My Top 10 Movies of 2017

10. War for the Planet of the Apes



This is the weakest of the new PotA trilogy, but the other two are so strong that War doesn't have to top them to be amazing. I love how the overarching story builds and explores the conflict between compassion and hate, with each entry looking at it from a different angle.

Rise sees compassion and hate mostly from the human point of view as different people have different feelings about the apes (and by metaphor, about anyone who's different from them). Dawn transfers the conflict to the apes as Caesar and Koba struggle with the proper response to humanity's abuse. But in War the conflict is within Caesar himself.

His ongoing battle with the human Colonel (Woody Harrelson) has led Caesar down a dark path and threatens the beliefs that he holds most dear. War handles this in a beautiful, emotional way and it's a great conclusion to what's easily my favorite science fiction trilogy of all time (at least until the current Star Wars trilogy is done... fingers crossed).

It's this low in the Top 10 only because of particular plot points that I don't care for, but that's about me, not the movie.

9. Wonder Woman



It's awesome. The first DCU movie that's about an actual super hero. I love that Wonder Woman goes on a character journey that is never about whether or not she's going act heroically. It's about her world view changing from simple and naive to complicated and mature. It shakes her to her core, and there's a Zac Snyder moment that made me worried about what she'd do, but she recovers quickly and gets back to the work of fighting evil. Just beautiful.

And I love that the movie is able to introduce her to the world as a fish-out-of-water without sacrificing her confidence. She's learning a new culture and there are funny moments that result, but she's never the butt of the joke.

I do want to point out one thing though that bugs me a little. Not about this movie as its own object, but what it reveals about the wider DC movie universe. In Batman v Superman, Wonder Woman has clearly been gone a long time. No one knows about her or remembers her. It's a major plot point that Batman figures out that she's not a brand new hero, but someone who was around a long time ago. And BvS implies that something happened when she was first here that sent her into hiding. She may or may not have fled back to Themyscira, but she certainly disappeared from the public eye. And that made me concerned - especially in the shadow of Man of Steel and BvS - that Wonder Woman was going to be another dark movie about how heroism is punished.

Watching Wonder Woman, I can still see that movie in there. Diana goes through the ringer. And I can imagine a Snyder-influenced ending where she gives up her mission and just goes home for 100 years. I am so glad that the folks in charge decided not to do that and instead had Diana stick around to keep working, but it does create a large discontinuity with BvS. Making a movie about a hero is a great course correction for the series, but it is a course correction and not a flawless one.

The real thing keeping Wonder Woman out of my Top 5 though is the Ares battle. It's not bad, but I have a hard time with the transition from David Thewlis to full-on, battle-mode Ares. That whole fight is too much CG splashed across the screen. It doesn't ruin the movie in any way, but it's a weakness in an otherwise flawless production.

8. It



I've never read the book or seen the original mini-series adaptation, so I have nothing negative to say about restructuring this first film to be just from the kids' point of view. It was an awesome move and created a movie very much in the vein of Stranger Things and all the '80s kids-on-bicycles movies it's an homage to.

The kid actors are all great and the characters are mostly all great. There are one or two who could be superfluous, but I'm not complaining. None of my favorites were cheated of any characterization because of the others.

It's an entertainingly scary movie. Not completely terrifying, but chilling enough. And I like how the human monsters (bullies and certain parents) are just as nerve-wracking and horrifying as any of the supernatural ones. In the end, the strategy for defeating both kinds of monsters is the same and I love that, too. Can't wait for the sequel.

7. Table 19



I wanted to see this because I like Anna Kendrick, Craig Robinson, and Lisa Kudrow and the trailer looked pretty funny. I generally like wedding comedies because weddings are pretty funny anyway, but I wasn't prepared for how funny and touching Table 19 is.

It's the Breakfast Club of wedding movies. The concept is that at every wedding there's a table of misfits whom no one really expected to come or knows what to do with. Kendrick is the ex-girlfriend of the bride's brother. Robinson and Kudrow are a married couple who have a business relationship with the bride's father. There's also a former nanny, the solo teen-aged son of some family friends, and a disgraced cousin.

But where I expected a revenge comedy about these misfits' taking over the wedding, Table 19 is interested in the characters as people. It discusses why they all decided to come in the first place, forces them to confront their status as outcasts, and lets them bond in a really beautiful way.

6. Spider-Man: Homecoming



Amazing. Spectacular. The ultimate. Web of, even.

I'm not going to call it my favorite Spider-Man movie, because there's some apples-and-oranges going on, but it's exactly the Spider-Man movie that I needed right now. No origin story and not even any universe-building. In fact, it's the opposite of universe-building, because the whole point is to explain why Spider-Man needs his own special corner of the MCU. And I love that the explanation is built on the phrase, "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man." It makes sense, it's what the character needs, and it's exactly where I want to see him go.

Also, what a great, funny, diverse cast of supporting characters. And Michael Keaton is brilliant. Best movie interpretation of a Spider-Man villain so far. And I'm not forgetting about Doctor Octopus.

5. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2



I liked it better than the first one. It's just as funny and visually interesting and the music is just as cool, but it has a more complex villain and some really great (and truly touching) development for Rocket, Yondu, and Nebula. Mantis is an awesome new character and my love for Dave Bautista is now fully stoked. Also, some excellent cameos that were genuine surprises.

4. The Last Jedi



The short version is that I love it. It's a Top Three Star Wars movie for me and I appreciate it more with each viewing. Five times as I'm writing this.

I'll give you the long version on an episode of Nerd Lunch next week, but feel free to discuss with me in the comments below if you want. This is a controversial one and I'm interested in talking it out.

3. A Cure for Wellness



Gore Verbinski's latest film is the best Hammer horror movie in 40 years. It's weird and gothic and so directly aimed at a particular audience that I understand why critics were largely down on it. But I'm fully in that intended audience.

It's about a young man (Dane DeHaan) who's sent by his company to retrieve their CEO from a Swiss wellness center that he's disappeared to. After being stonewalled by the spa's director (Jason Isaacs), DeHaan begins to suspect that something sinister is going on. Not just with his boss, but with all the patients and a young, not-quite-a-patient named Hannah (the impossibly awesomely named Mia Goth). I wouldn't dream of spoiling it for you, but it gets strange and lurid while still holding together as a story. The weirdness isn't for its own sake; it's part of a mystery that makes sense, even though it's wild and imaginative.

2. Hidden Figures



Hidden Figures is as powerful as everyone says. It's simultaneously uplifting and frustrating in exactly the ways that it's trying to be.

What's cool though is that it's also frustrating in some surprising ways. In addition to stories of casual, systemic racism (which are always more powerful to me than the overt, aggressive kind), the movie makes a rather depressing statement about what spurs the white characters towards progress. Since NASA is literally about reaching for the stars and making scientific progress, I guess I expected the movie to depict social progress as some kind of natural result of that.

That's very much not the case though and the film spends quite a bit of time reminding us that the '60s space race was a product of the Cold War. Whatever justice the main characters experience by the end isn't a product of compassion, but fear. It takes the common enemy of the Soviets to motivate the establishment and help it see the value of its non-white allies. Progress is made and that's why Hidden Figures is an encouraging story, but I like that the movie complicates, rather than romanticizes what sparks that change.

1. Kong: Skull Island



I love the 2014 Godzilla, but I also understand the complaint that the monster's not in it enough. I completely disagree, but I understand it. That's definitely not a problem with Kong: Skull Island though.

This isn't the familiar Kong story, but that's for the best since that story is well defined by now. It was time for something new and this is it. The island and its inhabitants (human and monsters alike) are all cool and the film spends plenty of time on them. More importantly, it also spends plenty of time on the invading characters so that I absolutely cared what happened to them, too. Even when I disliked what someone was doing, I totally understood why they were doing it.

It's a great companion piece to Godzilla and I cannot wait for the eventual showdown between the two monsters.

7 Days in May | Spider-Man vs. Will Smith

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)



Amazing. Spectacular. The ultimate. Web of, even.

I'm not going to call it my favorite Spider-Man movie, because there's some apples-and-oranges going on here. But it's exactly the Spider-Man movie that I needed right now. No origin story and not even any universe building. In fact, it's the opposite of universe-building, because the whole point is to explain why Spider-Man needs his own special corner of the MCU. And I love that the explanation is built on the phrase, "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man." It makes sense, it's what the character needs, and it's exactly where I want to see him go.

Also, what a great, funny, diverse cast of supporting characters. And Michael Keaton is brilliant. Best movie interpretation of a Spider-Man villain so far, and I'm not forgetting about Doctor Octopus.

Collateral Beauty (2016)



I was warned, but wanted to see it anyway. Here's a written review that told me what I was getting into. Here's a whole podcast episode. David Chen of the Slashfilmcast describes it as "morally reprehensible," which I have to admit made me even more curious to see it. Nor was I dissuaded by having the entire story described to me, beat by beat, twist by weird and ill-advised twist.

"Morally reprehensible" is probably too strong, because I'm not as convinced as Chen that the movie endorses the truly abominable behavior of Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Michael Peña's characters. But it certainly doesn't punish them for it either and it does seem super ignorant about just how awful they're being. That's the real problem with the movie: it's oblivious to the huge questions - both moral and logical - that it raises.

But great cast and Will Smith in particular is acting his ass off. It's a fascinating film to watch and try to figure out what happened to make it go so horribly, horribly wrong.

Kongo (1932)



This is an adaptation of a 1926 play by the same name, which had already been made into a movie by Tod Browning in 1928 called West of Zanzibar, starring Lon Chaney and Lionel Barrymore. I've seen West of Zanzibar and it's good. Chilling, but good. 1932's Kongo is, too.

Walter Huston (Chaney, in the first adaptation) plays a cruel, truly evil ivory trader who's looking for revenge against an old enemy. His plans have been brewing a long time and involve luring his enemy's daughter (Virginia Bruce) into the jungle with a forged letter supposedly from her father. Once she's in the villain's power, he does horrible things to her both onscreen and off. It's hard to watch, frankly, but then things get interesting when a doctor (Conrad Nagel) - outcast from society presumably because he's an alcoholic - shows up. He wants to help the woman, but is challenged by his own weaknesses as well as her hopelessness and lack of cooperation. And then there are revelations that turn the whole thing upside down and introduce all new threats.

It's dark stuff, but crazy compelling. It covers some of the same themes as Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, but I like it way more.

The Narrow Corner (1933)



Based on a novel by W Somerset Maugham, who was a popular writer of the '20s and '30s. He specialized in melodramas set on tropical islands, particularly ones about British people trying to adjust to island life. He was one of Ian Fleming's favorite authors and "Quantum of Solace" is an homage to Maugham's stuff.

I liked The Narrow Corner well enough. Douglas Fairbanks Jr is a handsome dude and looks great tooling around in island wear. Patricia Ellis is super cute, too, and I liked them as a couple. I wasn't totally invested in the shenanigans going on around them - conspiring to keep them apart - but the setting is great and well-photographed and there are some cool special effects involved in getting a boat over a dangerous reef.

Jam of the Week: "After the Disco" by Broken Bells

Hard to pick one song - of even a few songs - from Broken Bells' After the Disco album that I like better than the others. Usually after listening to a record this many times, I've whittled down the playlist to a handful that I still want to hear over and over again, but with After the Disco it's still the whole album. The title track is representative, though. Deeply infectious and pleasant pop.

10 Movies I Could Take or Leave from 2014

30. Winter's Tale



This movie tries so hard to push all my buttons. It's beautifully shot and has lots of things I love: immortals, romance, a non-linear narrative, and a powerful twist. It's the twist that bothers me though. Winter's Tale did such a nice job of investing me in one kind of story that when the twist came, I wasn't just unprepared for it, I actually resented it. Sadly, not sticking the landing on stories I otherwise really enjoyed is going to be a recurring theme in this post.

29. Under the Skin



I wrote a full review of Under the Skin, but the short version is that I found it intellectually interesting, but was never emotionally invested in Scarlett Johansson's character.

28. Non-Stop



It's a tense thriller that showcases everything I like about Liam Neeson as an action hero, but the plot feels forced along by some dumb decisions and then the whole movie goes completely off the rails when the villain's unbelievable motivations are revealed.

27. The Amazing Spider-Man 2



I really, truly love Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone as Peter and Gwen and it's frustrating that they're in such stupid plots with such boring, poorly drawn villains. Garfield and Stone make it impossible for me to hate this movie, but I can't bring myself to like it either.

26. 3 Days to Kill



Frankly, I get this one a little confused with The November Man. Both are about aging assassins who need to protect young women, but 3 Days to Kill is the better one. Amber Heard is pretty ridiculous as the person who pulls Kevin Costner back into the spy game, but she's kind of fun too and I enjoyed Costner's character and his relationship with his daughter (Hailee Steinfeld). It's not a great spy thriller, but it's a good B-movie and I'm glad to see Costner back this year in some fun roles.

25. Mr. Peabody and Sherman



The drama that threatens Peabody and Sherman's relationship is forced and clunky and I felt nothing about the lessons either of them learned about each other. But there are some really funny gags and I laughed out loud quite a bit. Wish there had been even more of that.

24. Edge of Tomorrow



Another movie that's awesome right up until the end where it falls apart. There's been a lot of love heaped on this movie this year and mostly I think it's deserved. Cruise's character is pleasantly against stereotype for him, Blunt is totally badass, and the way the movie structures its live-die-repeat sequences is ingenious. But the movie has no idea how to end itself and simply stumbles its way through the last act to get to the closing credits. I ding it heavily for that.

23. Only Lovers Left Alive



Like Under the Skin, this is another that I reviewed for Halloween. I like it better than Under the Skin, because Swinton and Hiddleston's characters are so generous about giving me things to connect with. And unlike Lucy, it has some profound thoughts about the purpose of human existence. But I don't think it's re-watchable for me. I enjoyed the time I spent with the characters, but not enough to want to do it again, so that makes it a good movie that I'll probably forget about in a year.

22. 300: Rise of an Empire



I had really low expectations for this, so that's probably why I was as pleasantly surprised as I was. It isn't visually unique like the first 300 (which I guess is no longer unique either now that it's been imitated a bunch of times) and the story isn't as compelling, but it's got a decent plot and Eva Green is awesome as the scene-chewing villain Artemisia.

21. Gone Girl



I probably need to give Gone Girl another look to see if I like it better, but I had a hard time with it the first go. I get the commentary on modern news media and the way it turns people's tragedies into consumable pop culture, but I don't feel like that commentary was anything new or insightful. I totally agree that that's what the news does and that we let it do that, so I don't know how much more there is to say. Far more interesting is the idea of masks and how we hide our true selves from other people, including folks we're supposed to be in honest relationships with. I love thinking about that, but struggled with the point of view that Gone Girl seems to take on it. I appreciate that my struggle is exactly what the film wants from me, but like Winter's Tale, that came out of nowhere and threw me off guard. Unlike Winter's Tale, Gone Girl is very artful about pulling the rug out from underneath me, so I'm enjoying still mulling it over all these months later. If this were a Best of 2014 list instead of a ranking of how much I liked these movies, Gone Girl would place a lot higher.

Top 5 Spider Movies

Amazing Spider-Man 2 starts this weekend and sadly, I couldn't be less excited. I'm planning to see it, but mostly for the kissing parts. The villain-focused mythology this new series is building doesn't interest me at all, largely because that was the weakest part of the previous Amazing Spider-Man movie.

With that in mind, I thought it might be fun to remember and talk about some other spider-based movies that I expect I'll still like better than this new one once I've seen it. I picked my five favorites and some honorable mentions that didn't quite make the cut. Naturally, I want to hear about yours in the comments.

5. Beast from Haunted Cave (1959)



When I wrote about Beast from Haunted Cave a couple of years ago, I mentioned that it's primarily a crime drama disguised as a creature feature. The monster takes backseat to the conflict in a group of bank robbers and the guide they trick into helping them, which is what makes me love the film all the more. What crime thriller wouldn't be enhanced by a mysterious, cave-dwelling, web-spinning beast? The fact that it's not really a giant spider, but a spider-like humanoid only makes it more appropriate as a replacement for Spider-Man.

4. Charlotte's Web (1973)



I don't have a lot of time for the live-action remake from 2006, but the original cartoon adaptation of EB White's book still holds a special place in my heart. Paul Lynde's Templeton the rat was a huge attraction, but I'm amazed at how fond I grew of Charlotte the spider and how heart-broken and yet optimistic I was over that ending. That's a complicated blend of emotions to ask from children, but it's exactly why the story is so powerful and enduring.

3. Tarantula (1955)



If you're gonna turn ordinary animals into giant freaks - which people loved to do in the '50s - you can't do better than the hairiest, nastiest animal of them all. I don't know if I've mentioned, but as much as I complain about cephalopods around here, spiders - and tarantulas in particular - are 1000 times worse. This is almost my worst nightmare.

31 Werewolves | Man-Wolf

I'm not sure why Marvel needed another werewolf character only a year after the introduction of Werewolf by Night, but they did and I'm glad. Even if Man-Wolf isn't a supernatural creature, but a pseudo-scientifiction version.

J. Jonah Jameson's astronaut son John had been around since Amazing Spider-Man #1 and got into a couple of scrapes with the web-slinger before he turned into the Man-Wolf in #124. On a secret mission to the moon, young Jameson discovered a red gem and felt compelled to possess it. Though he turned it in after the mission, he went back for it and made it into a pendant. On the next full moon, the gem reacted with the moonlight and caused Jameson to transform, while also fusing to Jameson's throat, so that he couldn't remove it.

Thanks to the intervention of Spider-Man and other Marvel heroes, Jameson has periodically been freed of the curse, but of course it always ends up coming back to him. He's been a steady fixture in the Marvel Universe and was even briefly married to She-Hulk.

10 Honorable Mention Films from 2012

20. The Five-Year Engagement



I lost patience toward the middle when it took some really stupid decision-making to prolong the engagement to five years, but even when it stretched credibility, the movie never stopped being funny or having Jason Segel in it. It wins points for both of those things.

19. John Carter



Nowhere near the mess that lots of people claim it was; just not as spectacular as it should have been for the talent involved. It's a fun, scifi escape with a couple of legitimately great moments; we just all hoped for so much more.

18. The Amazing Spider-Man



"Expectations" are a recurring theme on my honorable mentions list this year. I didn't have high ones for The Amazing Spider-Man and like most people, I questioned the fundamental existence of the project. It was made for purely cynical, We Have to Do This or Lose the License reasons.

But though it contains some highly unnecessary rehashing of the Sam Raimi material, it also found some new things to do with its tone and the central relationships. It's worthwhile for Peter and Gwen alone.

17. ParaNorman



I love the theme in ParaNorman about being your own person and not letting other people define you. Also: the animation is amazing. I wasn't totally in love with the character designs though, and since that's what I was looking at for most of the film, that's what keeps it out of my Top 10.

16. The Hunger Games



I'm disappointed that this isn't in my Top 10 for the year, either. I totally thought it would be, but during the second viewing I found myself getting bored. I kept myself entertained by focusing on Jennifer Lawrence's wonderful performance, which communicated very well the horror of Katniss' situation. Without her internal monologue though, it was hard to get what I wanted from her moral struggle over how to act in the arena.

Still looking forward to Catching Fire, but I'm more detachedly curious about it than wildly enthusiastic like I was for this one.

15. Underworld: Awakening



In a year that brought a disappointing entry in the Resident Evil movies, I'm thrilled that we got a worthy film in my other favorite horror/scifi adventure series starring a woman. Awakening pretty much punts and launches a Bold New Direction for Underworld, but it's a good direction with some likable, new characters and I enjoyed it very much.

14. 21 Jump Street



I want to say that this is so much better than a movie based on an all-but-forgotten TV show has the right to be, but even though that's true, it's not really fair to suggest that that's all 21 Jump Street has going for it. It's just a very funny movie, period. That it gets a small part of that humor from pointing out and making fun of its sordid roots is just frosting for the cake. I'd probably rate it higher if not for the skeevy romance between Jonah Hill's character and a high school student.

13. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted



Listen: After the horrible piece of derivative crap that Madagascar 2 was, I'm as surprised as anyone to find Madagascar 3 on this list. In fact, I didn't want to see it at all when it was announced. It wasn't until it got a 79% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes that I had to see what the heck was going on with this thing. To my surprise, it was hilarious and - more importantly - original. It also pretty much wrapped up the saga with a nice bow on top, so I don't expect to be interested in a Madagascar 4, but never say never.

12. Haywire



No, Gina Carano is not a great actress. And the plot of Haywire is nothing new. But the movie makes up for both of those things with heart and authenticity. I wrote a full review of it, so I'll point you there for more thoughts, but it really was one of my favorite movie experiences of the year.

11. Moonrise Kingdom



This was my first Wes Anderson film since Rushmore, which I never quite forgave for stealing Bill Murray away from movies like Groundhog Day and The Man Who Knew Too Little. Seeing Moonrise Kingdom makes me want to find out what I've been missing. It's a small movie, but a lovely one, and makes great use of its setting and awesome cast.

Snappy Valentine's Day!

I'm sorry. (Especially if someone's done this joke before and I missed it.)

Spider-Man Hates Cephalopods

Read the whole, horrifying history at Diversions of the Groovy Kind.

The Marvel 52, Part Five: Marvel Heroes

Sorry for the silence the last couple of days. Busy busy. I'll have to do a project update sooner or later. Kill All Monsters is coming along nicely and I've been working on a short, prose story about an old, pulp character named The Purple Scar, but I could give you some more details about both of those.

Anyway, the last twelve titles in my Marvel 52 are the big guns.

12. The Liberators by Gail Simone and Colleen Coover



The Lady Liberators were introduced way back in Avengers #83 as a team of villains (of course) to fight those poor boys of the Avengers. They made sort of a comeback in recent years though as a heroic group when She-Hulk formed an informal team of superwomen to fight the chauvinistic Red Hulk in Jeph Loeb's Hulk. Then they got together a couple of other times after that in She-Hulk and The Mighty Avengers.

I'm all about the female superheroes, so it would be awesome to have a book where they could team up regularly. Maybe have a core team of She-Hulk, Valkyrie, Black Widow, and Hellcat with other women coming on for particular missions. Since that's sort of Marvel's version of Birds of Prey, it's unoriginal, but entirely appropriate to have Gail Simone writing it. And Colleen Coover draws Marvel women (and men, for that matter) like nobody else.

11. Valkyrie by Paul Cornell and Jill Thompson

I know there's a bona fide female version of Thor, but Valkyrie's been around a lot longer and has the benefit of not being exactly a female version of Thor. She has the whole, cool Viking thing going on without just copying him. I know Paul Cornell could do awesome things with that and Jill Thompson's got a great, fantasy style that would suit very well.

10. Runaways by Brian K Vaughan and Ben Caldwell

Vaughan has said that he always wanted Runaways to be a series that other creative teams could pick up and run with; that he wanted it to be sort of his legacy at Marvel. But though other creators have done pretty well with the concept, unfortunately no one's doing anything with it now. I'd correct that and bring back the writer who started it all. Ben Caldwell has a great, manga-esque style that's perfect for books about (and targeted to) younger kids.

9. Agents of Atlas by Jeff Parker and Leonard Kirk



Quite simply the most definitively awesome team book anyone's ever made in the history of comics. It was Jeff Parker's baby, so no one else can touch the writing, and though there have been a few excellent artists working with Parker on it over the years, Leonard Kirk was the first. I'd want that dream team back on it again.

8. Spider-Man by Phil Hester and Pia Guerra

Spidey is a character that I haven't been excited about since the '70s. Phil Hester could change that by bringing the same mix of high adventure and everyman troubles that he put into Firebreather. As for Pia Guerra (Y: The Last Man)... Why, oh, why isn't she drawing a monthly comic book right now?

7. The Fantastic Four by Brian Clevinger and Darwyn Cooke



Brian Clevinger's proven that he's not about to run out of wacky science stories for Atomic Robo anytime soon, so why not share some of that with everyone's favorite family of super scientists? And you know you want to see Darwyn Cooke cut loose on a series like that.

6. Pet Avengers by Evan Dorkin and Katie Cook

Evan Dorkin can write a damn good animal story. Not just a cute, funny animal story (though they are that, too), but a real story about animals you care about. I sort of want his Beasts of Burden partner Jill Thompson on this one, but I'm trying not to be completely unoriginal and Katie Cook's not only awesome, she also has a thing for Marvel and pets.

5. Young Avengers by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung



Okay, maybe I am totally unoriginal. But in my dreamworld, Heinberg would have time to write a monthly series about these characters he and Cheung made up. I loved it when they were on the book, but in other hands the characters haven't been as exciting.

4. Iron Man by James Turner and Nicola Scott

If I can't have Robert Downey Jr play Tony Stark right there in my comic, something else that could get me to buy it would be to have James Turner (Rex Libris, Warlord of Io) write it. Like all my favorite writers, Turner has an insane imagination and unrestrained abandon about letting it spill out of his head and onto the page. And he's hilarious. I'm not saying that it hasn't been this way lately, because I haven't read Iron Man in years, but in general the character needs some craziness. It should be a scifi/superspy comic and I'd love to see Nicola Scott ground something like that in reality.

3. Thor by Neil Gaiman and George O'Connor



I went back and forth about whether I'd prefer to have George O'Connor (Olympians) write and draw this one by himself. He's certainly got the ability to tell fun stories about mythological characters.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how amazing it would be to see Gaiman make Asgard as huge and epic as the Dreaming.

2. Captain America by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener

If there's something else Clevinger appears to like as much as superscience, it's WWII history. Not only could he tell some fantastic flashback stories to Cap's adventures in those days, he's also a guy who - like Brubaker - can let that time period continue informing the personality and choices of the modern Captain America. And why not let Clevinger's Atomic Robo cohort, Scott Wegener be in charge of bringing it to life?

1. The Avengers by Paul Tobin and Cliff Chiang



Paul Tobin's already been writing the best Avengers comic around for the Marvel Adventures line, so he should get his shot at the main book with one of the best superhero artists working today.

Art Show: Strange Visitor from Another Planet

Superman



By Evan Shaner. I occasionally have a hard time remembering what I like about Superman, but this picture brings it all back. I love the determination on his face mixed with the little smile. He's about to save a life or lives, but he's having fun doing it. Not because he's careless about the responsibility, but because he truly enjoys his job. This is so much more meaningful to me than images that show him off in the distance, detached from humanity. [ComicTwart]

Northstar



By Ted Naifeh.

Alpha Flight's Night Out



By Ryan Alexander-Tanner. I love Sasquatch's expression as he's not sure what to do with a depressed Puck. Meanwhile, Mac earns his name. [Drawbridge]

Sasquatch



By Gavin Spence. I've been looking through some old files recently and found this by my pal Gav who's also one of the artists on Cownt Tales.

Joy-Rider Spider



By Caanan Grall.

Discover the Thrill of Space and Time



By Justin White. [Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs: Click the link to find out also what happens to T-Rexes who play with finger traps.]

Western Robot



Artist Unknown. [Brother Cal has found several great robot paintings.]