There's no doubt 2008 had some great moments, but there were a lot of places it fell short as well. Hopefully things will straighten up in the upcoming year. Here's a few ways to start it off right:
The Question Needs a Comeback
How on Earth can DC justify what they did with the character? First, they ignore him for years. Then they make him a major player in the 52 maxi-series...just to kill him off in the process after finally making him cool again! He shows up in the Justice League Unlimited cartoon series and turns into this wonderfully fun paranoid character who develops a relationship with Huntress (and that was a great recurring theme throughout the short run of the series). Then they reprint his old series in book format. But they've given the title to Renee Montoya, who has pretty much turned the character into a faceless Lara Croft ripoff.
Watchmen is coming out next year, and Rorshach has been voted by the readers of Wizard Magazine as the one the fans were most looking forward to seeing in real life. That character was based on the Question when he was with Charlton comics. Do you see where I'm going with this? I don't care how you bring him back (hey, most of the other resurrections and returns haven't made a bit of sense anyway), just get him back to us please!
Bring back Steve Rogers!
Ok, the shock value was cool--and Bucky's doing a bang-up job of being Captain America--but enough is enough. We know he's coming back eventually, so why not just go ahead and bring him on in?
There can be no doubt Steve Rogers IS Captain America. No matter who you put in the suit or how you change it, the character
just isn't the same without Steve behind the mask. He held this unwavering belief in right and wrong that made him this stalwart Boy Scout in the midst of a world of ever-darkening heroes. We need him back.There's no need to kill off Bucky though. Let him go back to being the Winter Soldier again. He did a great job in the role, and it was a cool hero to have running around in the Marvel world. This isn't a hard problem to solve.
Do Something with Spider-Man
No matter how you gussy it up, Spider-Man's reboot was a bad idea. Stop teasing us with Jackpot and bring back Mary Jane. Admit the "Brand New Day" was a stupid marketing ploy and fix it.
Here's my simple request for Spider-Man: kill off Aunt May! The woman has long outlived her usefulness to the character. She doesn't give him some soft side or anything...she makes him look like a momma's boy. Milk her death for all it's worth and let her fade away.
Let Jason Todd Become Red Robin Permanently
The natural progression from Robin to the Red Hood to the Red Robin was an amazing thing to watch. Jason's move to the costume in Countdown to Final Crisis was such a seamless and perfectly logical thing it could easily be considered DC's finest moment in that maxi-series. So what did they do next? They put him right back in the mask and leather jacket and gave someone else the suit. What a dumb move! They had given the Kingdom Come fans their biggest
moment in recent years, and then ripped it from their grasp.It's not like Jason's Red Hood persona is that important. The gimmick was cool to begin with, but taking him back that direction is a big mistake. It's a step backward that you don't need to take. Put him in the suit and turn him loose. I think he'd make a great member of the Outsiders or the JLA. He's shown a ruthless side (he killed the Joker in one of those alternate-universe-hopping moments, for crying out loud!) that would make him the "get the job done" type of hero DC desperately needs right now in their roster.
This has been a bad year for DC, so what better way to wipe the slate clean than to bring back a tough version of Robin and Nightwing combined into one hero?
Give us back our Avengers titles!
For the love of Pete, could this year have been any more pointless for Marvel's Mighty Avengers and New Avengers titles? I submit that it could not!
I understand the importance of the Skrull Secret Invasion, and I can appreciate the need to give us some valuable back story, but an entire year of nothing but back story issues in both titles? When you have complete issues of a team book in which not a single member of the team shows up for even a panel of the comic, you're doing something wrong with the title!
Hopefully Marvel will learn from this and put things back to normal in the books. I know Spider-Woman will have to be replaced in the New Avengers (possibly by the real thing since she's been a Skrull the entire time she's been on the team), but leave the rest of the line-up as is. The Mighty Avengers started off well also with the Ultron and Venom bomb storylines. Let's keep our fingers crossed that they can find that momentum again.
One more major DC/Marvel Crossover!
For a while we were getting them left and right. We had Green Lantern & Silver Surfer, Galactus & Darkseid, Superman & The Fantastic Four...shoot, we even got two different versions of Batman & Punisher! Then after the JLA/Avengers title, the two publishers had a falling out and the readers have been the ones to suffer ever since.
While I'm not asking for another one of those stupid Amalgam routines--or even an entire universe-versus-universe altercation--it would be nice to see some small crossover between two publishers again.
Of course, if you were looking for a grand-scale crossover, I have the perfect idea for one:
What if we had another Avengers/JLA crossover where they had to fight some cosmic battle with Death/Thanos/Dormammu/whoever, and they ended up finding Steve Rogers and Bruce Wayne alive and well again in the process! This would be something that could have lasting ramifications on both publishers and all titles throughout! It might be the only crossover we'd see in years, but if it could be something to leave an impact on storylines for years thereafter, it would be worth it.
Anyway, that's what I'm hoping to see in the coming year. Who knows? I might just get my wish on a couple of them. What about you? Anything you'd like to see in 2009?
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