The last of earth left to discover

30 Days of Marvel Meme: Day 14: Favorite Marvel movie actor

There are so many good ones, especially in The Avengers - but if I’m being honest, Tom Hiddleston as Loki is my favourite of them all.

30 Days of Marvel: Day 12: Best Marvel movie

The Avengers

30 Days of Marvel: Day 11: Best villain

No doubt about it, there are many good villians at Marvel. In fact, some of my very favourite characters have sometimes been villains - Magneto, Emma Frost, Gambit, Rogue - and these days, in spectacular fashion, Loki. I won’t say any of them, because in all cases, I like them better as heroes.

My favourite villain, who has never been anything but a villain? Norman Osborn, who started his life as a theatrically silly Spider-Man villain, throwing pumpkins and cackling in a green mask on a flying a skateboard. But he gained in gravitas as the years went by - especially when he killed Gwen Stacey, in one of the more moving comics of the day.

And then came Civil War and Dark Reign, and in the past decade, Norman Osborn has become an interesting and complicated character. Evil? Oh, yes, and nicely convincing.

It’s all in the writing, oh yes.

~ ~ ~

Norman Osborn: Don’t you just love a happy ending?

Victoria Hand: Yes, sir.

- From Dark Reign: The List - Hulk, by Greg Pak and Ben Oliver. October, 2009.

30 Days of Marvel: Day 10: Favorite costume/uniform

Wiccan, from Young Avengers.  Basic black with silver highlights, set off with a red wrap.  A bit Thor, a bit Doctor Strange, a bit James Dean.

Gay boys dress well.

30 Days of Marvel: Day 9: Best line(s)

Spider-Man gets all the best lines. 

Okay, I like the classics, like Avengers assemble, Flame on!, Wotta revoltin’ development (which I quoted just this morning; handy, that), and With great power comes great responsibility.

I have a particular fondness for Thor-isms, especially, “Have at thee, villain!” and “I say thee nay.”

There’s a great nostalgic delight to “To me, my X-Men.”

But mostly, it’s Spider-Man.  A few more examples:

Spider-Man to X-23: My God! Wolverine, what have they done to you?

Spider-Man to Thor: Well, wobble my webs and call me shaky! It’s Goldilocks — the hippest hammer in the west!

Spider-Man: Wow, you know you’re in crazytown when Osborn’s the voice of reason.

30 Days of Marvel: Day 8: Favourite Artist

My favourite comic book artist of all time is the American artist Barry Windsor-Smith, whose work on Conan the Barbarian was breathtaking in its Pre-Raphaelite complexity and delicacy.

30 Days of Marvel: Day 7: Favorite team

I’d say the X-Men, but there are so many X-Men teams: the original X-Men, the New X-Men, the Red Team, the Blue Team, the Utopia team, the team at Wolverine’s school (I shake my head sadly), the New Mutants, the New Mutants who turned into X-Force, the next X-Force, the current X-Force, the Science Team, X-Factor (first team, second team, third team), the Dark X-Men, the new Dark X-Men, and so on… possibly ad infinitum.

Maybe I’ll just say the New Avengers. I love seeing Wolverine and Spider-Man on the same team, and Brian Michael Bendis has the snappiest dialogue ever.

30 Days of Marvel, Day 6: Favourite Issue

Favourites of the past:

• Fantastic Four #51, “This Man, This Monster” by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
• Master of Kung Fu #29, “The Crystal Connection”, by Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy
• Daredevil #191, “Roulette”, by Frank Miller
  
  And currently… Well, I thought of saying The Incredible Hulk #603, in which Daaken, son of Wolverine, meets Skaar, son of the Hulk. Or the issue of x-Men Prelude to Schism in which Emma Frost was ready to leave Scott Summers, until they each confessed the secrets and lies between them. Or the issue of Iron Man in which Tony Stark shut down his own brain.
  
  Instead, I’ll going to say Thor #619, a chapter of the story “The World Eaters”, in which Loki came back to the Asgardians.

Day 5: Favourite series

So many good series these days. When I was a kid, I would have said Fantastic Four or Journey into Mystery. I might say Journey into Mystery again. Or Daredevil, my favourite in the mid-1980s, or Master of Kung Fu.

But I won’t. I’ll say The Invincible Iron Man, since in the hands of Matt Fraction that comic has been brilliant. I love his Tony Stark and his crazy, brave, inventive, messed-up life.

30 Days of Marvel, Day 4: Least favorite character

I don’t like any of the non-humanoid creatures of monsters - do they count?

Among the heroes, my least favourite Marvel character is Colossus (Piotr Rasputin) of the X-Men. I’ve always found him boring, and patronizing towards both Kitty Pryde and his sister, Illyana Rasputin.