Ben's Top Marvel and DC Titles from 2014

Are you ready for my favorite Marvel and DC titles for 2014?

Harley Quinn

My first pick for the Marvel and DC is Harley Quinn. If you’re not reading this, it is probably the funnest book on the shelf! Palmiotti and Conner just knock it out the park with the writing and Hardin is a fantastic artist. But one of the beautiful things about it is that you always get an Amanda Connor cover, so you can’t go wrong there.

Justice League 3000

Justice League 3000 is one of the books I’m afraid is going to land on the
butcher’s block. This book is set — obviously — in the year 3000. The Justice League has been cloned, they’re sent to fight five uber powerful beings that have set out to take over the galaxy. And Giffen has his typical humor, great storytelling, super heroics and you get some Booster Gold and some Blue Beetle, written by the man who knows how to do it.

Batman

We’ve also got Batman. I don’t think much needs to be said about this. Snyder and Capullo have taken the character that grew kind of stale and given it a fresh spin — they don’t just go to the well. Well, he sort of does, we’ve got Joker, we’ve seen Clayface, but he’s created villains that I believe are going to stand the test of time and become one of the rogues' gallery and prominent ones at that.


Trillium. Although this looks like an indy, this is a Vertigo title. Jeff Lemire
is someone to watch. If you haven’t seen some of his other stuff, you’ve got Lost Dogs, you’ve got Underwater Welder and Essex County. Trillium is a time-crossed love story about a woman at the end of time, where the human race is almost extinct, and a man who’s an explorer from the 30s. They come head to head. They switch places. The book makes you flip back and forth. You feel just as lost and disoriented as them. It’s a really emotional, really powerful story and it’s well worth reading.

Avengers

On to Marvel. I said “Top Five” and four of them were DC – imagine that, I’m a Marvel kid! But, Avengers and New Avengers go hand-in-hand. I count these both as one because they’re both written by Hickman; they’re both the core of the Avengers Universe and, quite honestly, the core of the
Marvel Universe. You know, you’ve got your X-men section, you’ve got your Spiderman section, you’ve got your space section, but this is everything that’s been happening, everything that’s bled into Infinity. You’ve got the Illuminati trying to stop the builders who are destroying earth after earth after earth. Making choices like destroying earth to save ours, and then you’ve got the Avengers who are good guys, who ultimately find out about it and have to do something. This is stuff that’s going to spin into the big event here in 2015 and Hickman’s doing a fantastic job!

The Wolverine for Beginners

Comic book expert Ben Schwartz makes a guest appearance on Good Day Sacramento to bring viewers up to speed on some basic Wolverine facts. Ben references Old Man Logan and Claremont and Miller's Wolverine, available at Empire's Comics Vault, naturally.

Next Men Saved Comic Book Storytelling in the 90s

By Ben C. Scwhartz

The 90’s Hottest Indie Comic

In the early 90’s the comic book industry was beginning to over-saturate the market. Artists were carrying the weight of making writers’ stories readable. It was in this climate that John Byrne stood out with his independent property Next Men.

What Next Men Is About

Set in the modern time, we are introduced to five kids who find themselves unexpectedly freed from a Utopian, virtual reality and set loose upon a world that has never seen superpowers. There are only 30 issues in the original series, but in that short time, we really come to care about these misplaced characters and the way our world treats them.

Byrne holds nothing back - corporations, secret government organizations, marketing a new super hero team, corruption on all levels, our fear of people capable of powered feats, the interaction of these five heroes with society and between themselves in a world they just don’t understand,  and most importantly, how super powers would actually work in the real world.

Read Next Men ASAP

Just recently IDW has been reprinting the original series. In two graphic novels you can read the complete series in black and white. The lack of color does not detract from this hard hitting series, but if you prefer to have it, the first volume of the color edition is available and a second one is soon to come. This is a personal favorite of mine and is a nice superhero book without the need to read any other titles to understand the world. Visit your local comic shop for a copy.

The original series ended with a cliffhanger, and now 15 years later, the story continues in a second series. You can jump into the new series and catch up, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Start from the beginning.

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About The Author

Ben C. Schwartz is the owner of Empire's Comics Vault in Sacramento, CA. He also owns and operates his own comics publishing company, ECV Press. He loves reading comics, writing comics and talking about comics (which he does on EmpiresCV.tv and EmpiresOpenPodcast.com).