Doom's year of comics: Top 5 of 2012

2012, we bid you farewell! Lots of comics were released, which by definition means lots of comics were read. It's been a year of mutants vs the genetically enhanced, re-incarnated twins searching for their crazy mutant nullifying mother, warring alien races, intergalactic chases and of course total revamps.
And because we couldn't think of anything more interesting we here at What Would Doom Do have decided to come up with our top 5 comics of the year.

1. Avengers: The Childrens Crusade
   The final quest for the Scarlet Witch ended with 6 teenagers and a young Vision. Although Cheung and Heinberg started this project in 2010, it didn't reach it's conclusion until this year.
   There were tears, twin tantrums, time wimey space stuff, resurrections, remorseful granfathers, pissed off uncles, teenage deaths and of course the (almost) triumphant return of Doom. A:CC was definitely one of the events of the year, resulting in the Young Avengers (what's left of them) finally being acknowlegded as Avengers. 2013 will see the reigns handed over to Jamie McKelvie and Keiron Gillen, definitely one to watch...but WHERE THE HELL IS SPEED?!
   
   
2. Saga
   Image Comics have be FLYING this year with a host of amazing releases including Mind The Gap, Danger Club, Nowhere Men, Change, and topping our list is Saga. Brain K.Vaughan and Fiona Staple's space opera has been setting new standards this year as it blends sci-fi, mystery, fantasy,  romance with outlandishly epic and sometimes borderline gross characters.
   It's still only 7 issues in and we've barely scratched the surface of the awesomeness that's still to come. Vaughan and Staples are amazing story tellers, and geniuses at the element of surprise. We're going into 2013 with our eyes wide open for this badboy
   
   
3. Wolverine and the X-men
   
   What we have here is a truly spectacular piece of work by Jason Aaron, from issue one onwards it is brilliant.  Not only is it incredibly well written with a great cast of characters all being given time to shine but it is all brought to life by some wonderful artwork thanks to Chris Bachalo and Nick Bradshaw.
   Spinning out of X-men Schism the X-men have split, and Wolverine starts up the Xavier School for Higher Learning again, and many choose to follow. But since its the X-men of course nothing goes to plan, not only do the school inspectors turn up but the very school itself turns against the staff and pupils, oh and the Hellfire club returns, and it's run by children, which is terrifying.
   
   This book has no downside. Just read it, and revel in the glory of ICEMAN!!!!!!
   
   
4. The Hypernaturals
   Andy Lanning and Dan Abnett's work is amazing, you will read it, you already love it. Its awesome, its just....blarrghhhee!!! Its so good it makes me crazy. A truly fantastic comic, a science fiction epic that even goes so far as to have its own fictional adverts instead of actual adverts on the ad pages. its the same level of excellent writing that we have come to expect from the team of Andy Lanning and Dan Abnett only taken to the next level by artwork from the likes of  Tom Derenick, Andres Guinaldo and Brad Walker which only goes to elevate this work to realms of godhood....I'm a massive fan of The Hypernaturals in case you haven't  guessed.
   
   I hope to see this run for a very long time, its definitely got the plot for it, with mystery and intrigue, action, deceit and a villain so evil he has evil smoke surrounding his face. It also has some truly human characters, not super heroes  but people, who happen to be better than normal, Hypernatural you might say, who get elevated to celebrity status due to their power and help to better the world however they can, even if its not the way they would prefer.
   
   Seriously, you need to read this book.
   
   
5. 
   Extermination
   Here we have a book that is genius from Simon Spurrier, it takes a fresh look at the relationship between good and evil, hero and villain and what this values even are. With excellent characters, stunning environments and one hell of a plot courtesy of Simon Spurrier, easily one of the best writers of 2012. Not only a book with truly great writing but also beautiful imagery thanks to Jeffrey Edwards and V Ken Marion. Definitely worth a read just to see the relationship between the so called hero and villain, such a human relationship that you forget at times your reading something so fantastical as a comic book with giant aliens and humanity on the brink of extinction. I can honestly say this is the first time I've ever been truly drawn into a comic for the relationships of the characters, which I think is a testament to the skill of Simon Spurrier, and that's what makes this book worth of a Top 5 spot of 2012.

Whedon's World: S.H.I.E.L.D

After the amazingness of The Avengers, Whedon is returning to the not so big screen to shoot the pilot for S.H.I.E.L.D. Clark Gregg will also be reprising his role as Agent Phil Coulson.

It's no secret that I live happily in the Whedonverse and I am ECSTATIC (yes, i'm that keen) that a part of the Marvel universe will finally be apart of that.


Whedon absolutely smashed it with The Avengers. His work with Buffy, Angel and Firefly (to name a more obvious few), proved that he could work with multiple leading characters and have them all on an equal footing, as opposed to outshining each other.
My list of why Whedon is great could go on, but i'll leave that for another post.

So back to the point at hand. S.H.I.E.L.D has the potential to be a hard hitter, and another Whedon master piece, and with his brother Jed on board, this is looking very likely. I'm definitely holding high hopes for this, and with the pilot being shot in January, it'll be on our screens by Christmas 2013 (hopefully!)

So what would doom do? He'd sit on his heels, as happy as a Christmas lamb, counting down the days until the pilot airs on his Fantastic Four calender, praying to the Doom gods that be that he'll get a chance to return to the big screen, and into the Whedon hall of fame.

Avengers VS X-Men : A Loser’s story

After having it in my possession for over a week, I finally got round to reading the closing issue of Avengers VS X-Men. Why did I wait so long? Was it because I was too sad to see the story end? Was I not ready to see Hope finally accept her destiny? Was I attempting to delay the inevitably of the Scarlet Witch finally finding redemption for her “mutant genocide”.

Of course not.

The simple reason was that after all the hype I couldn’t bring myself to read what was sure to be a very unfulfilling and predictable end to an unfulfilling and predictable series. Harsh you say? Maybe. I guess I should focus on what went right with the series:

Iron Fist had some pretty sweet moments: 
Especially in the final Issue...one young Danny Rand finally earned his place on the Avengers mantle...but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before he goes berserk and puts that Iron Fist in the wrong place...

Mutant life was restored: 
Yes, one Wanda Maximoff managed to restore mutant life with the utterance of “No More Phoenix”...and with that the golden bird was gone, and its life force scattered - returning the powers of mutants all around the world.

A good set up to Marvel NOW:
Loose ends were tied up and nearly all the major marvel players were involved...exactly what you need before embarking on a new series.

But the amazing lead up to this one moment, (provided by my faves Jimmy Cheung and Allan Heinberg in [Young] Avengers: Children’s Crusade ) was somewhat deflated I felt...

So what was so wrong with it?

This shit just got real:
I found myself really comparing this series to real life, in other words ‘normality’ vs ‘difference’, this really would be a sociologists dream. I was quite confused by the idea of Cap and his band of superpowered heroes (but human let’s not forget) ‘waging war’ on those who were ‘different’ – Cyclops and his band of mutants. The Avengers became the very people that the X-Men have fought so hard against. It seemed all too like “Lets eradicate the ‘mutant threat’ by destruction and control”. And it’s safe to say that by issue 2 I was very much on the side of the X-Men.

Inconsistencies:
I’m a massive fan of Jim Cheung (who did the cover art for the main series) and although I knew that he didn’t illustrate the issues, I thought the calibre of the artwork would be off the scale...no offence to Romita...I just wasn't feelin it...although Kubert did a great job with the final issues. I felt the writing was great, but just didn't gel well with the art.

     Scarlet Witch who?:
All the hype and she was barely the eye candy of the main series which is a damn shame. Let’s be honest now, as per usual Cap and Iron Man were the stars of this show...Cho did a great job with AvX #0...Wanda looked ah-MAZING but she was definitely overshadowed.

    Heroes on the run: 
Umm, i'm pretty sure that Cyclops, Colossus, Namor, Majik, Emma Frost have saved the world like countless times...so what if they made a tiny little "let's erase the world and start again" mistake...who hasn't? I mean look at Iron-Man and Cap...Civil War and a few dead superheroes much? Talk about forgive and forget...

So what would Doom do? he'd have eaten the Phoenix for breakfast and worn Cyclops' silence of the lambs-esque shackles like a crown.

Saturday Morning Jams

I just wanted to bring to the forefront a little something that's quite dear to my heart.

A few months ago I was on a massive Avengers kick - with the upcoming film, the announcement of Avengers vs X-Men, the release of Captain America etc, who the hell wasn't! Dejected by the lack of Hank Pym action, I went in search of some Ant-Man glory, and during my travels I came across Adam WarRock's(Eugene Ahn) 'West Coast Avengers Mixtape'. Now some may say that is geekdom at its more hardcore, but I just say that it's a stroke of genius.

WarRock's a rapper spouting out some serious nerdcore lyrics and to be honest I fell in love with his music right away. Who doesn't get all bubbly at the sound of hearing some of your favourite hero's lives chronicalled through rap, rhyme and verse, sampled on some of the worlds greatest rap songs.


Whats even better is that the album is free to download HERE. It's rather addictive and a pretty sweet summary of all your favourite West Coast Avengers "doin' there thang". 'Hawkeye & Mockingbird' uses a really good sample of 2pac's "Me & My Girlfriend". Theres some Cypress Hill and Dr Dre floating around in the Mixtape too.