100 Things I love about comics:
Number 97: Chris Claremont.
Chris Claremont got a bad rap in the past few years. There are people who say his writing has become outdated, archaic, and just not “fun”. Without Chris Claremont, we wouldn’t have modern Marvel comics as we know it, people, so show a little respect. He was, with the help of Larry Hama on GI Joe, keeping the company afloat when NO ONE was buying Marvel books all that regularly. Uncanny X-Men became the standard at Marvel, and this predates Spider-Man selling his marriage to the devil, this predates Brian Bendis doing a bad David Mamet impression on five books a month, this predates crime novelists and TV writers and filmmakers being called in to write comics as a fun summer job then bolting back to what they really make their bones doing. This man invented the language used to carry the company along, and created most of the characters you saw in the X-Men movies. He also kept in mind that every comic is, in theory, someone’s first, and thus people’s powers and motivations should be clear and easy to follow to a reader who probably hasn’t read every crossover event in the past 7 years.
“I’m the best there is at what I do…and what I do isn’t very nice.” That was him. Making Wolverine the best he is at what he does, making Wolverine a character who has actually run neck and neck with Spider-Man as the visible symbol of Marvel as a company began with Chris Claremont. So show a little respect for what has gone before. Kids today. Get the hell out of my yard.
Dan Harmon fired off of Community.
Suck my balls, NBC. Seriously. I’d rather lose Chevy Chase than the guy who created the show and serves as principal writer. Just goes to show that unless you’re an in-front-of-the-camera talent, you’re eminently replaceable.
100 Things I love about comics: Number 98
Rocket Raccoon
Who in their right mind wouldn’t look at that and call it crazy? Yes, that’s an anthropomorphic raccoon with a ray gun, wearing a uniform. That’s, in fact, Rocket Raccoon, of the Guardians of the Galaxy, who is a heavy weapons specialist, and is often seen wielding a GATLING GUN. His teammates include a plant woman empath who knows space kung fu, and a giant wooden alien conqueror named Groot, and a telepathic space dog from Russia. Because comics, that’s why.
100 reasons I love comics: Number 99.
Spider Jerusalem
A hyper future version of Hunter S. Thompson, Spider seeks the truth above all else. A story is a gun, with one bullet in it, but if it’s aimed right, it can blow up the world. He wields a bowel disruptor gun, because why shoot your opponents dead when you can give them humiliating explosive shits instead? Spider takes down a President with the power of the truth. What’s not to love?
“So why do you do it?” “Because somebody needs to.” The Authority #9, Artists Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary.
100 things I love about comics, number 100: Jonah Hex
“That’s Jonah Hex his own bad self. He’s killed more men than hell has souls!” Let’s be CLEAR. I’m not talking about when they tried to salvage the character from the death of bad sales by rebooting him into Mad Max. I mean confederate grey wearing, bounty collecting, no-shit-taking Jonah Hex, in the old West, on his horse, cracking dry as the desert jokes whenever people ask him what happened to his face.
Do not bring up the movie. If you do, you are not my friend.
