Top Five Fridays 5/2/08
Some of you may have noticed on the sidebar, we have our “Top Five of the Moment” listed. These are the five books that are most clicking with each Pants writer. It may or may not represent the best books we’ve read all month, year, or just what we’re digging that week. We generally try to update it with books from that week, but there are no hard and fast rules. Inspired by an email from one of our readers, we’re going to post every Friday with the most recent Top Five from each member of the Panteon, and hope for your comments on our lists, or maybe even your own “Top Five of the Moment.”
Also, just as the Wednesday Number Ones feature is generally our spot for folks to talk about the comics of the week, we hope that Top Five Fridays is where you’ll come to talk about what’s going on in comics in general. News in the comics world, thoughts on comics you’ve recently read, talk about comic-related movies that release this weekend and more are welcome in the comments thread for Top Five Fridays.
This week, the Top Five Books of the Moment are:
Nick Budd’s Top Five Books of the Moment
- Immortal Iron Fist
- The Order
- New Gods Action Figures
- Green Arrow Year One HC
- X-Men Messiah Complex HC
Dave Farabee’s Top Five Books of the Moment
- Green Arrow Year One HC
- Local
- Thor Vol. 1 HC
- Usagi Yojimbo
- Glamourpuss
Dan Grendell’s Top Five Books of the Moment
- Immortal Iron Fist
- Gon V.4
- Hercules
- Local
- Blue Beetle
Randy Lander’s Top Five Books of the Moment
- Immortal Iron Fist
- Green Arrow Year One HC
- Thor Ages Of Thunder
- The Order
- BPRD Vol 8 Killing Ground TP
D3’s (David Martindale) Top Five Books of the Moment
- All-Star Superman
- Fables
- Nova
- Amazing Spider-Man
- X-Men Messiah Complex OHC
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1-5) Immortal Iron Fist #14
That’s all one needs. Great finale. One of the best arcs of a book in a long while. Can Marvel make THIS their next movie franchise?
So who is going to see Iron Man tonight? Any one see it yet? Will the Pant People do a review/discussion thread on this? This is fairly historic as Marvel now owns its characters again for the movies and this first movie could make or break their experiment. That and I think the second trailer for the Hulk looks like they could be 2 for 2 this summer.
02 May 2008 at 12:57 pm
QuoteAll the of the Panteon memebers saw Iron Man last night actually, and it was the very definition of awesome.
02 May 2008 at 1:17 pm
QuoteIron Fist was indeed the cat’s pajamas. I love the names of the different fighting moves - “Hell’s Final Tsunami!!”
Is this the last Fraction/Bru/Aja issue?
02 May 2008 at 1:28 pm
QuoteNope. There is one more, a stand-alone about a past Iron Fist.
02 May 2008 at 2:13 pm
QuoteTwo chapters into the new Thor HC and really enjoying it so far. And if Nick can put action figures on his list, I’m putting the Iron Man movie on mine. Let’s hope this is a sign of what we can expect from comic movies this summer.
02 May 2008 at 4:10 pm
QuotePretty light week, but a good week for me. Next week looks like a huge week, also potentially pretty good.
First of all, Iron Man was amazingly good. My favorite superhero movie ever, at least right now, we’ll see if that cools a bit as time goes on, but right now I even put it over The Incredibles and Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
We may indeed do some kind of movie-related podcast… if nothing else, I’m sure it’ll be a side topic.
Second, those Jack Kirby New Gods action figures are sweet looking. They really captured Kirby’s art in a way that most of the “artist inspired” action figures haven’t quite managed. I don’t really buy many action figures anymore, but seeing Nick’s copies on display made me really tempted to buy some of my own.
As for comics:
1. Immortal Iron Fist - A fantastic ending. I think we’ve got two more issues of Fraction/Brubaker (it’s at least one), and it’s a shame they’re not going to get to explore more of the interesting stuff they’ve set up here… but as a finale to the story they’ve been telling from issue one, this was pretty damn good.
2. Green Arrow Year One HC - One of the best action comics of 2007. Hardcover is almost completely without extras, but it’s still a great story to have in this format. Hope to see more Diggle/Jock collaborations in 2008.
3. Thor Ages Of Thunder - I think Dan and Dave were both kinda “meh” on this one, but I loved it. My favorite Thor story in quite some time, with gorgeous art.
4. The Order - A good ending. Very final, I don’t think we’ll be seeing these characters in Invincible Iron Man, which is a shame. With the short nature of the book and the way Fraction basically used the whole story as a launching pad for his new villain, I can’t help but view this title as kind of a failed experiment, but it was a very interesting failed experiment.
5. BPRD Vol 8 Killing Ground TP - The latest BPRD, which is always great. Only reason it’s not higher in the ranking is because I’ve already read the contents.
6. Noble Causes #33 - Faerber continues his relaunch of this book, and Dynamo 5 fans should definitely be checking it out. There’s also a nice twisted parallel in the story for fans of the early Noble Causes stuff.
7. Daredevil Blood Of The Tarantula - Covered this in Wednesday #1s. Basically, an Ande Parks/Chris Samnee Black Tarantula mini or ongoing would definitely find favor with me.
8. Local #11 - I’m cheating because I haven’t *actually* read this yet, so it might rank higher… but I can’t imagine it ranking lower than this.
9. Caliber #1 - My favorite of the two Radical books this week. Arthurian myth via a western? Beautiful painted art? Very well done, promising launch from a new company. Their Hercules is at the tail end of my list, but it’s a really good book as well.
10. Usagi Yojimbo #111 - Another one-shot that introduces an interesting (new? I don’t remember her, at any rate) friend of Gen’s.
11. New Avengers #40 - Not a typo… New Avengers just narrowly missed my top 10. The art by Cheung was great, of course, and Bendis actually tones down his usual dialogue to write a story of the skrulls and how they became the invasion force they are today. Pretty decent, actually has me interested in reading Secret Invasion #2 next week.
Although I still expect to be disappointed in it.
12. Teen Titans #58 - Weaker than the last few issues, but I kinda dig Miss Martian as a character, and I’m still liking the Terror Titans as bad guys. Not sure they rate their own miniseries, but y’know, neither do half the characters and concepts DC is publishing miniseries for these days.
13. Proof #7 - I’m finding that while I like this book, I think I’ll enjoy it more in trades where I can keep track of all the characters and the plot twists and turns. Still… nice art, unusual concept, fun stories. I’ll be picking up the trade for sure.
12. Marvel Adventures Iron Man #12 - Interesting to see father-son stuff with Howard and Tony Stark, nice use of obscure villain Kiber the Cruel.
02 May 2008 at 6:04 pm
QuoteI just saw Iron man and it was very good…and just barely falls short of greatness.
02 May 2008 at 6:35 pm
QuoteBorders had an early release of Nana vol. 10 so thats my top pick. I picked up some okay DC books. Green Lantern, Teen Titans, and DC Universe. And the Order too which was also pretty good. Oh, and I got Definitive Queen and Country vol. 2 in the mail. That was awesome.
02 May 2008 at 9:53 pm
QuoteYou got Nana 10 early? Lucky bastard.
02 May 2008 at 10:36 pm
Quoteactually, if you don’t mind reading fan translations you can read everything up to the current chapter online if you know where to look. i only do that with two manga(nana, which i buy anyway and school rumble which i get the anime) though because i hate reading comics online.
that said, things get really good in volume 10.
03 May 2008 at 9:53 pm
Quote1. 52 Volumes 3 & 4. Oolong Island was a crack-up. Love what they’ve done with the Shazam villians. This series has me more interested in Booster Gold as a character.
2. Nova 8 & 9. Shall be putting this on my list with #13
3. Justice League of America #20. Glad McDuffie is back to doing the main story.
4. Catwoman’s Dead TPB. Relentless action.
Haven’t read it yet but did pick up Aqua Leung. The cover and its texture is pretty damn nice and so are the colours inside. Lettering’s a bit small. Looking forward to reading this.
04 May 2008 at 5:20 am
Quote1. Iron Man (What a movie. Great start to what looks likes it’s gonna be a cracking summer of movies.)
2. Immortal Iron Fist
3. The Order
4. Thor: Ages Of Thunder
5. Daredevil: Blood of the Tarantula
6. Batman: The Killing Joke HC
7. New Avengers
8. Ex Machina
04 May 2008 at 8:00 am
QuoteI fully expected Immortal Iron Fist to top my list this week but my disappointment over the absence of David Aja on art bumped it out of the top spot. Kind of the same deal with The Order with Kitson only doing layouts and the ending feeling a little rushed. That said, here’s how my list ended up:
1. Usagi Yojimbo
2. Noble Causes
3. Immortal Iron Fist
4. Local
5. The Order
Thor: Ages of Thunder was also very solid, if a little wordy, and I’m really liking Geoff Johns current work on Action Comics and Green Lantern. Throw in Proof and Ex Machina and it was a pretty good week.
04 May 2008 at 2:54 pm
QuoteWell I had been stockpiling comics while I was on my self imposed comics vacation, and I just finished the massive pile. I’ll have an official Top Five next week, but here are the books (in no particular order) that got my attention over the last month and a half or so:
Thor
Uncanny X-Men
Fables
DMZ
Nova
All-Star Superman
Annihilation: Conquest
Amazing Spider-Man
Immortal Iron Fist
Elephantmen: War Toys
Gon
X-Men Messiah Complex OHC
Local
Robin
05 May 2008 at 12:47 am
QuoteMy best comic of the week was a movie!
1) Iron Man
2) Elephantmen: War Toys
3) Immortal Iron Fist
4) Thor: Ages Of Thunder
5) Green Lantern
I much preferred New Avengers to the final issue of The Order. Which just seems wrong.
05 May 2008 at 5:26 am
QuoteI’m surprised the last issue of The Order was high up on people’s list. The ending was rushed (not Fraction’s fault, of course) and art wasn’t as good. It’s easily not the best issue of the short-lived series. Don from [URL=http://www.eyeoncomics.com/?p=276#more-276]eyecomics.com[/URL] said it best. Still, I will miss the series.
05 May 2008 at 6:21 am
QuoteI’m surprised the last issue of The Order was high up on people’s list. The ending was rushed (not Fraction’s fault, of course) and art wasn’t as good. It’s easily not the best issue of the short-lived series. Don MacPherson from eyecomics.com said it best. Still, I will miss the series.
05 May 2008 at 6:22 am
QuoteProof is still outstanding. Great characters with a fun, quirky story. The ‘cryptoids’ presented pop-up video style are a nice touch.
05 May 2008 at 7:07 am
Quoteages of Thuder best thor story after I got out junior high easy
DC 0 Made me LAUGH. How lonely must dc villians be
Mirror master “Libra called a sitdown”
cold “who the fuck is Libra?
MM “Don’t know the old mirror master’s notes say he formed a big villian union and blew himself outside the universe
CC “typical..look the sam…SORRY COLIN! these things go bad
MM “HE can give us power
CC “so could Neron
MM “who?
CC “never mind
MM “so the patty Duke show again? GOD I love twins…like mirror images only people
CC “LET’S GO
MM (SINGS) “COSUINS Idetitcal Cousins
Cold “if you don’t stop i’m freezing your junk
05 May 2008 at 10:54 pm
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