Episode 1577 Talkback - Top 5 Annuals
Adam_Murdough
Posts: 506
Annuals are a time-honored comics tradition, providing a kind of king-size fun and excitement that can come but once a year (if that often!). In this Top 5 episode, we wax nostalgic about some of our favorite stories to be presented in the annual format. But first, a CGS preview of a coming attraction: we discuss the third trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens! (1:49:36)
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And the issue itself boasts the talents of Chuck Dixon, Barbara and Karl Kessel, Dick Giordano inked by freaking George Perez, Ron Wagner, and a few others. I mean really, how could you not love that?
5) Green Lantern Annual #3 (1987) — Great short stories of lesser known Lanterns by great creative teams. Look it up!
4) Batman Annual #11 (1987)) — I pick this one primarily for the heartwrenching Clayface story by Alan Moore and George Freeman, though the Penguin backup by Max Allan Collins and Norm Breyfogle is pretty darn good too.
3) Starman Annual #1 (1996) — ’Cause Starman.
2) Swamp Thing Annual #3 (1987) — Packed with ape goodness. Seriously, it's every ape character in the DC universe in a great story by Rick Veitch.
1) Marvel Two-in-One Annual #7 (1982) — Hands down my favorite annual of all time! It's the greatest! It floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee! And my friend whose copy I read as a kid wouldn't trade it to me. Now I have two copies. Okay, it's silly bordering on ridiculous, but it's pure comic book gold.
Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):
Swamp Thing Annual #5 (1989)
Swamp Thing Annual #2 (1986)
Tales of GL Corps Annual #2 (1986)
Doctor Fate Annual #1 (1989)
Action Comics Annual #1 (1987)
Children’s Crusade annuals (1993)
Starman Annual #2 (1997)
All New X-Men annual #10 (1986)
It featured:
Mojo
X-babies
and the first appearance of Longshot
and, most awesome Arthur Adams art.
Great story, a lot of fun too. Many elements that would later be prominent in Excalibur
All before Marvel wore out these kinds of things.....
5. Batman and the Outsiders Vol. 1 issue 1 (1984) Barr/Saviuk/Aparo "Land Where Our Fathers Died" based off Orwell's "1984"
4. Adventures of Superman Vol. 1 issue 3 (1991) Louise Simonson/Bryan Hitch
Superman & Maxima a tiein to Armageddon 2001
3. DC Comics Presents Vol. 1 issue 2 (1983) Superman/ Superwoman Elliot S! Maggin/Keith Pollard
2. Action Comics, Vol. 1 issue 1 (1987) Byrne/Art Adams/Giordano Batman & Superman fighting vampires
1. Action Comics, Vol. 1 issue 3 (1991) Roger Stern/Tom Grummett President Superman a tiein to Armageddon 2001
Matthew
I promised myself that I wouldn't get too excited for Star Wars 7 after the letdown of Phantom Menace (and that movie had a good trailer too) and the subsequent prequel movies but I can't help myself. Its like we are hard wired to love Star Wars no matter what.
Deemer tells that Steranko story at the beginning of one of the Uncle Sal episodes.
Two things that made me get a little verklampt watching the new Star Wars trailer was, 1. watching new footage of the almost angelic yet powerful bobbing and weaving of my beloved Millennium Falcon, in my opinion the best spaceship in the history of film cinema (dropping the microphone) and 2. Han embracing Leia. I can't wait but I'm not pressed like I use to be in my younger days to see it the first weekend. I actually plan on seeing it with one of my best friends of more than 30 years whom I've seen all the Star Wars films with (including re-releases) on the 23rd. He's bringing his young son who will be seeing his first Star Wars film. I think that's awesome.
I was never a big annual person so I don't exactly have a top 5 to share. Some that was mentioned are pretty much two of my all-time favorite comic stories in general. That is the Avengers Annual featuring Rogue and Carol Danvers, and the Teen Titans Judas Contract finale. The first issue that came to mind though was for me, one of the most beautifully drawn comics I've ever seen and that's X-Men Annual 3. George Perez did the art and it was inked by the legendary Terry Austin. I have a copy of this book signed by both. I wish they had done more work together because their work together was breathtaking.
5. Psi-Force Annual #1
I love this New Universe series, without reservation or irony. Honestly, I can't remember the story for this annual (other than what we can see from the cover image), but I've re-read this series a few times and have thoroughly enjoyed, particularly the first year or so.
4. The Flash Annual #1
the post-Legends DC Universe is my jam, so to speak, and the Flash is my favorite character, bar none. This annual came out shortly after the fourth issue of the new series, written by Mike Baron. It involves Wally West learning a death touch from a martial arts master, a power that he would never use again, and I don't remember much beyond that. But that cover image is burned into my memory. And, again, the excitement I felt with this series overwhelms my nostalgic sensors. Great, fun stuff.
3. Justice League of America annual #2
"The End of the Justice League!" After the Bwa-ha-ha League, JLDetroit is "my" Justice League. This book was the first JLA comic I bought, and I devoured it. Chuck Patton's art is solid, and the story of Aquaman disbanding the League is fun and dramatic in that "comic book" way. What followed, though often panned, was an experiment that I enjoyed. I recently read this and the arc that follows, within the past couple years, and I enjoyed it just as much. Good stuff.
2. G.I. Joe Yearbook #3
Snake-Eyes is being held by Cobra in their consulate building in New York City, and Scarlett & Storm Shadow must invade that high-rise to rescue him. A sequel to "Silent Interlude" in that Hama again writes a wordless story, this time drawn by Ron Wagner, my favorite Joe artist, and it's great. You also get a retrospective of the Joe cartoon, as well as the last year's worth of comic stories, plus a short story in the back, drawn by Mike Zeck, about how Julius Caesar invented pizza. Fun stuff all around.
1. Superman Annual #11
The single best, single issue Superman story, in my opinion. This one I've read over and over and over, and it always feels fresh. Moore kicks readers in the gut with the overwhelming sorrow both Superman and Batman carry inside, while also showing us why they are such great heroes, and he manages to do it with an economy and intelligence that hasn't been surpassed. And Dave Gibbons draws it all. Flawless.
chris
Avengers Annual #10 - Only bad thing about this issue is I don't own it anymore. Had it. Don't now.
Marvel Two in One 3 Thing and Nova versus giant robot aliens. Just worked. Drawn by Sal Buscema!
Incredible Hulk Annual 7 Teams up with Iceman and Angel versus a giant self-aware Sentinel. Drawn by John Byrne
Marvel Two in One 2 - Spidey and Thing with Avengers versus Thanos. Drawn and written by Starlin.
Amazing Spider-man 10 Spider-man vs The Fly drawn by Gil Kane.
Great artist on all of these comics. Three of my favorites in Byrne, Golden, and Buscema.
Yeah, I have to agree, this was a really good story.
Avengers Annual 10 - agree with all this one combines great art and story
X-Men Annual 3 - great Perez art on X-Men!
X-Men Annual 5 - X-Men and FF by Brent Anderson!
New Teen Titans Annual 3 - agree with Chris's comments
Batman Annual 25 - last part of Under the Hood story
Daredevil Annual #4 (The first one. by the time they finally did the next one, they'd forgotten they'd done a #4 in 1976.) It guest starred the Black Panther and Sub-Mariner.
My favorite era of Annuals is mid to late 70's early 80's before there were cross overs that would include multiple annuals, in particular Marvel's square bound King Size Annuals. Usually they were one long story that covered the entire issue for 50 to 75 cents. It annoyed me if there were a few 5 page filler stories or reprints at the end, so these were gold.
For my top 5 I am going with the following in no particular order;
Action Comics Annual 2 1989 A who's who of great creators wrap up the story of Superman's self-imposed exile that was a consequence of the killing of General Zod & his cronies in an alternate reality.
Batman Special #1 1984 Written by Mike W Barr art by Michael Golden, great story as Batman takes on a twisted mirror image of himself.
Batman Annual 9 1985 Mike W Barr again and Kevin O'Neil on pencils
4 short stories showing different aspects of Batman as a character.
Teen Titans Annual 2 1983 Marv Wolfman and George Perez introduce one of my favorite characters of ALL-TIME, Vigilante.
Rom Annual 2 1983 Bill Mantlo writing with Sal Buscema pencils, the regular creative team for Rom introduces us to the Spaceknight Squadron, pure 80's Sci-Fi greatness!
And it is one of my all-time favorite comics (which, after 30+ years, I suppose encompasses a wide breadth of books now). The Flash origin is great -- delving into the psychological issues, and mental blocks, Wally has due to the grave responsibility of taking over the name of the Flash from his Uncle Barry, whom he viewed as a perfect superhero who never had to compromise, and it's these mental blocks that have slowed Wally down -- by Baron & Mike Collins, followed by the Kipling poem.
Then we get the origin of the Barry Allen Flash, which goes through the high points of his "career" until we get to the events of Crisis #8, where Barry is sucked back in time, while destroying the Anti-Monitor's cannon, and readers learn that he became the lightning bolt that destroyed the chemicals that created him in the first place. Very cool story, with phenomenal art from The Flash Artist, Carmine Infantino. Great book!
-chris
All-Star Squadron Annual 1 (1982) - The Three Faces of Evil - reveals the common ground in the pasts of the Atom, Wildcat, and Guardian - I've read all three All-Star Squadron Annuals and this is my favorite
Captain America Annual 6 (1982) - The Shadows of the Past - which introduced me to some of Cap's history and the other men who had worn the Captain America costume
Marvel Two-in-One Annual 7 (1982) - And They Shall Call Him... Champion! - I love how the field of challengers gets whittled down until only the Thing is left standing
New Teen Titans Annual 1 (1982) - Final Conflict! - conclusion of the Omega Men story which started in NTT 23, 24, 25 - I bought this off the stands and had it for about 30 years before I finally went back and found the other parts of the story - when I reread it, along with the first three parts, it totally lived up to my memory of it
X-Men Annual 3 (1979) - A Fire in the Sky! - Arkon kidnaps Storm; the X-Men follow him back to his world; art by George Perez; the only annual on my list that I didn't buy and read when it first came out although it probably wasn't more than a couple years later that I did so, it is also the only one of these that I have not reread in the past couple years
Believe it or not, I made this list before I checked to see which year each of these annuals was from.
I actually organized a blog crossover about 3 years ago where various bloggers and I covered these stories (and similar themed storys).
(CLICK THE IMAGE FOR MY MAIN ENTRY AND THE PARTICIPATING ENTRY LINKS)
*shameless plug over*
But the idea of Kyle having to face down the "Ghosts" of the Green Lantern Corps (and NEKRON) long before Blackest Night....it was a fun read. I remember that Annual even quite fondly.
I will need to give this some serious thought. What a fantastic topic though. Looking forward to seeing what is on all of your lists. I love topics that get me thinking and exploring my history of reading. Gold star to whomever came up with this topic.