Best of 2014 Awards – Best Marvel Comics

Mighty Avengers – At NYCC, I told Al Ewing that this was my favorite Marvel title, and he seemed genuinely touched and surprised. Great cast, great storylines, and some of the best characterizations of any comic out there. I do kind of think this book took a small step back when it was relaunched as an Axis crossover, but that doesn’t take away from how much I enjoyed the book for the rest of the year.

Ms Marvel – I always say that comic companies need to create more fresh new characters. Kamala Khan definitely fits the bill here. A strong and fun young Muslim girl who lives in the city I grew up in. Ms Marvel has created its own mythos and villains, while still tying it into the bigger Marvel universe, with some terrific appearances by Wolverine and Medusa.

Silver Surfer – This was a book I had a lot of huge expectations for. Dan Slott and Mike Allred is a tough creative team to beat. Thankfully, Silver Surfer has been well up to the challenge of meeting those high expectations. I was a huge Surfer fan when I started reading comics back in the early 90’s, but I’ve felt the character has been misused A LOT since then. This series has definitely restored a lot of the reasons I was a huge fan in the first place.

Honorable: Daredevil – I do think Daredevil has lost a step since moving the series to San Francisco, but it was already far ahead of most comics out there, so that still keeps it as one of the best comics out there. I was sad to hear that Waid will be leaving the book next year. I just hope that Marvel finds someone great to replace him. DD has been fortunate over the years to have terrific creative teams more often than not.

The Superior Foes of Spider-Man – This title has been hilarious, but is now canceled.

She-Hulk – This title has been as good as Superior Foes, with even better art, but now it’s canceled.

Bucky Barnes: Winter Soldier – Marco Rudy is such an incredible artist. I love that Marvel has given him such a wild canvas to paint on.

Moon Knight –This book survived the departure of Warren Ellis quite well, and while not as perfect, has become more interesting with longer stories being told.

Honorable: Avengers/New Avengers – I know there’s a lot of Hickman hate, but for the most part, I like what he’s doing.

Uncanny X-Men – Why Uncanny instead of All-New? Because Cyclops is amazing. Bendis kept up his full on revitalization of the X books, and this was a great year. Plus, the book has Eva, who is almost as awesome as Cyclops.

Superior Foes of Spider-Man – What a year it was for this book? First it didn’t end with Superior Spider-Man the way Superior Team Up did. Then the price jumped by a dollar to coincide with it not being canned, and then hey, guess what? It was over. All that said, it was one of the most fun self contained runs that I’ve come across in ages. The Sinister Six and their incompetence and shenanigans and the fact that there were only five of them; it was a book about bumbling bad guys that weren’t even sure what they were doing half of the time, and that kept swerving both characters and readers. It just ended a few weeks ago and I miss it already.

Mighty Avengers – Avengers is unreadable. New Avengers is unreadable. Mighty Avengers was pure brilliance that managed to overcome the fact that Greg Land was “drawing” it. It might have started life with the stigma of “Minority Avengers”, but Al Ewing took a very diverse roster and made them the most interesting one in the line.

Avengers Undercover – Speaking of good Avengers books, I miss the hell out of this one. What happens when the good guys go bad? Better question, what happens when a group of teenage superheroes get thrown into a no-win situation on Murderworld, kill or be killed until they finally get out, and then have to live with the world knowing everything they did to survive? What happens when the Avengers pass judgement? What happens when these kids, with enough PTSD to fill a VFW, try and be heroes again by stopping the Masters of Evil? What happens when they try to outwit Zemo? Well, a lot of awesome storytelling cut short by Marvel’s insistance on constant relaunches and renumberings, as it’s been confirmed that this book died the way it did because not everyone realized it was a continuation of Arena. A pointless rebranding killed this fantastic book.

Honorable Mention: New Warriors – I bought this because Chris Yost writes good books, not because I have any love or nostalgia for the New Warriors. I mean, Justice is awesome (Busiek’s Avengers), and Kaine is awesome (from Clone Saga to present), but I went with this because it’s Yost and I thought it could be something special. Turned out that it was, it was fun, it was a book I looked forward to every month, and one that I knew would probably not last the year. It didn’t, but at least it gave us Justice and the Giant Bear.

Daredevil – This is the only Marvel series that I’m reading right now. It’s not necessarily mind-blowing all the time, but it’s definitely consistent. The creative team has a direction for the title and they follow it. They were even able to make the Original Sin tie-in decent, which surprised me because tie-ins can really suck the momentum from books.