is very heartfelt. I wish I could lavish more praise on this book, but it wouldn't do it justice. Out of all these books, it is my favorite, second only to "The Banks". This is a book I would gladly recommend to just about anyone.

The Fearsome Doctor Fang 

Writer: Tze Chun, Mike Weiss

Artist: Dan McDaid

Rounding out my initial list is this book. I bought it because I liked the appeal of a pulpish, noir book. This is definitely that book. It reads like a good old fashioned pulp novel. I haven't read them, but I've read enough comics modeled after pulp fiction to get the idea. It is more diverse than I thought. Given the time period this takes place in, it's no small matter that a white guy, a white woman and a Chinese man would work together and bring different skill sets to the table. Quite honestly, this book was a lot of fun.

It follows the well worn trope of enemies becoming friends. It works here to make for some tension and then a growing respect with each other. I also really loved the art in this book. The coloring combined with that to give it an old 30's feel. The action was really good and well paced. The story kept moving and didn't get bogged down in too much exposition. It was also pretty straight forward without any convoluted twists and turns for the most part. I can appreciate that. This is definitely another book I would recommend, provided you like pulp noir.

The Old Guard

If only they had called it the "Right Guard". Just for my own personal amusement because I am 12.

When I first heard that this movie was being adapted from the comic series of the same name, I was excited. Then I promptly forgot all about it until Netflix alerted me to it. It was more because life got in the way than anything else. 

Needless to say, this movie is pretty great. Is it faithful to the comics on which it is based? I don't know. I read the series when it came out in 2017. For me, that is a long time in comic book years. I remember broad strokes at best. However, I do know that I liked it and I am a huge Greg Rucka fan. If nothing else, I'm glad he was able to get another one of his properties adapted into film. The TV show, Stumptown is another one of his properties. I'll give my thoughts on that show at a later time.

Anyway, the movie. It stars Charlize Theron. I love her transition into action star over the past few years. She's very good at it. This movie is no exception. She has the steely glare of a person that has seen it all and done it all in this movie. You sympathize with her because she really wants to be done with everything and each time it isn't, she's full of disappointment. Why does she feel this way? We'll get to that in my brief plot summary.

I won't dwell on the rest of the cast, but they are all very good. I do want to mention that the delightful Chiwetel Ejiofor is also in this movie. So I did not feel any weaknesses in the cast.

To quickly summarize, what I liked about this movie and the books is the backstory. Here you have a couple of near immortals and the toll that being alive for hundreds or thousands of years has taken on them. I've always thought that I would not want the power of immortality. I think you would go mad if you can never actually die. Here, this group of mercenaries work to slowly change the world while also hoping for death. I think it is less altruistic than that, but the movie tackles that a little. You get a sense of their loneliness because they are the only ones of their kind. They don't know why they exist and how things will end for them. Since this is a two hour movie, you can't dwell on it as much as you want, but I think they are effective at conveying it. RE: my comments about Charlize up above. Also, I think they effectively set up what could be a sequel. For now, they discover a new person who is also one of the immortals, so we get to see some of the world through her eyes. As always with these kind of movies, an evil company wants to learn their secrets and monetize that. So there you go, I summed up the plot basically.

I think where this movie shines is that the action scenes are really good. One of the things I am a sucker for is tag team moves. There are a couple of those in here. There are just some really cool moves in general. I definitely had a few, "Oh SHIT" moments, so that is a good thing. I thought the fight choreography was pretty good. When I say pretty good, I mean, for an American movie. Let's be honest, if you watch any martial arts films, this is not that, nor is it trying to be.

I didn't know this until afterwards, but this movie is well funded. You can tell that by the set pieces, the way it's filmed, etc. This could have easily been a theatrical release, but I think having it on Netflix is the better move and ensure that more eyes will see it. It is a small action movie and it would have drowned in the noise of a box office summer. I was honestly hoping this would be a series so you can delve into it, but I think Theron is still too high profile for something like that. 

Given the times we are living in and being at home more, I would absolutely say to watch this movie. You get to see a bad ass female kicking ass.