A Look Back at 2012: What I Read. At Least Some of You Won’t Be Surprised.

Many authors, it seems, are posting their 2012 reads on their blogs and I decided to do the same. I did read a few novels, however, by far the majority of what I read were, in one form or another, comic books. So, following Annie Daylon’s lead, I’m going to post a list of all the graphic novel anthologies I read, along with a short review of each.

Note, these are just the compilations. I did read quite a few single issues, too. Mostly the Avengers vs. X-Men storyline that spilled over into, like, seven different titles. I managed to keep up for about three months until it hurt my pocket book too much. The other big series I read the first four or five books of and really liked was Brian K. Vaughan’s newest title, Saga. The problem with that one was that it’s hard to find anywhere that carries it. The only place I know of is way out in Surrey which is over an hour from where I live and, by the time I got round to getting there, they were always sold out or had jumped the price on the current issue by two or three bucks. So I gave up.

Anyway, in no particular order, here are the graphic novel compilations I read in 2012. Again, I did read some fiction. But I will argue to the grave that some of the comic writing out there is better than a lot of the fiction writing out there. Of course, a lot of the comic writing out there is utter shite, so there’s always that argument coming back at me.

Batman: Dark Victory by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale. This was my introduction to Jeph Loeb’s writing and Tim Sale’s artwork and I was sold from page one. They are both amazingly talented. So much so, I can’t believe I never stumbled on them before. I love the way Tim Sale draws the Dark Knight.
Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale. When I find a comic writer (or any writer, for that matter), I tend to read deeply into his stuff. I think I’ve read everything Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis have ever produced. When I finally finished it was very sad, because I felt like I was running out of good writers (they really are hard to find in comics). Then along comes this team. I read The Long Halloween after Dark Victory and I’m not sure even now which order they were supposed to go in. There are discrepancies all over the place. I still love the storylines in both and they stand alone well. Again, the artwork is superb.
Batman: Haunted Knight by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale. I was actually disappointed in this volume. I think it must have been an early project for the two collaborators. Sale’s artwork wasn’t as good as in the other books I’d read, and the three stories (which were unconnected) didn’t grab me at all.
Batman: Hush by Jeph Loeb & Jim Lee. I ordered this one off Amazon with great anticipation. Having found a fantastic writer, and knowing in advance how fantastic an artist Jim Lee is, I figured it couldn’t miss. I wasn’t disappointed. It’s weird comparing Jim Lee’s art to Tim Sale’s. They are complete opposites. Tim Sale is like a minimalist and Jim Lee draws every freaking detail in a scene. They are both gods. Small g.
Batman: The Widening Gyre by Kevin Smith. I may as well get the Batman stuff out of the way first. This was my year to read Batman comics. I wasn’t much of a fan before 2012, but this year I was so inspired I wrote my YA book Darkstone: The Perfection of Wisdom with Batman in the back of my mind. It shows a bit. Hopefully not “let’s sue him” a bit. This story was great. I love Kevin Smith. I’ve seen all his movies and read a lot of the comics he’s written. The Widening Gyre is actually a sequel to another Batman graphic novel he wrote called Cacophony that I haven’t read, but on the advice of the guy working at the comic store, I bought this one instead. I’m glad I did. It’s mainly a love story. Until you hit the super surprise at the end. Then it’s no longer such a love story. It’s a Kevin Smith story 100%.
Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder by Frank Miller. Being a huge Miller fan, I had great expectations for this book that it simply didn’t live up to. It’s basically a redone (or, probably, expanded is a better word) origin story of Robin, and there are some cool parts, but there are also parts where I felt Batman acted completely out of character. It didn’t stand up to the rest of Frank Miller’s work, things like Year One and The Dark Knight Returns which I consider to be some of the best stuff done to date in the industry.
Batman: Monsters by Warren Ellis (or so the cover says). I bought this book because the cover said Warren Ellis wrote it. It actually contains six unrelated comics, one of which was written by Warren Ellis. Because Warren Ellis is almost as good as Shakespeare, his story is fantastic, of course. But the other five are terrible.
Batman: No Man’s Land by Assorted authors. I ordered this off Amazon because of the reviews and because it was the first of a number of volumes and because it was huge (it’s almost an inch thick). I was running out of things to read and, I thought, if it’s good, I’ll have something to keep me going for a while. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very good. The idea is that Gotham has been wiped out by an earthquake and is considered “No Man’s Land.” It’s not even part of the United States anymore. Gangs have taken up in the streets. Cool idea, right? For about forty pages. Then it starts to be the same thing over and over and over. I can’t imagine reading another volume of this. It took me a month to get through the first one.
Daredevil: Yellow by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale. So I’m done listing Batman stuff, but still have a Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale graphic novel to mention. This was strong work. Not as strong as their batman stuff, but I wasn’t disappointed. Again, it was an origin story, retold from a different angle. There seems to be a trend in comics in going back to origin stories lately.
Clive Barker’s Collected Best: Hellraiser by Alex Ross, Neil Gaiman & Mike Mignola. Well with an all-star lineup like that, how can you go wrong? This features a long series of stories based on the Hellraiser movie franchise. If you liked the movies, you’ll like this.
Green Lantern Secret Origin by Geoff Johns. I bought this because it was almost free. Again, it was another origin story. Even worse, it was a tie-in to the movie. Need I say more?
The Exterminators: Bug Brothers by Simon Oliver & Tony Moore. One of the weirdest concepts I’ve ever seen actually get turned into a product and sold. I can just imagine the conversation they had before making this. “Let’s do a comic about cockroaches.” “Don’t we need superheroes?” “Nah, the roaches will be kinda like the heroes.” “Sounds great! Pass the bottle, hey?” The funny part is, once you actually get into the thing, it’s not that bad. It held my interest. I’m not sure I’ll go out and buy volume two, but I didn’t mind it. I was in a Facebook conversation with about ten British guys shortly after reading it and they loved it like it was some kind of religion, so I think the thing actually has a following. Maybe there’s a moral here somewhere.
Ultimate Iron Man II by Orson Scott Card. What can I say? It’s Iron Man. It was written by Orson Scott Card. It was pretty darn good. Not fantastic. It wasn’t Ender’s Game or Speaker for the Dead, but it was better than some of Card’s other novels.
Iron Man: Armor Wars by Warren Ellis. This is similar to what I just said about Orson Scott Card. Warren Ellis writing Iron Man can’t be bad. It wasn’t super fantastic. It felt like he was doing it for the paycheck, but even non-super-fantastic Ellis is better than most writers at their pinnacle.
Avengers Academy: Will We Use This in the Real World by Christos Gage. While reading all the AvsX issues, I got to know some new writers. One of them was Christos Gage doing Avengers Academy. I think he’s pretty young, but he has the potential to become great. This compendium was solid. The storyline kept my interest and made sense. That’s good enough for an almost unknown author, in my opinion.
The Mighty Avengers: Secret Invasion by Brian Michael Bendis. Brian Michael Bendis is right up there with Warren Ellis as one of my favorite comic book writers, especially when it comes to superhero stuff. I love his work on Ultimate Spiderman. Yet, this issue failed to be spectacular. In fact, without actually opening it, I can’t recall a single thing about the plotline right now.
The New Avengers: The Trust by Brian Michael Bendis. Another Avengers title penned by Bendis and another one where I am having problems recalling the story. I know one of the two had something to do with spiderwoman backstabbing the rest of the group and losing her powers. At any rate, neither of these are his best work. Maybe Bendis shouldn’t be writing Avengers. Personally, I’d like to see him go back to doing Powers, that was unbelievable. Although, I hear House of M is really good.
The New Avengers: Secrets & Lies by Brian Michael Bendis. I hate having to keep slamming Bendis, but none of these stories have stuck with me, so I can’t really give them good reviews. This actually might be the spiderwoman backstabbing book.
The New Avengers: Search for the Sorcerer Supreme by Brian Michael Bendis. Okay, finally one Bendis Avengers comic I can say was a good read. This one had me on the edge of my seat, and the dialogue was great, in true Bendis fashion. I only bought these last half dozen or so graphic novels because of Bendis’s name on the cover, that’s how much of a fan I am. So if you’re looking for a great comic book writer, don’t let these reviews turn you away from him, just pick up an Ultimate Spiderman instead or one of the Powers compilations that have been coming out. They’re utterly fantastic.

And that’s my 2012 in comics. If any of you out there have any comic recommendations or recommendations of comic book writers I might not know who are good, please, please, please send them my way. If I had to choose my favorite from this entire list, I’d have to say it was probably the first one I mentioned: Batman: Dark Victory, but that might just be because I was so blown away about finally finding a new writer and artist team that I loved.

Michael out.