Best Marvel comics of 2013 (part three of five): 11-15

Let's keep it rolling with picks 11-15.

15. Scarlet Spider

One of the real surprises on the list even though it probably shouldn't have been. Writer Chris Yost has an impressive resumé and 2013 saw issues 13-25 of SCARLET SPIDER so it's not like we hadn't had a year's worth of comics to deem this one "good" already. Even still, I think there's a part of me that still believes this book had no right being good. An evil clone version of Peter Parker flees New York to start a new life in Mexico and gets held up doing good in Houston with a whole new cast of characters doesn't really sounds like the best pitch. Yost never gave it up, though, and showed us what a well-written and well-established Kaine can do. The character was great, the writing was fun, the story was engaging, the fights were impressive and unique, and the ending was appropriately brutal for Kaine. After establishing himself as a reluctant hero in Houston, a city that apparently desperately needed one, and finding himself a slew of new friends in the city, Kaine's life was turned upside down by none other than Kraven the Hunter, the man who most recently killed Kaine, and things spiraled out of control quickly from there, culminating in an unhappy ending as Kaine finally reaches Mexico after all. Sad to see the series go, glad that Yost will pick up Kaine's reins again on NEW WARRIORS in the coming year.

14. Venom

This is another one of those books that lasted far longer than I would have predicted going in. This book kicked off a few years ago with Rick Remender at the helm of a Flash-Thompson-is-Venom story where the high school bully of Peter Parker turned war hero turned paraplegic alcoholic is called back into duty as a newly weaponized military-controlled Venom. Solid start to the series back then and Cullen Bunn this year managed to take the helm and still tell a worthwhile story with some worthwhile characters. As everything starts to crash down around Venom from his new home in Philadelphia, Flash is put up against challenges in the form of Toxin, Carnage, and his own demons. That's not a metaphor, he really did get his own personal demon fighting for control of the Venom symbiote somewhere along the line. On top of that, he lost longtime girlfriend Betty Brant and he gained new pseudo-sidekick Mania after he tossed some symbiote to her to protect her from the attack of his kind-of archnemesis Jack O'Lantern. A more angry and wild new symbiote-wielding character, Mania had the demon transferred to her and began fighting like the dickens (if that's what the dickens does) to avenge her father's death while Flash struggled with the morality of allowing this girl to be a symbiote and a killer. Nice book all the way around and one that allowed Cullen Bunn to play around a little in the Spider-Man world and come out of it with a successful book after all was said and done.

13. Red She-Hulk
For as much as I said I couldn't really believe SCARLET SPIDER worked, RED SHE-HULK certainly shouldn't have worked, at least for me. I was never the biggest Hulk fan (though my top-ten books to watch list early this year will describe my turnaround on the character) and I didn't know these characters very well. Jeff Parker, though, did a phenomenal job creating and developing a wonderful friendship between the rather new character Red She-Hulk and the older but not particularly used X-51. The two had really distinct personalities and their team-up came about incredibly naturally as X-51 was tasked with keeping tabs on Red She-Hulk and bringing her down when the Avengers decided she was a hazard. X-51 analyzed his own findings and decided there was something more to her than what the Avengers had seen and chose to intervene on her behalf, eventually siding with her in the fight against the sketchier branches of SHIELD and General Fortean. Really good characterization supported by an intriguing story that took the pair all over the world and eventually into an alternate reality where Betty Ross became the Hulk back at the test site when Banner should have. This series certainly would have ranked higher if it had continued past the summer but what we did get was a really great book that was able to very clearly do what it set out to do and tell a story worth telling with characters that mattered. Very fun book.

12. Superior Spider-Man

The way I went about constructing this list was to first list off every book I thought worthy of consideration for the top (then) ten. When the list got too long, I adjusted it to the top twenty. Then I looked a little deeper into it and started to arrange by "top ten" and "bottom ten," finally beginning after that to sort more directly within those lists. As we near the top ten, only two books have really switched sides, one jumping out of the bottom ten and into the top ten (to be revealed TOMORROW) and the other sinking down to number 11, only to eventually fall to number 12. That was THIS VERY BOOK. I really love the way that SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN started this year, giving us a look at the brand-new Superior Spider-Man, Doc Ock with the powers and (kind of) the responsibilities of Peter Parker. It was a real separation from the Peter Parker Amazing Spider-Man, someone who leapt headfirst into danger to help and save those who needed helping and saving, no matter if he was playing into a villain's hands. The Superior Spider-Man, meanwhile, plotted and planned, rapidly developing his own methods for protecting the city and doing it with such aplomb and vigor that...well, that he was put on probation from the Avengers. Regardless, it was a great new look at a new type of Spider-Man and one that Dan Slott really stuck with despite plenty of hate tweets and death threats (still illegal, you guys). It slipped out of the top ten with the last few months of 2013 as it started to get into weaker arcs (notably one that stranded Spider-Man 2099 in the present) and started to present more of Doc's personality than I think we really needed at this point. Still, the series never became a bad read, necessarily (okay, it got a little tedious in the late months there) and it seems to be coming out of its spin a bit but the first half of this year with the new Spider-Man really solidified its place somewhere in this list; then it just became where it would land.

11. Avengers

Jonathan Hickman has taken over the major part of the Avengers wing of the Marvel Universe and has really done absolutely phenomenal things with it. I said in that very same top ten list at the start of this year that I wasn't really onboard with what Bendis had been doing in Avengers the last few years (as I'm suddenly even more vehemently against the happenings over in the majority of the X-books now) and that I was hoping for a solid change out of Hickman. Well I got it and I couldn't really be happier about it. All three of Hickman's AVENGERS related titles (INFINITY, AVENGERS, and, spoilers, NEW AVENGERS) will have made this list when it's all said and done and everything about that part of the universe seems to be on the upswing. AVENGERS has been a really interesting book, one that hoped you'd be following along but wasn't ultimately too concerned if you missed a beat or two. There were a lot of really cool single issues at the start of the series to establish some of our newer characters (like Smasher and Hyperion) and eventually the whole series got wrapped into INFINITY and told the tale of the story with a focus on the fight against the Builders. It was a pretty masterfully executed event and all of the groundwork was laid here, in AVENGERS. Looking forward to the next movements by Hickman as the Avengers celebrate one of their biggest victories with no doubt larger foes on the horizon.

This week's picks

Lots of solid comics to choose from this week. Eagle-eyed readers, though, will note that I said in my pre-game that there were 18 books to be reviewed this week and even eagler-eyed readers will note that I only ended up reviewing 17. What tomfoolery is this? I didn't review Marvel NOW What?, the kind of self-mocking issue with joke stories from all sorts of people. I read it but didn't really review it because it doesn't totally strike a chord with me but I'm pretty sure it'll be fine for others. That's my review. Not for me. ANYWAY, on to this week's picks!

Uncanny Avengers 13

This nearly didn't make the cut over Superior Carnage and a couple of other books but, the truth is, I'm a sucker for a well-done hearing-damage joke. In this issue, Captain America has extensive hearing damage from a direct blast from Banshee and it plays throughout the entire issue. Guys, it's pretty hilarious. On top of that, there's other far more serious things happening and Remender does a fantastic job balancing out the funny with the dramatic, pulling us back in after kicking the issue off with Cap's shouting and moving to Wolverine's extreme pain. There's a lot to really like in this issue and, as has been true so far in this series, one of the most impressive things about the book is that it feels like everyone on the team gets pretty equal screen-time, certainly enough to give us a sense of the characters and their personality while not depriving us (or them) of their story. Good book all around.

Venom 42

Honorary final issue pick. This has been a really phenomenal series all around and one that I think didn't really see a huge downgrade or upswing from Cullen Bunn's replacement of Rick Remender. That may sound like something of a slight but I don't think it is. I think Remender was doing a fantastic job on a hard book and Bunn came in and really kept it running smoothly. I don't think it saw the biggest of upswings because Remender had done a solid job with the character and Bunn felt that. Why change a good thing? I do think Bunn took his own spin on the character and the story so it's not like a Roy Thomas-Stan Lee thing but the book's quality never really changed. Just a really solid, pretty long-lasting book, especially for one that could have flopped out of the gate. Sad to see this one go.

Young Avengers 11

This book is just really good, you guys. It's very sharp, it's very clever, it's very fun, it's very tense. Everything about it is pretty much the mark of a good comic. The pacing is good, the writing is smart, the story is interesting, the characters are well-developed and deep, the art is amazing, everything. And, like the best books, there are wheels within wheels and stories within stories here that are all, each one of them, worth telling. This issue sees the transformation of Loki from the more innocent and, at one point, more trust-worthy Kid Loki to the new, more Tom-Hiddleston teen-early 20s Loki. Really neat character design, really neat story to prompt the change, just a very smooth transformation, which you can't always say about comics. Really fun book. Excited for the next couple issues as we're bound to start seeing massive cameos from other young heroes in the universe and the resolution of the Mother story, probably. Though, admittedly, sad to see Kid Loki go.

Superior Spider-Man 5, Venom 32

Superior Spider-Man 5
Slott (w) and Camuncoli and Dell (a) and Fabella and Delgado (c)

Boy, this comic is going to some dark places, huh? We have the a lot of Batman motifs cropping up here, but going the step Batman decidedly doesn't go. It's also interesting because Spider-Man is typically different than Batman in his motives. Spider-Man has always believed in the responsibility behind using his powers where Batman is more out for vengeance. However, as the Superior Spider-Man gets more and more comfortable in the skin of Peter Parker, he is becoming more merciless and, as a result, seemingly more efficient. There are a number of times in this issue (and in the four before it) where the spectator Peter Parker has been shocked by how right Doc Ock is in his methods. There are, of course, plenty of times he totally disagrees with those same methods, but small actions like calling the cops for back-up and setting up surveillance to assist in the town and finding Massacre's back-up plan before he can fall back on it were all, Peter admits, good choices. There is also a feeling from Dock Ock, when Peter occasionally does force his way through and affects a scenario, that Peter's impulsive actions in the way he heroes about ruin Doc Ock's meticulous plan. It all comes back to the question Slott wants us to ask: is Peter Parker the best Spider-Man?

It's a really interesting question. The heart's answer is, as it should be, yes, of course. Spidey has been doing this for fifty years now and he's so unambiguously heroic. He does things because he wants to help. There's seemingly not a bad bone in his body (typically) and he catches bad guys and takes the weight of the world on his shoulders and quips. Of course he's the best. But then we get a glimpse of the cold and calculating Doc Ock as he uses Spider-Man's powers for good and it's hard not to question. Should Spider-Man have killed Massacre, the emotionless serial killer who has already broken out once and slaughtered tens of people? Common superhero etiquette would say no, of course not. That's not his decision to make. But then there's always that question that's associated with so many heroes and that often comes back at Batman: is Batman irresponsible in not killing Joker, who has no chance of turning his life around and who will just do more and more destruction and will always find a way out? It's tough. And it's the line that Spider-Man is going to walk right now. And this question doesn't even get into the morality of the face-recognizing spider-bots patrolling the city nor the morality of Spider-Man threatening a woman to reveal her secrets to the police lest she deal with him. Lot of interesting things coming out of this book and it'll be exciting to see where we end up.

Venom 32
Bunn (w) and Shalvey (a) and Loughridge (c)

Venom is officially moved into his new Philadelphia home, complete with a job as an assistant gym teacher/coach at West Philly High, where he meets a small supporting cast, including a goth neighbor and a jock (practically nicknamed little Flash). Meanwhile, Eddie Brock has also made his way to Philadelphia and, with the Toxin symbiote now bonded to him, is tracking Venom as best he can. This is aided when a horrible mutated mess of a man flees Venom after a fight and runs right into the arms of Brock. It seems like we're building to their meeting presumably next issue, now that they're in the same city and associated with the same pseudo-villain.

If I'm not saying much, it's because not much seemed to happen. I guess in my pre-game picks, I was a little too eager about what was to come in this issue. This issue deals largely in flashes from the past (GET IT, FLASHes. LIKE FLASH) that describe how the symbiotes have been bonded to their various hosts and how Flash really needs to get his under control. It seems like he'll have an encounter with Toxin before he's able to inject himself with the drugs he needs to keep the symbiote contained and obeying him. So I guess NEXT issue is the big one. We'll see how well this series is doing after that one, I suppose. I think I went into this one a little too eagerly, only to be a little disappointed by the lack of forward motion. Oh well. It happens.