Well, everyone else is doing end-of-year best-of lists, so I reckon I will, too. What’s Newsweek magazine got that I ain’t got, right? I mean, the way magazine readership has been falling, there’s a decent chance that I’ve got more readers now. ZING! Oh, Newsweek, you know I kid ’cause I love.

Anyway, this is not a list of the very best of all comics. I haven’t read all comics. I haven’t even gotten close. This is my list of the comics I read that I enjoyed the most.

Also, I don’t think I could manage to say which of these is the best — so I’d rather just arrange them in alphabetical order.

So here we go: The 16 comics I enjoyed reading the most in 2011.

American Vampire

This series by Scott Snyder is still carrying the torch for serious vampiric horror with great characterization, boundless imagination, and really awesome bloodsuckers.

Atomic Robo

One of the best comics out there — this one packs in action, humor, and mindblowing science into something that is always fun. Fun cameos by the famous and infamous, and an incredibly cool lead character.

Avengers Academy

Thank goodness someone still remembers how to do a good teen comic. You can do teen angst without it turning into a bloodbath. This series combines a great concept with outstanding characterization.

Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth

The most audaciously imaginative comic of the year, thanks to its seven-year-old writer. Loved the drama, loved the action, and laughed out loud at the humor.

Batgirl (pre-Reboot)

Stephanie Brown’s tenure as Batgirl was marked by great writing, excellent action, and a very strong sense of humor. Stephanie is still MIA in the new DC, unfortunately.

Batman comics by Scott Snyder

Whether it was on Detective Comics prior to the Reboot or on Batman afterwards, Snyder wrote some of the most engrossing tales of the Dark Knight.

Batman Inc.

Reading Grant Morrison’s Batman has been a treat for years, and it was fun to watch him create the new Batman megacorp.

Batwoman

J.H. Williams III’s writing has been fine, but his art is simply breathtaking. This was absolutely the most beautiful comic book on the stands in 2011.

Daredevil

Daredevil? I’ve never cared for Daredevil in my life. But this one is a blast. Writing and art are incredible. Humor, action, characterization — and again, fun. You can make a pretty good comic if you make it fun, ya know?

Dungeons & Dragons

Did anyone ever expect a D&D comic to be this good? Excellent dialogue, humor, action, drama, suspense — all while doing a pretty good job spotlighting the RPG it’s based on. Best fantasy comic of the year, right here.

Hellboy: The Fury

Mike Mignola has enjoyed another excellent year of comics, and I could’ve put almost any of his B.P.R.D. comics in here, but this one — Hellboy’s last hurrah — was really something special.

Knight and Squire

Paul Cornell’s miniseries focusing on London’s version of Batman and Robin was fun storytelling, along with a quick course in British pop culture. Excellent characters and adventures, and a wonderfully created setting.

Secret Six

Gail Simone’s awesomely epic series of supervillains occasionally doing the right thing had some of the funniest, saddest, most dramatic, most astounding moments in the comics world. Absolutely grand characters, too. Losing this series was one of DC’s biggest mistakes of the Reboot.

Supergirl (pre-Reboot)

After years of being the DC Universe’s version of the useless mallrat in a belly shirt, several creators finally realized they could make the character awesome by treating her more like a real person instead of an MTV stereotype. Yes, DC, character is everything!

Tiny Titans

The best all-ages comic on the market. Still can’t believe they’re going to let something this awesome go.

Xombi

One of the weirdest comics to come out this year. There was usually at least one really mind-blowingly weird thing in every single issue. Beautiful art, too, along with great writing and dialogue. It was a joy to read.

And one more little category? How ’bout Publisher of the Year? DC and Marvel are out — they’ve spent the past 12 months pandering to the worst in comics, cancelling great series, and randomly insulting their readers. IDW, Dark Horse, Red 5, Image, all the other independents came close, because they’re doing more of what good comics publishers should be doing — gunning for new readers, pushing the artistic and storytelling envelopes, making excellent comics.

But I think the Publisher of the Year is Archie Comics. What? But I don’t read any Archies! But Archie is doing even more than the other independents to push the creative and social envelope. They’ve gotten lots of publicity with their Archie marries Betty/Veronica comics, but they also had a great crossover with the Tiny Titans. And who would have ever imagined that staid, conservative Archie Comics would end up being the most progressive comics publisher — whitebread Archie Andrews has recently dated Valerie Brown, the African-American bass player from Josie and the Pussycats, and Kevin Keller, Archie’s first openly gay character, has become more popular and more prominent in the comics. Archie Comics is outpacing all the other independent publishers and rocketing past the Big Two in terms of how much they’re moving the comics industry forward.

So there we go — 16 grand, fun comics series. And I think I’d still have to declare 2011 one of the worst years for comics we’ve seen in a long time. Almost half my list is made up of comics that were cancelled, will be cancelled in the next few months, or are in continual danger of being cancelled. DC enjoyed a nice sales surge in the first few months of the Reboot, but the numbers on many of their series are already dropping back to more normal levels. And they spent months alienating and angering long-time fans in one public relations disaster after another. Not that Marvel has fared much better — they’ve been cancelling comics hand over fist. The independents have a better track record for producing good comics — but of course, they’ve also had more trouble getting those comics sold.

2011 has been an awful, terrifying, depressing year for comics fans. I’d like to tell you that I think 2012 is going to be better. But I don’t think I’d get my hopes up very high. No one’s learned any lessons from this year’s catastrophes, and I’m not even sure the Big Two are even capable of doing anything other than shooting themselves in the foot.

Let’s just hope the non-comics portions of 2012 will be better for all of us. Y’all stay safe, buckle up, call a cab if you need to.

Secret Six #36

Ladies and gentlemen, hats off. “Secret Six” is no more.

Bane knows he and the rest of the Six are going to Hell, and he’s proposed that it’s time for them to re-embrace their villainous natures and either establish themselves as the new rulers of Gotham City or go out in a final blaze of glory. The plan he proposes to Catman, Deadshot, Jeannette, Scandal, Knockout, Ragdoll, King Shark, and their very reluctant ally Penguin, is to break Batman’s will be killing Red Robin, Batgirl, Catwoman, and either Huntress or Azrael. The plan goes awry almost immediately, as they discover that their Gotham hideout comes complete with unexpected hostages — a poverty-stricken family who lives on the island in secret. And worse than that — the Penguin has already secretly summoned help.

So they look out the window and find members of the Birds of Prey, the Justice Society, the Titans, the Justice League, and more outside. Hey, that’s quite a lot of superheroes, but the Six have faced worse odds than that before and come out alright, so — oh, wait, now there are a couple Batmen on the scene, plus Robin, John Stewart, and Captain Atom. Worse odds, but Huntress sneaks into the Six’s hideout and offers to be their new hostage if they’ll let the family go. So the odds are actually improving a bit, with a higher-profile hostage and — oh, wait. Superman’s here now.

Well, that’s it, right? They can’t beat odds like that. They’ve got no tricks or powers that will let them get through firepower like that. Jeannette would rather die than go back to prison and is willing to start tearing Huntress into little pieces if they can’t go free. Catman isn’t willing to let Huntress come to harm, Deadshot isn’t willing to let Catman kill Jeannette, Scandal is willing to kill Deadshot to keep people from shooting. Things are coming to a head fast, but Bane has one final gambit — if they can’t survive, they can at least make sure they give the heroes a fight they’ll never forget.

He has Venom for everyone. And the last four pages are glorious and savage and heartbreaking.

Verdict: Thumbs up. We’re losing something amazing and rare with the end of “Secret Six.” It’s one of the comics that’s getting cancelled and isn’t going to be getting a new #1 issue with the new Reboot. So this is the end of it right here. I hope you got to enjoy it the way I did. If you didn’t, I’m sorry you missed out on this slice of comic book glory that Gail Simone left for us. Go out and get the trade paperbacks. Yeah, get all of them. You won’t regret it.

Hats off for “Secret Six,” everyone.

Jonah Hex #70

And speaking of cancelled comics, here’s the last issue of “Jonah Hex,” though it will at least get a continuation in the Reboot with “All-Star Western.”

This is a weird, hallucinatory comic. We start out in 1904, with scarred bounty hunter Jonah Hex an old man at 66 years of age. He’s finally gunned down by an old foe, and he finds himself walking an old battlefield with his old (and dead) friend Jeb Turnbull, who tells him he died during that old battle during the Civil War. Then Jonah’s back in another saloon, with other Wild West heroes and the mothers of his children, getting gunned down by his own father. And he wakes up somewhere else with a little girl who has facial scars like his, and a basket full of human hearts. And then he’s alive again. Then dead again. Then alive. Is Jonah Hex dying? Is he already dead? Or can he ever die at all?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Well, Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti will continue to write about Jonah in the new Reboot — one of the few creators to be allowed to keep working on the same character — but they nevertheless have given this latest version of Jonah Hex a weird, wonderful sendoff. It was also nice to get to see characters like Bat Lash and Tallulah Black one more time…

Hats off for “Jonah Hex,” too.

Trailblazer

This is another in the new line of comics written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti. It’s longer than a regular single-issue comic, not quite the size of a graphic novel, and priced at $6.

The story focuses on Jacob Mills, a modern-day hitman with an impressive record of success targeting organized crime. But he hasn’t been as careful about covering his tracks as he’s always thought, leading to the deaths of his secretary and the nun who raised him when he was an orphan. He thinks he can’t testify — if the Mafia could track him when he worked so hard to stay under the radar, there’s no witness protection program that can keep him safe. But the government has what looks like the perfect way to protect him — a working time machine. Unfortunately, it can only send someone 142 years into the past — it’s a one-way trip, with no nonliving material from the future allowed, to keep time refugees from changing the past too much.

So Jacob testifies and takes his trip back to Texas 1869. He meets other refugees from the future, who help him get acclimated, and he actually becomes the local town’s sheriff and meets a girl who he falls in love with. But of course, good things can’t last forever. A jailbreak in 2012 lets one of the mobsters out, and he learns about the time machine. Now there’s a squad of modern-day mercenaries hunting Jacob in Civil-War era Texas — and a cleanup squad from the government hunting all of them to make sure the secret of time travel doesn’t get out. How can Jacob survive those odds?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The story and dialogue are excellent, which I’ve come to expect from Gray and Palmiotti. The artwork by Jim Daly and Paul Mounts is also great. So far, I’m really enjoying the stories Gray and Palmiotti are working on through their Paperfilms line of comics, and I hope they have some serious success with this — I haven’t loved every single comic they’ve worked on, but they’ve definitely been on more often than they’ve been off, and I think that’s worth supporting. Go out and pick this one up for a nice little fusion of science fiction, Westerns, and crime fiction.

Secret Six #35

It’s the next to the last issue of this great series. Bane has realized that breaking Batman’s back all those years ago didn’t actually break the Bat’s spirit — and he still wants that more than anything. Jeannette senses death closing in on the team. Knockout, back from Hell, is still suffering significant emotional trauma from the experience. And King Shark? King Shark is a shaaaark. So what’s Bane’s plan for taking on Batman? He wants to target and destroy the Bat-family and anyone else the Dark Knight may care for. But to have a shot at taking on Gotham’s heroes, they’re going to have to get inside information from someone with their finger on the pulse of Gotham City’s underworld…

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, glorious writing from Gail Simone and incredibly fun artwork from Jim Calafiore. Bane’s obsessions, Jeannette’s fears, Knockout’s madness, and King Shark’s undying exuberance about being a shaaaaark are all wonderfully depicted. I’m going to miss this series so very, very much when it ends.

Secret Six #34

After the last storyarc sent the team to Hell, this issue is a much-welcomed rest break. The serial killer who’s kidnapped Scandal’s girlfriend Liana gets his meeting with the Six, and I don’t think it’s a big spoiler to reveal that it doesn’t turn out well for him. Scandal reconciles with Ragdoll, Jeannette sings an old Irish ballad, Bane goes on a date, and King Shark eats a turkey. But we’re warned that, as always seems to be the case with this book, more bad things are on the horizon.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Awesome dialogue, great action, wonderful art. Bane’s date is a bucket of pure win. King Shark is awesome, even though he’s only in one or two scenes. It’s sad, it’s sweet, it’s funny, it’s profane, it’s awesome.

How to improve this series: I’m not real sure you could improve on this. Gail Simone is one of DC’s best writers, and this is one of their best series. If they don’t preserve this for the Reboot, they’re completely insane.

Avengers Academy #14.1

What’s “14.1″ mean? Well, Marvel’s trying to make sure there are some “0.1″ issues for their series, to give new readers a chance to jump on board — so this issue is, in part, meant to be an introduction to the series for those who aren’t familiar with it.

After the Academy students battle the oh-so-1970s-weird Ruby Thursday, they decide they want to see how other young metahumans who were tortured by Norman Osborn turned out — Finesse quickly tracks down a kid named Jeremy Briggs, a super-genius matter-transmuter who is now running a very profitable chemical megacorp. He introduces them to some other former “students” of Osborn’s — a kid who used to turn into a monster whose transformations are now held in check with medicine; a healer keeping people healthy in third-world nations; and a cold-controller who, unfortunately, has just been killed trying to stop the Wendigo. And Briggs has an ulterior motive for talking to the Academy kids — he wants them to quit the hero-or-villain business and come to work for him.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a depressing little story, but it’s very well-told. Dialogue and action are good, and the characterization is excellent. I hope we get to see more of Briggs in the future — he makes a great foil for the team.

How to improve this series: Ya know what I think I’d like the most for this title? A new costume for Hazmat. I hate the way the helmet hides most of her face — makes it so hard to get anything but a vague impression of her emotions and reactions.

Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder: Lost and Gone Forever #5

While Morgan tries to hold off a horde of undead bandits, Sir Edward ends up getting gutshot, and then seemingly killed by the witch Eris, who is bartering souls of Christians for colossal mystic power. But with one hero surrounded by unkillable zombies and the other shot full of lead and sitting in the Paiute land of the dead, is there any way to stop Eris?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A good end to the series. Absolutely gorgeous art by John Severin and Dave Stewart. Nicely suspenseful, too — it really looks like Sir Edward and Morgan are done for near the end.

How to improve this series: Can’t think of much you could do to fix this. It could’ve been an issue or two shorter, but that would’ve shortchanged the great interpersonal stuff between Sir Edward and Morgan that really made this series fun. We also could’ve found out more about Eris’ motivations and the weird mysteries behind Isaac. But that’s nitpicking.

The DC Reboot

In a way, I don’t want to say very much about this — all we really have to go on is DC’s press releases. There’s no way to tell yet what is going to work and what isn’t going to work and whether it’s going to be a good thing or a bad thing.

But I am not looking forward to this.

Part of it is that DC has tried reboots before — Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis — and they never last. Before long, readers and creators start jonesing for “classic” comics, and everything goes back to the way it was before. This one will be no different.

What else? I hate the costumes, and that’s something DC really pushed hard. Look at that Justice League cover above. The costumes are not good. Superman, Aquaman, and Green Lantern all have corny pop-up collars, and Wonder Woman’s choker is essentially the same kind of collar. And what the heck are those things on Flash’s and Cyborg’s chins? I don’t know a thing about art or clothing design, but those costumes look like garbage — and that’s what you get when you have one guy — Jim Lee, in this case — design all the costumes. His design preferences creep into everything so they all look alike. And these will be the first things that get discarded after the reboot. I mean, look at ‘em. Superman looks like a complete dork. And look up the costume design for Green Arrow — it’s a direct copy from the “Smallville” TV series. A series that has been cancelled and which, honestly, was never all that popular in the first place. The costumes are bad, bad, bad.

I’ll admit I’m looking forward to some of the titles. Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang working on “Wonder Woman”? I’ll be buying that. But most of the others are just not filling me with very much enthusiasm. Gail Simone writing “Firestorm”? Okay, but why is she being saddled with Ethan Van Sciber as co-writer? It’s an insult to Simone’s writing skills, to be honest. Geoff Johns — a writer I’m rapidly coming to think of as DC’s version of Brian Michael Bendis — is writing too many series. Dan DiDio is writing another, and I’m pretty sure y’all know I’m not a fan of that guy. I don’t trust DiDio or Johns to do good work on these — their instincts tend to lie more with DC’s previous tired gimmicks of Silver Age worship and pointless, over-the-top violence.

The announcement of the reboot threw retailers into a panic, thanks to DC’s decision to release digitial editions of comics on the same day as they release the print versions. That’d be the equivalent of movie studios letting you rent DVDs on the same day they released the movies in theaters — and it had a lot of retailers worried that lots of readers would quit buying from stores in favor of buying comics for their iPads. On the other hand, DC wants to charge the same prices for print and digital comics, which has digital readers scratching their heads, because no one else charges as much for digital as they do for print. So DC managed to alienate both retailers and digital comics fans at the same time.

Another thing that bugs me is this seems more like a publicity stunt than something that’s going to lead to long-term increases in readership. There’s not much here that seems to be designed to bring in new readers — just a lot of stuff to make current comics fans angry. Sometimes, it seems like that’s all that DC or Marvel know how to do — stir up buzz by doing stuff to upset their current readers. Sure, it gets coverage in USA Today, but media coverage doesn’t necessarily lead to more readers, and that’s what DC needs.

And ya know, I’ve already gone on for a lot longer than I meant to on this topic. So I’ll reiterate — I don’t like the idea of the DC Reboot. It’s a bad idea at a bad time, and I worry it’s going to do long-term damage to the comics industry as a whole. I hope I’m wrong, of course… but I worry I might be right.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Spidey Sunday Spectacular

I had no plans to pick this up, but a quick flip-through in the store basically charmed the socks off me.

What we have here is a collection of a storyarc that ran as a backup feature in Amazing Spider-Man #634-645. The gimmick was that the whole story was told in 12 two-page chapters in each issue, giving each episode the appearance of an oversized Sunday comic strip. The story was written by Stan Lee himself and illustrated beautifully by Marcos Martin.

The plotline follows two crooks called Brain (the smart one) and Bull (the dumb one). Brain has invented a machine that allows them to escape the police and flee into an issue of a Spider-Man comic. They follow Spidey, try in vain to find out his secret identity, tangle with his rogues gallery, and do their best to steal a time machine. All this is wrapped in Marcos Martin’s amazing artwork and jaw-dropping layouts.

Verdict: Such a colossal thumbs up. Marcos Martin does such outstanding artwork here. Every page has a Spidey logo worked into the scenery somewhere, which gives the whole thing an amazing “Will Eisner’s The Spirit” vibe. The layouts and artwork make the whole thing scads of fun to read through. Stan’s story is maybe a bit silly, but that helps make it perfect for any all-ages readers out there.

Secret Six #33

The team is in Hell on a quest to rescue Ragdoll, if possible, and to retrieve Scandal’s late girlfriend Knockout. Unfortunately, Ragdoll is now second-in-command in Hell and leading its armies, and Knockout is Ragdoll’s betrothed. And the Six, freshly decked out in infernal finery, is confronted with the question of whether they should fight Hell’s armies — with the danger of losing and becoming one of the legions of damned souls — or join with them to become Hell’s new royalty. Meanwhile, Catman goes looking for his father, hoping that he’s being properly punished for killing his mother and ruining his life. Can the team escape their own personal hells and return to the living world, or are their souls as damned as everyone suspects?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great story, great art, great humor and action and drama and the whole blasted shebang. DC’s best grownups-only comic, without a doubt.

Herc #2

Hercules has lost most of his powers and all of his immortality. He’s focusing his efforts on becoming a street-level hero, working at and protecting a local Greek restaurant that the Kingpin wants to buy out and shut down. Herc tangles with the Hobgoblin and eventually, after a long, drawn-out battle, beats him up. After that, he learns that the restauranteur’s daughter has been trying to get the old man to sell, and the Kingpin himself shows up to ask Herc to take out the Ares worshipers destabilizing the city.

Verdict: Man, I don’t know. The action is good, the dialogue is fine, but I kinda prefer my Hercules comics with a bit less dead-serious about ‘em.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Hey, don’t forget! Today is FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! Get down to Star Comics in Lubbock and see if they’ve got some free comics left for ya!
• I’m recommending this video for everyone EXCEPT serious arachnophobes.
• I can’t get over how awesome this They Might Be Giants performance is.
• The Internet is weird.

The Unwritten #24

We get another break from the main storyline to return to the intensely freaky tale of Pauly Bruckner, reluctant and foul-mouthed storybook rabbit. After escaping from a children’s story set in idyllic Willowbank Wood, Pauly finds himself trapped on a surreal and deeply depressing endless staircase with a bunch of other storybook animals, all trying to climb to a possibly mythical Golden Door. Pauly eventually winds up taking over the group and leading it his own way, but is there really any way out for him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. So very, very weird. I wish Pauly Bruckner had his own series — he’s just so wonderfully bizarre.

Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish

So who is Buster Oakley? He’s an awkward teenager dabbling with his friends in witchcraft and Satanism, hoping for amazing power. Hellboy is called out to his small area of Kansas after he and his friends disappear and after a bunch of cows disappear and later turn up mutilated. Hellboy is expecting to have to deal with Satanists… but he gets one heck of a surprise when he gets abducted by aliens. Of course, we can expect that Hellboy will come out of this okay, but can we say the same thing for Buster?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice, action-packed story with a giant dollop of humor on top. We don’t often — or ever, really — see Hellboy fighting bug-eyed aliens from outer space, so this is one heck of a change of pace. And Kevin Nowlan’s artwork is a ton of fun, too. If you haven’t gotten this yet, go do so as fast as you can.

Batman and Robin #22

The White Knight intends to kill off as many relatives of Arkham inmates as he can, because he believes they’re all tainted by their association with their crazy, criminal relatives. Batman and Robin save as many as possible, then follow the White Knight to Arkham Asylum itself, where he intends to drown all the inmates. We get the White Knight’s origin, including his connection to Dr. Phosphorus, and we get a furious punch-a-thon to close out the storyarc.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good action, very nice artwork, and a pretty good conclusion. My only quibble — we never learn exactly how Robin manages to save all the drowning inmates.

Secret Six #32

So the Secret Six have gone to Hell — this time, in a luxury elevator operated by Etrigan the Demon. And their primary foe is their former teammate Ragdoll, who has been made a Prince of Hell. And besides his army of demons backing him up, he’s also got his old deceased friend Parademon on hand. Ragdoll worries that he’s going sane, Catman goes looking for his father, Bane learns that he’s likely hellbound, despite his attempts to live an honorable life, and Ragdoll reveals a surprising ally.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good action, good characterization, and lots of twists and turns.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Attention, Lubbockites: This upcoming sci-fi movie includes Buddy Holly, Napoleon Dynamite, and a likely guest-starring role for the Hub City.
• Ya ever noticed that sometimes, Archie Comics are completely insane?
• The art of the 3-D logo in comics, with special emphasis on Will Eisner’s logos for “The Spirit.”
• I wish the guests for Career Day had been this awesome when I was a kid…

Secret Six #31

Scandal Savage has a secret “Get Out of Hell Free” card, and she’s finally decided she wants to use it to free her lover Knockout from, well, Hell. But the dang thing’s been stolen from her safe — and the only one of the Secret Six with that kind of safecracking ability is Ragdoll. When Scandal barges into his room demanding the card back, he fights back — until Scandal stabs him in the stomach. Realizing he’s dying, he grabs the card and whisks himself to Hell. The team decides to follow him and drag him back — Black Alice says she’ll never return there, but she shows them one of the secret entrances — inside the world’s worst shopping mall. But there’s nothing good that can happen when you willingly walk into Hell. All that, plus a serial killer has some dire plans in store for Liana, Scandal’s current girlfriend…

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, deeply twisted, funny, grim, brilliant storytelling here. And amazing stuff going on here — particularly the serial killer, who likes to punish himself by putting hot sauce in his eyes. And the hellishly dull shopping mall. The whole thing is just wonderful, and I’ll be really surprised if the rest of the storyarc isn’t just as outstanding.

Green Lantern #63

The seven representatives of the ring corpsmen go off in search of the energy entities that Krona has kidnapped. They find Krona’s hideout, access the ominous Book of the Black to learn that he was at least partially responsible for the use of green energy as a weapon and that he was directly responsible for the programming error that caused the Manhunters to go rogue ages ago. And the Guardians have decided to act directly against Hal Jordan by ordering an ambush.

Verdict: Thumbs down. It’s all frustratingly dull and slow-moving. It’s all being stretched out to fit future trade paperbacks, and that means it’s turning into a poorly created story.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Not a link — just a short Expo note. The next planning meeting for the upcoming Comic Book Expo is happening this Friday at 7 p.m. at Awesome Books, 3009 34th St. The Expo is happening in less than a month, so if you want to help out, don’t miss this meeting!
• Project Rooftop is starting their tribute to Dwayne McDuffie with some redesigns of Static.
• Bully digs up some superhero blueprints.
• Beautiful photos from Antarctica.
• When you really want a super plumbing job…

Secret Six #30

This is a crossover issue with the Doom Patrol. We start out getting introduced to a junior crime lord whose resources have all come from his recently deceased evil grandfather, then we jump into the strip club where Scandal’s girlfriend works, where Bane is going on a date, despite his complete inability to engage in civil or appropriate interpersonal communications. And after that, we visit scenic Oolong Island, home to mad scientists galore and current headquarters of the Doom Patrol. Robotman is trying to get some fishing in — specifically for a monster fish that used to be a human.

Anyway, after a while, the Secret Six show up — they’ve been hired by the junior crime lord to take over the island so he can have his very own secret volcano base. King Shark makes the first attack when he chomps off Elasti-Girl’s leg. This doesn’t seem to bother anyone much — it looks like she can regrow her limbs, which I didn’t remember being part of her original powerset. Black Alice grows to Giganta-size to fight Rita, Ambush Bug makes with the funny, as do King Shark, Ragdoll, and Negative Man, and there’s a volcano that’s about to blow up the island. To be continued in “Doom Patrol,” if I ever feel like getting that one.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I didn’t know Ambush Bug was in the Doom Patrol. I didn’t know they were based on Oolong Island either. It all helps make a nice, fun story. I still don’t know if I’ll care enough to actually grab a copy of “Doom Patrol,” which I’ve heard mixed reviews of, but who knows?

Marvel Super Hero Squad Spectacular #1

Well, the Beyonder is in town, and he’s in his bizarre Elvis-inspired costume from “Secret Wars II.” This does not bode well at all. He decides to kidnap a bunch of superheroes and supervillains and make them fight each other for his own general amusement, so he grabs the Super Hero Squad, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and Speedball, as well as Dr. Doom’s crew. Then there is a lot of random hitting while the heroes try to figure out how to make it back home. Meanwhile, crime is out of control with the heroes gone from the city, but Power Man, Iron Fist, Cloak and Dagger, Hawkeye, Ant-Man, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver step up to help keep the city under control, so Ms. Marvel inducts all of them into a Substitute Super Hero Squad. All that, plus Reptil does some stuff.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Seriously, you bring in the Elvis-Beyonder, and you’ve pretty much lost me from that point on. The rest of it was too frantic, too jokey even for a joke-filled all-ages comic, and just generally irritating.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Not really a link, but definitely worth mentioning: There will be a meeting this Friday, February 11th at 7 p.m., for volunteers and organizers for the upcoming Lubbock Comic Book Expo. The meeting will take place at Awesome Books, 3009A 34th Street. Please show up and help make the Expo another great success!
• Awesome animated short of classic-style Superman.
• This video game, based on artwork by animator Michel Gagne, looks insanely cool.
• I absolutely endorse this rendition of the National Anthem.
• Have I mentioned lately how very, very much I dislike Rick Perry? Looking at a $15 billion budget hole, and he wants to show off by cutting peanuts. What a showboating failure we’ve got running the state. I wish someone would zero out the budgets for the most useless and destructive state organizations — namely, the Gov’s office and the Lege itself…

Unwritten #21

Tom Taylor is trapped inside “Moby-Dick,” Herman Melville’s novel, and he has no idea how to get out. And Captain Ahab is a dead ringer for his father, Wilson Taylor. When Tom calls “Ahab” his father, he’s assumed to be temporarily deranged and thrown belowdecks. Tom tries to escape using his magic crystal doorknob, but he’s told by the suddenly appearing Frankenstein’s Monster that he can only break out of the novel at its points of equilibrium — either the very beginning or the very end. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Lizzie and Savoy have been kidnapped by the magical puppeteer, who intends to make them tell her all they know about Wilson’s plans.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Loved everything set in the novel, and it was nice to see the puppeteer’s true abilities — though not particularly nice from Lizzie and Savoy’s point of view…

Batman and Robin #19

Dick and Damian blunder into another trap set by Una Nemo, Bruce Wayne’s ex-girlfriend turned hole-headed supervillain. She quickly sets them up in a deathtrap with a couple of power drills aimed at their foreheads. Can they get out of the brain-scrambling trap in time? No way…

Verdict: Thumbs down. Sorry, but it bored me. Too much deathtrap and not a smidgen of suspense.

Secret Six #29

Bah! It’s the second half of a crossover with Action Comics, so half the story is already missing. Lex Luthor hired the Six to help him get rid of immortal caveman Vandal Savage — father of Six member Scandal Savage. They’re all inside one of Luthor’s skyscrapers, and there are bombs involved and a lot of shooting and general nonsense.

Verdict: Thumbs down. The Six were reduced to guest-stars in their own comic — nearly all the focus was on Luthor and Vandal Savage. Not even Ragdoll acting deranged could save this one.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Ohh, what could have been… Concept artwork from a never-made cartoon series with Bruce Wayne and his whole rogues gallery as high school students…
• I absolutely love watching Snell knock the stuffing out of comics companies when they pull stupid stunts.
• Batman debugs your computer!
• All football games should be like this.
• I’m a sucker for disgusting horror-movie confectionery.

I don’t think I’ve ever tried to do a year-end retrospective list — it’s always too difficult for me to pick out a list of things I enjoyed the most out of 12 whole months. But what the heck, I’m gonna try it today.

This list is strictly listed in alphabetical order. I can’t claim it’s a list of the best comics — I haven’t read all the comics, after all — but it’s the list of the 15 comics that I enjoyed the most.

American Vampire

Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque, and Stephen King came together to re-invent the vampire for the rough-and-tumble American West. Outstanding characters, close attention to setting, and rip-snorting horror make this a must-read for anyone who loves non-sparkly bloodsuckers.

Batgirl

The adventures of Stephanie Brown as the newest Batgirl are full of great humor, great action, great dialogue, and great characterizations. This is one of the best superhero comics around.

Batman and Robin

Grant Morrison’s triumphant run of Batman comics had its most epic stretch in these stories of Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne, as well as Alfred, Dr. Hurt, and the Joker. The scale of Morrison’s storytelling here was breathtaking.

Blackest Night

Possibly the most successful crossover storyarc in years, this grabbed readers’ imaginations and didn’t let go for months. Even better than its commercial successes were the overall excellence of the plotline. At its height, there was nothing as good as this story about zombies, power rings, and emotions.

Crossed

I’m not a fan of the new series, but Garth Ennis’ original Crossed miniseries was the most harrowing, brutal, relentless, depressing, and terrifying horror comic to hit the stands in a long, long time.

Daytripper

This was, without a single doubt, the best comic series of the entire year. Nothing else came close. Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon deserve to win so many awards for this one. If you missed this series in the original run, you should definitely keep your eyes open in the next few months for the trade paperback.

Detective Comics starring Batwoman

Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III didn’t create the character, but they crafted her best stories. While Rucka brilliantly fleshed out her backstory, personality, and supporting cast, Williams took the stories and created some of the year’s most beautiful artwork and design.

Hellboy in Mexico

This story of, well, Hellboy in Mexico was my favorite, but I also loved all of the other collaborations between Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and fantasy artist Richard Corben. These two meshed together creatively in ways that very few creators are able to do, and all of us readers were the beneficiaries.

Joe the Barbarian

Grant Morrison’s fantasy story is both epic and mundane in scale, which is really quite a trick — Joe is in diabetic shock, and he’s hallucinating that his home and toys have turned into a fantasy kingdom. But what if he’s not really hallucinating?

Richard Stark’s Parker: The Outfit

The second chapter of Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of Donald Westlake’s crime fiction is a beautiful tribute to Cooke’s retro-cool art sensibilities and the pure fun of good pulp crime novels.

Power Girl

Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Amanda Conner created the best version of Power Girl ever for a year’s worth of funny, smart, sexy, exciting superhero stories. These creators loved this character, and you can tell that in every story they published about her. I still hope they’ll be able to come back to this title eventually.

Secret Six

Far and away DC’s best team book, Gail Simone has hooked us a bunch of people who are extremely likeable and also completely crazy and prone to trying to kill each other from moment to moment. This shouldn’t work as well as it does, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s colossal fun to read every single month.

Strange Science Fantasy

Scott Morse’s retro-pulp series packed a heck of a lot of audacious fun into six short issues. This was a treat visually, emotionally, intellectually — even on a tactile level, what with the heavy, rough paper it was printed on.

Thor and the Warriors Four

The Power Pack go to Asgard. I didn’t really expect much of it, to be honest, but readers were treated to godlike quantities of humor, excitement, whimsey, and awesomeness, thanks to writer Alex Zalben and artists Gurihiru, and to Colleen Coover’s excellent backup stories.

Tiny Titans

Probably the best all-ages comic out there right now. These comics are smart and funny and cute and just plain fun to read.

Aaaaand that’s what I got. There were plenty of other comics that just barely missed the cut, but these were nevertheless the ones that gave me the most joy when I was reading them.

So farewell, 2010. And hello, rapidly onrushing 2011. Hope you’re a better year for all of us, and I hope we can all look forward to plenty more great comics to come.

Now y’all be safe and have a good time tonight, but call a cab if you need it — I want to make sure all of y’all are here to read me in 2011.