Whew! What a weekend! Five and Dime Comics had an awesome time at the Granite State Comic Con! We got to see our old friends, make new ones, and have dinner with our good buddy, the great Mark McKenna! Keep an eye on this con fellow geeks, this one is going places! Every year it gets bigger, and the store that runs it out of Manchester, NH (Double Midnight Comics) is just amazing. I cannot speak highly enough of all of them. I’ve never seen someone work harder and be more enthused about these events as the amazing workhorse that is Pat Covey. Kudos my friend, spectacular job! We even ended the weekend with a dinner of Shawarma, as seen in the Avengers…ew. It probably would be good if the chicken I had wasn’t about a week old. As with most cons, I spend little time at our table and out on the floor, spreading the good word of Five and Dime to the masses and sifting through comics. This is my excuse to blow buttwads of money (I just made that up, I LOL’d) on old trades and indie comics. The one that stood out the most was Kay and P, an amazingly done comic about a girl and her best friend…who’s a skeleton…who no one else can see. I picked up every issue and blew through all of them in one sitting. Check it out if you can, it gets five stars in my book. I’m a stickler for comics, and this one has it all: Story, artwork, everything. Do it now! I’ll wait….
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Done? Ok, great huh? I can’t wait for the next issue! While at the con, I got to engage in many discussions about what comics are awesome and which suck. While two people rarely ever agree, and many heated arguments ensue, there is a bond between comic fans that is indescribable. The convention community is fantastic, and we have made so many friends over this past year. So after all the arguments over the best comics, many people tend to not agree with me (Mainly about my love of Jubilee). I can’t blame people for being wrong, not everyone can have such refined exquisite tastes as my own. However, that leads me to this blog, here, in order, are my top five favorite series of all time…
5.) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures
You Know They Enjoyed It
Now, I know, this book is for kids, and is nowhere as gritty as the original. However, this was my first comic and I own every goddamn issue. I used to go to the long dead Kay-Bee toys and pick up the issues every month. Elementary school Greg LOVED the turtles, as any good child of the 80’s should. This book got better and better, and eventually introduced one of my favorite comic characters of all time: Ninjara. She’s a fox, and a ninja, and Rafael’s girlfriend. Tell me she sucks, I dare you. This comic also had every turtle character ever created that will live in my memory forever. Wingnut and Screwloose, Cudley the Cowlick, Dreadmon (which I swear brought about my love of anything Jamaican) and Leatherhead (Ut!). The stories were great, the art was great for a kid’s comic, and it just kept giving. I have never seen a series do so much as this one. There were no breaks. Every issue had some gigantic event going on. Aliens! Inter-dimensional Travel! Giant radioactive dragon! This series was less a comic and more a kid with ADHD’s dream. It was like someone threw up twelve stories and someone connected them into 30 pages. If this comic was still around, I would still read it. I have been reading the new turtles, and it is great, but nothing will ever be as good as this series…unless they bring back Cudley. (Come on people, he was a giant inter-dimensional cow head!)
4.) X-Force
This is too Awesome for a Funny Caption
I’m not talking about the old 90’s version where every dude had pecs bigger than my entire body, I’m talking about the new version. This comic is gritty, dark and tells an amazingly dark story of a band of anti-heroes that do what needs to be done. I never knew of Fantomex before, but he has become one of my favorite characters in the X-Men universe. I was never a big fan of Wolverine, but X-Force has definitely swayed me a bit in his favor. The Dark Angel Saga was one of the best out there on the market right now, and the addition of Deadpool was hot (I know he’s a bit overdone, but he really shines in this book). Where comics nowadays tend to be a bit more PG13 as it is, this one goes straight into the “M for Mature” realm. There’s a lot of killing, maiming and maiming then killing, but it doesn’t overpower the story. I was disappointed recently when they delved into the Captain Britain universe…but that’s just because I hate that character and anything to do with him. That and the artwork was utterly horrendous. I rarely comment on art, but this was just bad. It looked like one of those “I’m drawing this poorly because it’s my style and it’s deep and unique” kind of things…but no. Shut up. Go back to art school.
3.) Cable and Deadpool
You Wish You Had This Much Guy Love!
Oh God, this book was hilarious. I can’t say much more. If you want a laugh, pick up the old trades. Good lord, to see the interaction between these two completely different personalities was just awesome. I was so sad when the whole “Hope” thing happened and Cable left…because it meant this book had to end. Cable always acted like he hated Deadpool, but come on, they were like brothers. They were always there for each other and Cable always had to put up with Deadpool’s wacky antics. I can’t even begin to express how much of a Deadpool fan I am, but this book is what brought it all about. It was always good for a laugh and the stories were very well written.
2.) Generation X
There’s My Girl! Paff! Bitches!
There’s Jubilee! Not number one though? Uh oh, that’s going to be one good comic if it stole the scene from my animated girlfriend! Generation X not only had Jubilee, but it had a well written story, great art, and Banshee. If you want me to buy your book, and it doesn’t have Jubilee in it, put Banshee in it. I don’t know why, but I love that guy. The story was a little hard to follow later on, but all in all it was good. They introduced awesome new characters: Chamber, Penance, M, Husk and Skin, all of who are still around today (minus Skin, who got crucified or something…I missed that) This book stuck out so much to me because it came around during my early teen years. A book about teenage mutant misfits kind of stuck out to me. Plus I related to Mondo’s mutant power of being fat. To this day I will still pull out old issues and read them. Incorporating teen issues and X-Men rocked my world, and back in the day as an unpopular dork, this was my Melrose Place. There have been many books over the years since this one that have tried to do the same thing…and were pretty good…but none ever compared to Generation X for me. I’m not even going to bring up the horrible made for tv movie this series sparked…
1.) Exiles
I’m Getting Chills Just Looking at That Cover Again
There it is. The end all give all for comics. It was like a mutated Quantum Leap. Plus, it was done by Judd Winick and Mark McKenna, before I even knew who those two people were. This book had EVERYTHING. They plucked random mutants from alternate realities and sent them on missions to other alternate realities to fix the time stream and make sure these worlds kept on course. Head explode yet? The main cast kept changing every few issues which was crazy, but they kept a few of the mains around for a long time. Blink, Mimic, Sabretooth, Morph and Nocturne were around for most of it and they just rocked. One of the most touching moments for me in all comic history is when the female version of Sunfire was killed and Morph pulled her body out of the rubble. That hurt. Seriously one of the saddest moments ever. The five on the team were “unhinged” from reality, and were promised they could all go home once their missions were complete. Of course this ended up being a lie and it all went to crap. The book started to go downhill later once when they chased Proteus across the multiverse and Mimic died…
This book stuck out to me for many reasons. The concept was so goddamn unique. They were also able to use a bunch of versions of characters from the Marvel universe that no one ever gave two craps about. I cared about Morph! I never liked Sabretooth, but this one was a good guy and from the awesome Age of Apocalypse universe! Speaking of AoA, they brought Holocaust on the team. This guy was always a bad ass to me and one of my favorite characters from AoA. He was killed when an evil Hyperion cracked his shell…and snorted him. You read that right. I still shake my head when I think of that moment. If you haven’t, check out this book. The trades are cheap and make sure you get the early issues, especially the ones done by Judd. That man is a true wordsmith.
Excuse Me While I Go Cry Myself to Sleep…
