Edgie Comic Book Awards 2017 - Part 1

Well, it’s a brand new year and with 2018 comes a brand new era! My longtime readers know that for the past 7 years it’s become a tradition that I take a look back at the previous year with my very own awards column celebrating all things comic books and comic book related, known up until now as The Bleedies!

This year, it’s time to shake things up a bit! Now at my new home at Librairie Z and Z News I thought it would be time for a name change! Welcome to the Edgies (my upcoming podcast is called Edge of the Page, after all)! Not to worry though, The Edgies are still all the same fun as the Bleedies were!

Boy, it’s been a wild year, hasn’t it? Secret Empire, Dark Nights: Metal, Marvel Legacy, The War of Jokes and Riddles...and that’s not even mentioning the absolutely AWESOME year in comic themed movies, television and video games! There’s so much to get to, so let’s get started!

 

WTF Moment Of The Year

As always this year’s Edgies open with the award that goes to the strangest, oddest comic book moments that just made everyone go WHOA, TIME FLIES! Okay, that’s not what WTF means, but this is a family show!

It was such a crazy year with so many moments, I had to leave out a few crazy moments like Omni Man getting eviscerated in Invincible and Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN showing up in DN: Metal! As big as those and many more moments were...these 4 unforgettable scenes were even more shocking!

Batman Proposes To Catwoman (Batman #24)

Spider-Man Reveals His Secret Identity To Jonah Jameson (Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man #6)

Death Of Black Widow (Secret Empire #7)

Wolverine’s ALIVE! (Marvel Legacy One-Shot)

Winner: Batman Proposes

Yes, I have to say that the one big moment I didn’t see coming at all HAD to be Batman...comics’ biggest playboy and loner at the same time FINALLY making the leap and deciding to settle down with Catwoman!

And even though Bruce actually did marry Selena on Earth 2 (resulting in them raising their daughter who we know as The Huntress), making this not uncharted territory...I don’t think ANYONE expected any form of modern age Batman taking the plunge! And to some it may sound corny, but new Batman writer Tom King has made every issue since the proposal quite entertaining and great reads. I’m excited to see where it all goes!

 

Villain Of The Year

Now the award that goes to the creepiest, skin crawling baddie in all of comics this year! No hero or heroine is complete without his or her arch-nemesis.  And this year comics were corroded with all sorts of baddies! From a power hungry former hero to two insane villains in a murderous blood feud to a megalomaniacal intergalactic warlord, this category has it all.

I wonder who could have inspired all the best writers in comics to create and re-imagine such despicable miscreants?!? Hmm, let’s think.

Hydra Supreme

Joker

Riddler

  Thragg

Winner: Hydra Supreme

For almost the entirety of 2017, the Marvel Universe was completely altered by Kobik, a portion of the cosmic cube transformed into a omnipotent little girl capable of transforming reality! And that she did! Captain America’s history was totally distorted and changed, making him the greatest double agent ever, Hydra Supreme!

And under “Evil Cap’s” leadership, Hydra was as powerful as ever, nearly taking over the world! They managed to recruit and coerce some of world’s dangerous anti-heroes to join their regime, from Punisher and Deadpool to Scarlet Witch and even Ant Man. And all this even lead to the death of one of Marvel’s finest, Black Widow! It was dark times indeed...Until the one true Steve Rogers defied reality itself and returned to face Hydra Supreme and take his shield back! And to think, last year Hydra Cap sparked so much HATE over social media! It was all part of the plan to have 2 Caps in the end and the good guys are triumphant! Why expect anything else?

But don’t count out our baddie of the year! He’s currently incarcerated but his Hydra agents are still out there waiting for their next move.

 

 

Team Of The Year

There’s nothing I enjoy more than a good superhero team comic! And this year we had our fill with great team books from both of the big two! Last year’s TOTY, Champions kept rolling with one of the most entertaining comics on the shelf, along with Brian Michael Bendis’ Defenders featuring the street level heroes from Netflix, DC’s flagship heroes kept the Rebirth train rolling strong and Old Man Logan, Sabretooth and the rest of the anti-heroes from the Weapon Plus program took on the ultimate monster, Weapon H!

But which of these teams showed unity when all hope was lost and proved they were stronger together than separate?!

 

Champions

Defenders

Justice League

Weapon X

Winner: Defenders

Unfortunately with Brian Michael Bendis leaving Marvel for DC in 2018, we may not see this comic survive the year. And it’s too bad because the Defenders comic book was awesome! If you loved the TV series, the comic was so much more action-packed and in-depth.

 It had all the awesomeness and quick witted dialogue of Bendis’ New Avengers run combined with crazy artwork from David Marquez. And what the comic had going for it that the show didn’t was that it was so well imbedded into the Marvel Universe, with characters like Black Cat, Punisher and Deadpool showing up to cause trouble. Seriously, it was the team book that had it all and Marvel really should find a good replacement writer to keep it going.

 

 

Best New Character

Every year there’s a whole slew of brand new characters created and whether they are villains, sidekicks or heroes they usually manage to shake things up for the series they debut in!

Now, in previous years we had a lot more newbies to choose from, but nonetheless, here are the new characters that made an impact in 2017!

 

The Batman Who Laughs (Dark Nights: Metal)

Hindsight (Generation X)

Jason (Wonder Woman)

The Mason (Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man)

Winner: Batman Who Laughs

Of all of the nominees, The Batman Who Laughs is the character we will all remember! Appearing in Dark Nights: Metal as one of the evil Batmen from the Dark Multiverse, this specific one is what would have happened if Batman was infected by a virus that literally turned him into his worst enemy...and his greatest nightmare!

I think what has made the BWL so popular is that he looks pretty darn cool! With his gremlin-like Robin minions (they are all literally former Robins also infected by the Joker virus), he looks literally like something from a heavy metal album cover or a Guillermo Del Toro movie monster!

We don’t know what’s going to happen to him in Dark Nights as of this writing, but here’s hoping some glorious plot twist occurs that allows this guy to stick around to cause the DCU trouble!

 

Scrap Of The Year

Oh boy! This is one of my favorite awards to give out! Because let’s be honest here. WE LOVE SUPERHERO FIGHTS! Most of the reason we read comics is for the BOOM! POW! ZOWIE! FIGHTS!

This year we had fights in space, fights for America, gang fights, ninja fights....and that was just in politics! In comics however, things were even crazier! Some of them were pages long...some lasted for many issues! No matter how long a comic book fight lasts, they have had us us coming back for more!

Captain America vs. Hydra Supreme (Secret Empire #10)

Huge Freakin' Space Fight (Invincible #135-140)

Iron Fist vs. Elektra (Defenders #7)

Team Joker vs. Team Riddler (Batman #25-32)

Winner: Iron Fist vs. Elektra

Believe it or not, Danny Rand and Elektra Natchios have never fought each other in the comics before! I know, it seems weird and untrue but I can’t find any record of them fighting before either, so it must be true.

So, knowing this, Bendis decided to give us one HELL of a BRAWL between two of the best martial artists in the MU. It was many pages long and one of the best knockdown drag-out comic battles I’ve ever seen! And it really showed the excellent storytelling skills of David Marquez. I would have loved to have seen a scrap of this level between the two on the Defenders TV show...but that’s why people need to be reading comic books! It’s ALWAYS better and more imaginative! Can’t wait for round 2!

 

Trending News Of The Year

This award goes to the biggest trending comic related news of the year. Now in the new world of “Fake News” I will make this clear, I did my best to NOT include any sort of negative news...and yeah, the comic industry gets its fair share of it every year. I’m not one to dwindle on negativity.

Anyway! Here are the 4 news items that tickled our newsfeeds and made us all geek out!

Brian Michael Bendis Jumps To DC Comics

Disney Acquires 20^th Century Fox

Frank Miller Announces Superman: Year One

Joss Whedon Set To Direct Live Action Batgirl Film

Winner: Disney Brings X-Men And Fantastic Four Home

I think we can all agree that this was beyond a shadow of doubt the best early Christmas present for Marvel fans. Disney did us all a solid and bought 20^th Century Fox and all of its film rights and properties. With it came rights to The Simpsons, Futurama, Avatar and of course finally the X-Men film rights (including Deadpool) and Fantastic Four! So this means all of Marvel’s film rights are all back under Marvel Studios’ wing!

We still aren’t sure what is going to happen. Will Marvel Studios somehow induct Bryan Singer’s X-Men film universe into the MCU? Or reboot everything like they did Spider-Man? We just don’t know! But it is indeed very exciting times!

 

Video Game Of The Year

There’s no doubt that there have been some amazing comic book adapted video games in the past, but sadly the last few years things have been slow. Besides Telltale Games, there just haven’t been that many comic book games produced. Marvel for some reason hasn’t had a strong presence in the console video game world recently, and Rocksteady’s Batman series has been ultra quiet with only rumours to its continuation. So, in past years I’ve been forced to use video games that have had comic adaptations attached to them as nominees.

Not this year! 2017 was a stellar year for comic book video games, and not just Telltale games either (even though they pulled out two amazing games)! Comic games came back in full force and the big two’s fighting franchises specifically returned!

I suspect that 2018 may be an even better year for this category, we shall see!

 

Batman: The Enemy Within

Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series

Injustice 2

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite

Winner: Injustice 2

After many years of Telltale ruling this category, NetheRealm returns for the crown with Injustice2! I need to say it. I wasn’t crazy about the game mechanics when I first began playing...but now I am REALLY good at it and I have to say it is leaps and bounds better than the original game. It has an amazing story mode, you can create your own gear loadouts and costumes, the DLCs have been great (Hellboy and TMNT?! Nobody saw that coming) and I am still playing it regularly 7 months later.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adored Telltale’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Batman Season 2 games and they really knocked it out of the park like they always do...but Injustice 2 just may simply be one of the best comic book games of this generation if not EVER.

 

 TV Series Of The Year

I really can’t complain about comic book TV this year either! And traditional superhero television like Arrow, Flash and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are still soooo excellent and entertaining, but 2017 was definitely the year of non-superhero comic book TV.

It started over on AMC with Walking Dead and Preacher and now I have to say that the best comic adapted television right now is the non-superhero stuff! Netflix/Marvel kept rolling strong and a teen drama that I never thought I would be into absolutely captivated me.

The golden age of comic book TV continues!

Preacher

Punisher

Riverdale

Walking Dead

Winner: Punisher

WOOO!!!! First off let me say all of these shows are so excellent. Preacher somehow put out a much more crazy and wild season than the first, Walking Dead is still a must-see show with super interesting characters and storylines and Riverdale....is just my biggest TV guilty pleasure in a long time.

BUT none of those shows were kick ass and epic like Punisher on Netflix. I was a HUGE fan of Jon Bernthal in the role of Frank Castle in Daredevil Season 2 (and I got to tell him personally), and he took his portrayal in Punisher’s solo series to a whole new level of awesomeness. This was not a MCU superhero story whatsoever. Besides Karen Page being in it you barely get any references to the other Netflix shows even. I of course would have made a ton of geeky references, but this was a high drama, crime television show that dealt with loss and PTSD and family and it was just very special. And violent and gory like all hell, but that’s to be expected.

I would suggest this show to anyone, comic book fan or not. And in the end that’s what marks a great comic book adaptation into any medium. Can’t wait for next season (which has already been confirmed)!

 

Well, there’s part one of this year’s first Edgie Awards! Come back soon for part 2 which will feature awards for Best Movie, Hero, Heroine,Writer, Artist and much more!