#10: NOMAD: GIRL WITHOUT A WORLD • C'mon, you thought exactly the same as me. "What good could ever come out of Rob Liefeld's Captain America v. 2 reboot?!?" It was one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" moves—turning over the flagship books of the Marvel Universe to the Image artists for a year could actually result in some new and fresh blood and ideas. Yet now, those "volume twos" of Marvel are best considered swept under the stairs, forgotten above, only useful for giving Marvel an opportunity to never mention Teen Tony again. And Cap? Oh, a Cap by Rob Liefeld and yet no "A" on his forehead is a scary thing indeed. After all, it's the comic book that gave us this wonderful moment of anatomy:
His...legs...are five feet long! And take a big steamin' gander at this one:
Um...yeah. To be fair, maybe Dum-Dum is really short and Sharon is really tall.
Oh my achin' head.
I could give Nomad props simply for not being as bad as Liefeld's Cap. But y'know what? Despite the title character being the Bucky of that universe and being reintroduced in (shudder) Onslaught Reborn, this miniseries is actually really good...just downright fun. Rikki Barnes, trapped in the Marvel Universe (hence the series subtitle!) finds out exactly what millions of schoolkids around the world already think: that her teacher's a supervillain: namely the (sorta lame) Professor Power from Marvel Team-Up. Except, like Rikki herself, Prof Power's been upgraded (thanks to a good story) to a genuine threat backed by the all-new, all-different, presumably non-Nixon-helmed Secret Empire. The customed hero action story is great, but it's the civilian subplot that stands out here: Rikki (and her brother from another Earth), their friends and schoolmates are all well-drawn and believable. Sean McKeever and David Baldeon give Rikki an' her pals realistic dialogue and designs, and her attempts to find a place for herself on a world where she technically doesn't exist is a unique twist to a human hero. The series has great covers, lovely dramatic art, and a solid plot that doesn't tip into pathos. It's been a long time since Marvel gave a new hero such a solid send-off to a series of adventures, and with the new Nomad set to make backup appearances in the high-profile Captain America and a potential for team-ups or membership in the Young Avengers, Rikki Barnes could be the next big young star of the Marvel Universe. I'm certainly eager to follow her future adventures.
#9: LANTERN RINGS • Whoda thunk that a plastic giveaway toy would become one of the most fun promotional items in the world of comics this past year? Serving to build excitement around DC's ultra-zombie multi-crossover "Blackest Night," the rings dramatically increased the monthly sales of second-tier titles and even frontrunners in the DC stable: at its very heart, to the fans the promotion was more "buy a ring and get a free comic" than the reverse. Once you pick up Booster Gold or Outsiders or R.E.B.E.L.S. just to get the ring, you might, just might, get interested in the series enough to keep buying it. Only future analysis of the DC monthly sales will tell, but even if the sell-through of these books drop back to their usual level, it was good for the comic shops, it was fun for the collectors, and it was dynamite for DC. And even yours little stuffed truly had a lot of fun with 'em too! Not bad at all for a little plastic toy that in years past, would have been packaged at the bottom of a cereal box.
#8: DOCTOR DOOM AND THE MASTERS OF EVIL • The most Shakespearean villain in the Marvel U, Dr. Doom has a rich and varied history of stories not only in the pages of Fantastic Four but in virtually every Marvel comic at one point or another. I've never counted 'em, but there must be a heck of a lot of Doom stories out there. The best of them treat Doom absolutely straight: a man of skill and honor and obsession, who is utterly and unerringly convinced that he is right and he is mighty...in fact, virtually above the level of ordinary humans, even the superheroes. The greatest Doom stories play on that hubris as Doom's greatest strength and flaw. Paul Tobin's splendid miniseries surrounds Doom with a wide cast of criminal characters from around the world, but you never, never forget who the boss is here. It's virtually a tour of villainy in the MU, from the Circus of Crime to Mysterio, from the Enchantress to the Sentinels, accompany (or oppose) Doom's elaborate odyssey to unlock an ancient power that will destroy his greatest enemy. Princess Python serves as the reader's avatar, voicing our own fears and doubts about Doom at the same time explaining the darkest corners of the Marvel Universe. All of this would make for a pretty good Doc Doom story, but it's the final plot twist, when Doom achieves exactly what he had planned for, that brings this to the top pantheon of the many adventures of Victor von D. Tobin's twist is brilliant, absolutely apt, and a sharp, appropriate coda to the series. It's easy to write a villain, and it's tough to get them right. Tobin hits a dead-center bullseye with Doctor Doom and the Masters of Evil, giving us a Doom you're both terrified and envious of.
#7: BERGEN STREET COMICS • A comic book shop on my list of fun things of the year? Sure, why not? 've bought a lot of comics in a lot of comic book stores over the years, and many of them have been great comic book shops, beginning with Dream Days and Twilight in Syracuse, Queen City Books in Buffalo (where I got personal recommendations to pick up Bone and Sandman), and the famous Chicago Comics. But I've never felt a comic book shop was my "local" until Tom and Amy Adams opened Bergen Street Comics in Park Slope, Brooklyn, this past year. Part of the retail renaissance of this strip of Bergen Street with many fine destination stores, this is one of my favorite destinations in Brooklyn, period. Step into the store and you'll get a friendly welcome from Tom and Amy, who will frequently step out from behind the register to help you personally. It's a gorgeous space, with wide, spacious areas, well-stocked shelves and a large table of ever-changing interesting new releases, plus rotating comic art shows on the walls. Marvel, DC, Image, and other superhero publishers are well-represented, but it's in the extensive stock of independent and alternative comics and graphic novels that Bergen Street really excels. From the first day we stepped into the store we felt welcomed and valued, and Tom and Amy took the time and care to get to know our tastes and likes to be able to recommend and suggest new titles and creators. Not just us: this is a store where we regularly see an extremely wide range of customers, including Brooklyn-based creators (and those visiting from out of town), families with kids (Bergen Street has solid kids' comics and GN sections), women and teens, attracting a wider and more diverse customer base than I've seen before in a shop. More to the point, it's a fun shop: small but spacious, with plenty of treasures to persuade me to pick up something each time I'm in. Tom and Amy also run an extensive and impressive series of events and signings in the shop (I've got to get to them more often!). It's not enough to have a passion for comics; you also gotta have a good business sense, and I'm impressed by the amount of savvy and work that the Adamses have put into the store. In Brooklyn there's at two other really great comic book shops (Rocketship and Desert Island), but Bergen Street feels like home. You know how Englishmen have a pub they always call their "local?" Well, Bergen Street's my local, and I'm looking forward to many more years of giving them business. Bergen Street Comics on the web and on Facebook.
#6: CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND M13 • Remember everything I said about Agents of Atlas the other day? Well, that goes double for Captain Britain and M13, a comic that barely made it past its first anniversary despite being one of the most acclaimed and raved-about superhero books in the past few years. You guys know what a little stuffed Anglophile I am, so it was a wonderful thing to read a superhero comic that actually felt as if it were taking place in contemporary England rather than some parody of a Miss Marple setting. If you were to take a cross-section of England's urban population, you'd wind up with a sizable percentage of Muslims, so team member Faiza Hussein is the first hero who actually makes me feel I'm reading adventures set in contemporary Britain. That doesn't mean it's a slow or dry sociological read, oh no: Paul Cornell (frequent writer for Doctor Who and now getting some well-deserved attention and sales writing Dark X-Men) has made Captain Britain an adventure at breakneck speed, spinning recent events (Secret Invasion) into an all-out battle to save Britain against the invasion of Dracula's vampire armies. The plots are clever and inventive, the dialogue is sparkling, and the entire series is filled with OMG and WT*! moments including some of the most hair-pulling cliffhangers I've read this year. This title, too, will be much missed. Cornell gave the characters a happy sendoff in issue #15 (including the return of one long-lost character), but let's hope they're not all permanently riding into the sunset. After all, the sun never sets on the British Empire.
#5: BATMAN AND ROBIN • Grant Morrison no longer on Batman? For a Morrison fan, that's a hard pill to swallow. Luckily it's been made much easier by the new Batman and Robin series, which brings us not only a new Batman, not only a new Robin, but also Morrison's return to partnership with his All Star Superman artist Frank Quitely (at least, for the first three issues). I'm one of those "Bruce Wayne forever" kinda fanbulls, but I'm lovin' Dick Greyson as Batman and Damian Wayne as Robin. The new dynamic duo bring a freshness and electricity to juice up the Batman mythology, but Morrison isn't content with just dropping new heroes into the mix: there's grotesque new villains—The Toad, Professor Pyg, and the Flamingo—and, at least until the reappearance of a Lazarus Pit in the most recent issue, no reliance on the usual old tropes and trends that can tax a Batman fan's patience. I knew to expect a new Morrison title to be inventive, but I never dreamed how new it would look and feel. It's a crazy-ass, hallucinogenic, hyperactive Batman title, bright and brilliant without sacrificing the moody darkness and weirdness of Gotham City. If we're going to have to do without Bruce Wayne for a while anyway, well, Grant Morrison makes the change a thrill ride to be savored,
#4: BEASTS OF BURDEN • Two of my favorite creators in comics teaming together? Sign me up! A comic about animals battling ghosties, goblins, and ghouls? Oh boy oh boy oh boy! That it's a cool idea and beautifully illustrated and written is no surprise. I'm head over hooves in love with these characters and (please please please, Dark Horse!) can't wait for a continuation—the miniseries is self-contained, but Dorkin and Thompson set up a sequel that has gotta be told. Sure, there's almost a whole genre of this sort of story now, not only in comics like We3, Pride of Baghdad, or Laika but books like Hank the Cowdog, the Bunnicula series, Watership Down or Redwall and their many impersonators, or even The Incredible Journey. You could event describe it as Hellboy, but with dogs and cats. I've loved Jill Thompson's fanciful artwork for years, especially on the Scary Godmother and Magic Trixie books, and she brings a lush palette and incisive realism to the looks and personalities of the animals. These are not generic cartoon dogs and cats, these are distinctive and different breeds to match their personalities. It's not for young kids—there's a lot of scariness and some ghoulishly scary moments—but it's an excellent comic for teens as well as adults.Freaky, moody, sometimes genuinely scary or deeply emotional, Beasts of Burden is one of the great comics of 2009 and deserves to stay in print—and have new adventures—for years. Anybody who complains that there's no great brilliant new series in comics these days—well, I'm just going to hand them Beasts of Burden. (You can read some of the tales that led up to the miniseries on Dark Horse's website.
#3: BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD • I considered Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon brilliant from the first episode, but it's really bloomed in its first full year and the beginning of its second season. Playing Batman straight but in an over-the-top world, this is a DC fan's dream, the ultimate team-up cartoon. The bigger guns and the obscure heroes of the DCU are spotlighted in episode after episode: Kamandi?!? Ace the Bat Hound?!? Enemy Ace?!? Detective Chimp!?...and, as far as I'm concerned, the finest and most entertaining portrayal of Aquaman ever (a bombastic personality that's very viable for a comic book Aquaman). The animation is brilliant, bright and fluid, and I love the designs—barrel-chested Batman, Dick Sprang-style Joker—and the cool professionalism with which Batman travels through time or to another planet. Basically, it's the 1950s moon-mystery Batman in a form we love! And if your minds weren't blown by the Bat Mite episode, or the all-singing "Mayhem of the Music Meister!"— well, then, your hearts are made of stone. I didn't think I'd enjoy a Batman cartoon after the great evolution of the character through Justice League Unlimited. I was dead wrong to think that. Only complaint? Give us a full Season One DVD set, Warner! You know we'll buy it!
#2: LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS • Here's the thing I love about Marvel today. Even in a climate where their bestselling books are dark, moody, multi-part sagas stretching over years, where the villains have won and the heroes are on the run...well, even then, there's still room for an utterly charming, witty, and fantastic series like Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers. And what a concept! An incredible journey through time and space by the animal sidekicks of the great superheroes to capture and keep safe the Infinity Gems (see: one billion issues of Marvel books written by Jim Starlin) pokes into all the grandest and most bombastic corners of the Marvel Universe, including a character I thought I'd never see again after the 1980s: Frog Thor. (You can call him Throg.) Scripter Chris Eliopoulos, no stranger to writing fantastic and fun books like Franklin Richards, treats this outrageous concept perfectly normal, and when you come down to it, in a world filled with aliens and superheroes and Norse gods and demons, it's probably even more likely that animals are going to have adventures behind our backs, right? Ig Guara's artwork is bold and fantastic; he gives wonderful expressions to the animals, and Colleen Coover, one of my favorite artists, contributes an absolutely charming origin of Throg tale in issue #2. Eliopoulos even does the impossible: bringing that annoying yapper Ms. Lion from the 1980s Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends into the real Marvel Universe, and making me shed a tear over her acts. (I'm sorry I ever said all those awful things about you, Ms. Lion!) Really great news: the Pet Avengers will return in a one-shot and another miniseries soon. Even better news: the joy and fun of the Marvel Universe is always there—sometimes you just have to look down around your ankles to find it in the cat nuzzling your feet.
#1: SUPERGIRL: COSMIC ADVENTURES IN THE 8TH GRADE • If you'd told me in 2008 that a Supergirl comic book would top my 2009 Fun Fifty, I'd have laughed and laughed and laughed. Then, wiping my eyes, I would have said...no, actually I would have burst into laughed again then, rolling on the floor in hilarity at your statement. Supergirl? When nowadays Supergirl looks like this?:
But still, at the time, you say "Supergirl," and I think this:
All of which left me utterly unprepared for this:
Yes, that's fourteen-year old Supergirl, spunky and fiery and curious and wide-eyed. (Literally!) I up picked the first issue of Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the Eighth Grade because it looked cute. I kept on buying it, however, because I was intrigued by the continuing storyline where I'd expected simple straightforward done-in-one plots. But all that merely makes a good comic, not necessaily a great one. I'm giving Supergirl the Most Fun of the Year Award for its beautifully distinctive art (it copies neither the DC universe nor the DC animated character designs), surprisingly touching story, and frantically funny escapades. This much hasn't changed: Kara Zor-El as rocketed from the planet Argo to Earth, where Superman forges her a secret identity and becomes her role model. Trouble is, Kara's stuck in eighth grade at a boarding school where she's the class freak ("So computers don't respond to thought control? What stops them from uprising and rebelling them?"), leaving her to retreat into her daydreams of being a beloved hero, frequently on the moon since Earth doesn't appreciate her. I think every kid—heck, even every stuffed bull—has had this feeling one time or another, and wished for superpowers to deal with it.
Kara's life is complicated when she accidentally creates an evil duplicate of herself (how bizarre!) and must vie with the new girl for attention among her schoolmates. Nobody's on Kara's side, not Principal Pycklemeyer or her classmates, until Kara falls in with another outcast: the brilliant whiz kid Lena Thorul. Uh oh! For those of you with a solid degree in Superman Studies, that name can only spell trouble!
That's another delightful aspect of Supergirl: while Landry Walker's script and plotline is a new approach and wonderfully fresh to Kara, he's put in enough references to Supergirl history to please a long-time fan without distracting newcomers to the character. Streaky's here, and Comet, and references to the Legion of Super-Heroes, red skies, the "emergency secret weapon," the Supermobile and more: "I think all I got was the power to talk to fish. Who wants to talk to fish?"
The art by Eric Jones is extremely appealing: beautifully expressive faces, dynamic action and wonderful character design. Linda Lee looks gangly and gawky even though she's the exact same build when she's Supergirl thanks to Jones's picture perfect take on the same sort of bewildered, bedraggled and can't-be-herself posture that Christopher Reeve gave Clark Kent. The scenery is delightful, from classrooms to outer space, dormitories to mad scientists' lairs. There's a wonderful sense of action in cause-and-effect scenes like Kara trying to write her detention on the blackboard a la Bart Simpson and winding up punching through the wall, or throwing a chunk of Kryptonite out the window, where it bounces into an electrical line, down to an alleyway, and fizzles and crackles in front of an alley cat with a lightning streak on his side. I've gotta give praise to to colorist Joey Mason, using a wonderful palette that pops Kara out against the dull everyday life of her school, makes a Red Kryptonite meteor storm shimmer and glow, and gives a brilliance to the whirlpool of matter at the beginning of time from which emerges the hand of...but no, that would be telling!
But all of these elements would be only gimmicks if the story itself wasn't so good and the characters so appealing (yes, even the evil ones...well, except for one). I presumed that this six-issue series would give us six different unconnected adventures of Supergirl, but it's a saga—the trials and tribulations of the girl who never fit in trying to come to grips with her peers, her arch-villains, and herself, living in the long shadow of her famous cousin. Kara's cutaway daydreams are funny, funny stuff ("Oh no! The meteor energy and the kryptonite combined to turn me into pure cheese. I'm too delicious to live!") but their progression also show how Supergirl is growing: the fantasy sequences grow fewer and fewer as the book goes on, and there's not a single one in the final issue. Dreaming is over, action is what's needed, and the lost girl from a faraway planet grows up to realize that who and what she has become is pretty special when you can save the world.
And hey: how could I not love a Supergirl who saves cows?
I recommend Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade to everybody who loves fun in comics: action, angst, humor and switch-a-roos that I didn't see coming. It might look like a book for kids, and they, especially girls, will love it just fine. No knowledge of the Superman universe is needed other than the bare minimum: do you know Superman? Do you know he fights Lex Luthor? You're all set now. Inventive while still retaining tremendous respect for the Supergirl mythos, funny without being silly, emotional without being maudlin, Supergirl needs and deserves a sequel (Adventures in the Ninth Grade, anyone?). Until then, read, enjoy, and wonder at the surprise of a mostly-overlooked miniseries in the Johnny DC line that I consider The Most Fun Comic Book of 2009. I'll go further than that: This is the finest Supergirl story I've ever read.
Well, there you go: fifty of 'em, stuff I liked and loved and hope you do too. Were there more that didn't quite make the cut-off? Oh, sure, there always are: Models Inc., The Wizard of Oz, Fables and Jack of Fables and the spin-off novel Peter and Max, Stitches, Dark Reign: The List, You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!, Detective Comics, You'll Never Know, Masterpiece Comics, Prince Valiant, The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics, Millar and Hitch's Fantastic Four, Neil Gaiman's "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader"...there must be dozens more I'm forgetting. And two of the most acclaimed books of 2009, Asterios Polyp and 20th Century Boy, what did I think of them? Gulp—haven't read 'em yet! My point (and I do have one) is this: any comic you like is a fun one. Buy what you love, read what you enjoy. That's true in 2009, true in 2010 and beyond. We're living in a golden age of superheroes, reprints, indy and art comics, web comics, movies and TV series from comics, and—after oh so many years—the beginnings of the recognition of our favorite medium as a fine art form. That in itself is fantastic, and can be fun on so many levels. But your number one, whether it be Blackest Night or Kramer's Ergot, is the test. Read it, savor it, love it. After all: isn't that feeling what got you into comics in the first place?
#18: MARVEL SUPER HERO SQUAD SHOW • Cool little toys (of course I have the Ben Grimm one!) become a cool little TV show on Cartoon Network featuring superdeformed versions of the Marvel heroes and villains fighting a deadly Civil War which will lead to an invasion by shape-shifters and the death of...NO! This is just all silly and over-the-top fun, made for kids...but us little bulls, and my human pals, like it too. Doc Doom and his team of villains race Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, Falcon, Wolverine, Thor and the Silver Surfer to find MacGuffins...I mean, Infinity Fractals that can help you rule the world! Bwah-ha-ha-ha! Sort of a halfway point between Marvel Adventures Avengers and Chris Giarrusso's Mini Marvels, it doesn't take its heroes too seriously: Hulk is the friendly dumb smasher, Captain America is straight-laced and frequently oblivious, and the Silver Surfer has a California beach bum accent. (I'm not too sure about that last one, but hey.) Super Hero Squad definitely isn't high art: it knows what kids find funny (there are a lot of burp and fart jokes here), but for long time Marvel fans it's great fun to see superheroes stripped to their primal components: guys and gals in bright costumes fighting the baddies, throwing punches and zapping with power rays, and nobody ever gets hurt any more than Daffy Duck used to.
#17: WOMAN OF A.C.T.I.O.N. • Super secret agent action spanning from London to Monte Carlo! Guns, girls, gambling and goons! Tight leather catsuits, monocled madmen, and lacy lingerie! No, you're not reading one of the approximately ten bajillion Black Widow comic books on the market now, but the all-new, all-adventure book from your pals and mine at 
#20: MARVEL DECADE VARIANT COVERS • Along with Wolverine Art Appreciation (#33 on the Fun Fifty '09), Marvel issued a number of other series of themed covers including parodies of famous and iconic Marvel Comics images using their cute-as-a-button Super Hero Squad, and an anniversary updating of the 1986 25th Anniversary "frame" covers. But by far my favorite, and the theme that actually did for the first time in my little stuffed life have me scouring the shelves for variants, was Marvel's "Decade Variant" covers. When I first heard of these I thought it would be a fairly mundane exercise in making the covers of the 2009 books look as if they had been published in different decades, like a Daredevil cover with the Atlas 1950s monster look, or Spider-Man as he might have been published in the 1940s by Timely Comics. Marvel was a little more offbeat and inventive than that: they produced covers that sent their heroes back in time to experience the great pop culture of those decades, complete with newly designed period logos, which I just loved. As variant covers, these didn't reflect in the least what was goin' on inside, although in many cases I wish they had. I think these are fun in its purest form: they just amuse the stuffin' out of me. And hey, Marvel? Will you please put together a pamphlet collection of these like you did with the Wolvie covers? Pretty please?
Hi hi hi, everyone! Good evening, ladies and germs and all the ships at sea! It's me, your little stuffed host, Bully, back with another action-filled, tension-thribbled, groundhog-free installment of The Fun Fifty, the only awards show that takes place not on a stage but entirely on a spinning comics rack! (Also, the Cable Ace Awards.) When we last left you, we were at.,..let me check my clipboard here...number three thousand and thirty! So let's count down the next ten, starting with number 3,029...the comic where Guy Gardner throws up blood!:
#3,029: GUY GARDNER: BLOODPUKER #43 • If you were lookin' for some high-adventure blood-puking in 2009, then there's only one comic you could have gone to. Actually, there were several, but only one featured everyone's favorite plasma-barfer, Guy Gardner! This crimson-stained comic had everybody reaching for the bucket in 2009 when Guy became a member of the Blood Puking Lantern Corps and began to...
#30: DARK REIGN • What's that?!? Bully enjoyed a Marvel mega-event? Is up now down? Is black white? Is Batman Owlman? Is Mr. Fantastic The Brute? I haven't made secret my feelings about the past...can it be six years of Marvel's heroes rolling down the slippery slope that started with "Avengers Disassembled": ranging from pretty general indifference for some storylines and outright little-stuffed-entitled-rage over others. Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.? (*Strategic Hound Intelligence, Encompassing Little Dalmatians) I'd call that book Iron Man: Director of J.E.R.K.*! (*Justice Eliminated, Revering Kaos) But you know, getting me interested in the newest twist in the Marvel Universe is as simple as 1-2-3: #1: Make the villains the villains. Enough pitting hero vs. hero, let's show that when supers squabble the sinisters slither in. (Oooh, that's good!) With Stormin' Norman Osborn in charge, there's an entirely new status quo, and it's compelling to see how the heroes—from the ground level to the cosmic—react. #2: As Stan once said, Bring on the Bad Guys! We've been privy to a level of intimacy with 616's supervillains that we haven't had since 
#29: SIMPSONS COMICS • Like Futurama, the Simpsons line of comics from Bongo is consistently one of my favorites: there's always at least two or three, very often a few dozen laugh-out-loud moments and sheer animation-to-page entertainment. And that's a lot of entertainment: the Simpsons family of comics includes Simpsons Comics, Simpsons Super Spectacular, Bart Simpson, Treehouse of Horror, Summer Shindig, Winter Wingding, and The Love Stories of Moe Szyslak. Among this year's stand-outs: Sergio Aragonçs came aboard to write and illustrate Bart's fiftieth issue and he continues with the charming "Maggie's Crib" feature in subsequent issues; interconnecting stories of life in the information age take our favorite yellow family into cyberspace; plus the three-issue crossover event (and future "Monday Night Mural") Radioactive Man Saga parodies everybody's favorite hobby (and it ain't collecting stamps, bub!) With jokes and dialogue as sharp and witty as the Sunday night TV show, Simpsons Comics never fail to entertain me. Why thank you, young man...I will have a cow!
#22: FIN FANG 4 RETURN • Okay, you were paying attention 
#50: MARVEL ASSISTANT-SIZED SPECTACULAR • If you're as fond of the Shooter-suffused Marvel of the 1980s as I am, you remember the wacky stunt of late 1983 that put the Marvel Assistant Editors in charge of the books while the bigwigs were all away at Comic-Con. Chaos, of course, ensued, giving us Bernie America; Aunt May, Herald of Galactus; and a 
#38: FUTURAMA COMICS • One of the perennial fixtures of the Fun Fifty: every year I tell you how much I miss Futurama the TV show, and every year I tell you how much I love Futurama the comic book. Now with the series coming back (Yah! Take that, Fox! In yer face, National Football League!) Futurama comics is more hip than ever. Pick it up for sheer enjoyment with all your 31st century friends from Fry to Leela, Bender to Nixon's Head. The plots and dialogue feel like they should, they could be actual episodes of the TV series (as you read 'em, you will hear the voices of Billy West, Katey Sagal, and John DiMaggio in your head). Look, just like last year, Futurama is sheer comics fun and enjoyment. Pick it up and you'll love it too. But that won't stop me from praising it in 2011 too.
#35: M.O.D.O.K.: REIGN DELAY • As the blogosphere gears itself up for the end of Marvel's seven-year sprint through disassemblies, wars civil and hulk, invasions secret, M-houses, reigns dark and a whole lotta sieging goin' on, there's a lot of rejoicing at the promise that the Marvel Universe will return to a brighter, more fun and playful universe. To which I say, bull! (Meaning myself.) We don't need to return to that...it never left! For every death Giant-Man and brain-damaged Iron Man we've had wild and wacky rides through the MU that are indeed actually joyful, bright, high-adventured, and sometimes even laugh-out-loud. I'm not gonna mention them all right now (because a lot of them are coming up further in the list!), but I gotta give props to Ryan Dunlavey's gleefully insane M.O.D.O.K.: Reign Delay as the wackiest and most hilarious Dark Reign tie-in. Sure, our big-headed guy in the floating chair is played for laughs (MODOK and three henchmen move back home to Erie, Pennsylvania to live with the Big M's parents, hit the high school reunion, and oh, yeah, take over the 
#34: SEAGUY: THE SLAVES OF MICKEY EYE • Want proof we're living in the Golden Age of Comics, the best of all possible worlds, the nirvana of nerd-dom? Exhibit Q: there's a new Grant Morrison comic book released every ten minutes. The Grant Morrisoniest of all in 2009 was the triumphant and ocean-soaked return of Seaguy. Beautiful visuals (Cameron Stewart) and colors (Dave Stewart) highlight the story (Grant Stewart...er, Morrison) of our aqua-adventurer...suffering from ennui and depression, struggling to find his way in the world, and taking a new definition from his battle against a mighty worldwide conglomerate. It's surreal as it is superheroesque—not only rewarding but demanding repeat readings, and there's no easy answers in Morrison's text. (Why settle for easy answers and spelled-out morals in all your comics literature, kids?) By the end things have blowed up real good but has Seaguy really triumphed? Did it happen the way he thought it did? Did he make a difference? Does it matter? The journey is more than the sum of the results...both for Seaguy's odyssey and for us, the readers. Sublime stuff.
#33: WOLVERINE ART APPRECIATION • I was heartily sick of Marvel's alternate zombie covers of the past few years. "Pfui," sez I, "this joke has lasted too long, and we have no need to see a Power Pack Zombie cover." By that you might assume I jus' plain don't like alternate covers. Well, that is, until Wolverine Art Appreciation month in March 2009, where a baker's dozen of Marvel's books featured Wolverine on their covers...yes, even the two or three that didn't have ol' Adamantium-Skull appearing inside. Instead, each of these Wolvie works reinterpreted the world's second-favorite mutant* in pastiches of the most iconic art and history's greatest artists:
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