The Top Ten Comic Teams of 2007
Marvel, up to its usual shameless marketing, presented us with a list of the best teams of 2007. Of course, most of the teams coincided with upcoming and current re-launches, after all, why else would the Exiles have made the list? So I thought it would be a good idea to write down an actual list of the best teams of 2007, and no, they don’t all belong to Marvel.
10. The Nobles (Noble Causes, Image)
The Noble family went through quite a lot this past year. They went to war with a rival family, The Blackthornes. They dealt with their children running away, Race’s appearance and of course, the fact that Gaia tried to destroy them all and is now locked away in prison. When is the next issue coming out anyway? It’s been more than six months.
09. Green Arrow/Black Canary (Green Arrow/Black Canary, DC)
DC’s lovebirds had a great year. Dinah quit Birds of Prey and Ollie’s own Green Arrow series wrapped up in time for the both of them to get married. While Sin was mysteriously absent (damn Winnick for not wanting to writer her), they nuptials didn’t turn out quite as happy as the month preceding them. The wedding night resulted in Oliver attacking Dinah and Dinah stabbing him with an arrow. Their brand new series confirmed her suspicions and together with the rest of the family, Dinah proceeded to Paradise Island to free him from the grip of the amazons. If that wasn’t enough, the rescue may have cost them Connor’s life.
08. X-Factor (X-Factor, Marvel)
Madrox’s detective agency spent a hard year in the former-mutant town. They went up against the X-Cell, a group of former mutants that resulted in various members being poisoned, stabbed and Rictor nearly died. Add to this the fact that there was already tension in the group since Madrox and one his dupes slept with both Monet and Siren. While Rahne and Rictor started a doomed relationship the team had to go up against the Isolationist and nearly died (again) because of it. If all that wasn’t enough, Messiah Complex came around taking Lyla to a place where she might not return from and Rahne away from X-Factor forever, as she joined the newly formed X-Force, possibly to die very, very soon. Peter David is an excellent writer and I cant way to see where he takes this team, or what’s left of it.
07. The Runaways (Runaways, Marvel)
Beaten, bruised and after burying one of their own, the kids faced a harsh year. If their own problems weren’t enough, Whedon taking over the series and publishing one issue every three months didn’t help either. The kids dealt with the after effects of Gert’s death and Chase’s journey down a dark path. Whedon’s arc put them up against The Punisher, Fisk and sent them back into time, in the middle of a turf war. I don’t who takes on the series after Whedon leaves but I hope the issues start arriving on time.
06. Rogue’s X-Men (X-Men v2, Marvel)
Mike Carey’s genius writing took on Rogue’s X-Men and led them down a dark path. Battling the massive entity, the Hecatomb, the team lost Cable and Rogue lost her sanity. If that weren’t enough, the 200th issue of the series showed half the team defecting and mortally wounding Rogue. Bobby and Sam (pretty much the only good guys left) fought the Marauders, the Acolytes and took on Sinister himself, barely escaping with their lives while Rogue was kidnapped. The team was officially disbanded, more or less, since there’s no one really left. Brilliant writing gave us some fantastic boss fights and even Ramos’s uncountable art didn’t spoil the series for me. Messiah Complex, will of course, completely change status quo, so we bid farewell to a great team who had a harsh but extremely entertaining run.
05. The Warbound (The Incredible Hulk, World War Hulk, Marvel)
This was a great year for the Hulk. Circulation must’ve boosted up ten-folds after Pak (where did this guy come from?) took Hulk a bloody exodus through an alien planet (Planet Hulk), gave him a great team, took on the emperor, ruled the planet, got married, had a kid and then lost it all in one bright explosion. Hulk and his warbound team (all that is left) took on earth to avenge the planet and Hulk’s family and brought the Marvel universe to its knees. After the dust settled Hulk was no more and all that was left was a bunch of spin-offs and Bruce’s fate completely in the air.
04. The Thunderbolts (Thunderbolts, Marvel)
Ellis took on this dark new thunderbolts team and quickly boosted them up to one of the Marvel’s most read titles. In the aftereffects of Civil War, Venom and Osborne registered and were inserted into the already-crumbling Thunderbolts team. What resulted was the darkest anti-hero team to come out of the Marvel universe, paralleling corrupt politics and the grittiest brawls, where Venom usually ends up eating one of their current target’s limbs. Ellis did a magnificent job of making sure we felt absolutely no sympathy for the team and instead feel sorry for the poor un-registered heroes that come across the team’s path and you actually feel good when their targets fight back. Who are the good guys? Has never had a more complicated answer.
03. The Scoobies (Buffy’s Season Eight, Dark Horse)
Buffy and her tragedy-prone gang of helpers are back, with barely any status quo change. Doesn’t matter all that much, since this title was the best-selling breakout title of 2007, most issues still sold out and heading in for their third reprinting or so. Dawnie’s a giant and the gang now heads an army and operates out of a remote castle in Scotland. Giles after a painstakingly good arc, is now teaming up Faith and I’m happy. At least she has one person on her team now. I’m sure there will be more tragedy ahead, but for a while I’m glad things will stay 5×5. Next arc: Goodard!
02. Vampires, Humans, Goddesses, Ghosts and Werewolves (Angel’s Season Six, IDW)
When Season Five left off, Wesley had just died, Gunn was mortally wounded and Angel and Illyria were facing off hordes from hell. Season six starts here: Gunn is a vampire, Wesley is the new Wolfram and Hart representative, Connor keeps the survivors safe in Santa Monica with Nina and Gwen and oh…did I forget to mention L.A now resides in hell. The series is planned and delivers the story with a brutal ferocity not unlike the TV series. It’s planned to twelve episodes so can’t wait to see where their going with this and the last issue brought forward the biggest twist of all: Guess who’s not a vampire anymore?
01. The Students of the X-Academy (New X-Men, Marvel)
These poor kids have had the hardest year of all and call me evil, but I loved every issue of it. Recently recovering from the death of their team mates the kids had to take on Nimrod (a futuristic version of the Sentinel, the X-Men could barley take it down) and Laura (X-23) nearly died fighting it (she was skinned or flayed or something). Next arc had Mercury being kidnapped and violently tortured until Laura and Hellion arrived to the rescue, just in time to face off against three Predator Xs (scary, scary creature). This was a wonderful arc and had one of those genuine moments where all hope is lost and then the rescue team arrives just in the nick of time. Next the demon lord, Belasco came up from hell after traces of Magik and literally pulled the mansion into hell and tortured mostly everyone until they managed to pull themselves out. If all that wasn’t hell-ish enough (no pun intended), Messiah Complex arrived fatally wounding Hellion and putting him into a coma when the New X-Men went after the Reavers and then the preceding attack on the mansion put some of them (still not described in detail, except Josh is now in a coma as well) in the med-ward as well. Finally, the surviving Predator X came looking for leftovers and the New X-Men went into that battle as well. There’s a review of that issue here if you’re interested.
The Kyle/Yost team leaves the series to start the brand new X-Force (Laura is a member) and what becomes of the kids? Well, New X-Men is over and somewhere down the line the title will re-launch with a new name (Young X-Men) but who knows when that will happen. I’m pretty sure there’s no chance in the first half of this year. So in short, with the massive status quo changes and New X-Men’s cancellations, even though Messiah Complex was enjoyable…I hate it.
Tags: Comics, dc, image, marvel, Top ten lists, X-Men
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