Needs More Love / Comic Books

• Argentinian Comic Books don't receive any love from the world in general; not even in their country. Just to give a few titles, El Eternauta, Mafalda, and La Revista Fierro.
  • Cybersix should be included here. The cartoon adaptation needs more love, too (it's already in the Western Animation folder), but the graphic novels in their undiluted form are beautiful and riveting.
  • Are you kidding? Mafalda gets more love than Monica's Gang itself.
• Kurt Busiek's Avengers run in the late '90s deserves more love and attention. He got to work with a murderer's row of artists like George Perez, Paul Ryan, Jerry Ordway, and Alan Davis. The stories were fun, and Busiek's usage of past continuity is inspiring.
• The Batman Adventures, the comic book spin-off of Batman: The Animated Series. That's right, it's a comic book based on a cartoon based on a comic book, and a damn fine one. Rather than cashing in on the popularity of the show by turning out cheap stories or adapting episodes, this was a tie-in that really did justice to the source material. At its best, one could even argue that it was better than B:TAS.
• The first Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle run was really well-written other than the first few issues. The main complaint was the undignified death of former Blue Beetle Ted Kord in a completely different title (Jaime's own series gave Ted big props). It was cancelled due to low sales, but hopefully enough people buying the back issues will bring it back.
  • And in 2011, Jaime returns as part of DC's big relaunch, keeping his costume and supporting cast.
• The Boondocks comic strip, which has now been almost completely eclipsed by the television adaptation despite being just as hilarious and clever, if not more so.
• Chase, a DC comic book from late '90s. The premise—a (mostly) normal woman solving metahuman-related crimes in the DC Universe—was ahead of its time. It had a complex main character, a solid cast, and great art, but it was ingloriously cancelled after only 10 issues—and the last issue was a crossover with DC One Million that was completely unrelated to the main story. Thankfully, DC had the decency to wrap up the unresolved plot threads in their 2000 annuals, and Chase herself later became a supporting character in Manhunter... which was also too good to last.
• The Courageous Princess: A princess from an obscure kingdom who isn't particularly rich or beautiful has to rely on her wits and kindness to escape from a dragon and get home, and all because no prince would bother to rescue her. Toss in some Talking Animals and Wacky Wayside Tribes and you've got the makings of a great adventure.
• Doctor Strange, despite being a Marvel character, doesn't get a lot of attention, which is a shame because the comics are pretty cool.
• Gambit: House of Cards. Despite being one of the biggest Ensemble Darkhorses in X-Men, everybody's favorite card-throwing Cajun seems to have a hard time getting successful solo series. Which is a shame, because the six-part "House of Cards" (the first story arc in his short-lived 2005 solo comic) is one of the most unabashedly fun X-Men stories out there. It covers the Ragin' Cajun returning to his roots as a thief in New Orleans during a break from the X-Men, and getting roped into a web of supernatural intrigue after he's hired to steal a deck of powerful tarot cards from a wealthy local sorcerer. There's plenty of action and surprises to go around, but the real treat here is the cast; with the X-Men gone (save for a pretty memorable cameo from Wolverine), the series fills in the gaps with its own supporting cast drawn from the seedy New Orleans underworld, managing some impressive world-building in a limited space. There's the Gentleman Wizard Morgan Penrose, Penrose's manipulative sexpot niece Lily, Remy's Cool Old Guy pal Dan Down (who may or may not receive supernatural messages from playing cards), the sassy fortune-teller/master hacker Madame Camille d'Aubigne, the fish-faced mutant hitman Alphonse, the mutant crime lord Orlean Cooper (who is secretly a demon), and Remy's brutal rival "Fast Jack" Jessup; all of them play their own vital roles in the plot, culminating in a climax worthy of Raymond Chandler. Sadly, the next two story arcs in the series are pretty forgettable, but "House of Cards" is still well worth a read if you can track down a copy of the trade.
• The Great Power of Chninkel: A darkly humourous deconstruction of hero myth tropes, featuring a purposefully Designated Unlikely Messiah constantly lampshading the absurdity and pains of being The Chosen One who was only made the Chosen One because God is very busy and "you'll do just fine". And there are fan-made English translations available on the Internet. Why isn't this more popular?
• Grim Jack by John Ostrander & Tim Truman, Flint Henry, Tom Mandrake, etc. If it's good enough for Roger Zelazny (a big fan, wrote the foreword to the graphic novel), it's good enough for anybody.
• Hawkeye and Mockingbird, though anything with either counts, too. (Well, except for Hawkeye's current series, written by Matt Fraction and number 1 at the trade sales charts.) This series in particular, written by a Promoted Fanboy, really shines, though, and was needlessly cancelled after its sixth issue when it only finished its first arc.
• ''The Huntress'' created by Joey Cavalieri and Joe Staton. It introduced Helena Bertinelli as the Huntress. It had compelling stories, interesting new characters and a revamped origin story. She wasn’t drawn as an anatomically impossible woman, and wore a more sensible costume. The art work by Staton gave a gritty feel to the stories.
• PkNA. one of the greatest Disney series ever. Chances are, if you're thinking of Donald Duck, you're not thinking of this series. Hopefully, With Disney buying Marvel, the series will get a relaunch....
• Phoebe and Her Unicorn is a cute and funny comic that sadly doesn't have the popularity it deserves, despite being basically Calvin and Hobbes 2.0.
• The Red Circle books DC put out in 2009-2010: Great takes on interesting characters and awesome stories!
• Rork. Obscure yet brilliant comics series with complex, well-written plot, likeable characters, truly epic vibe and jaw-dropping art. If you like Diesel Punk, an intelligent story, Crazy Is Cool ideas and deep mysticism, it's for you.
• The Sabrina the Teenage Witch manga-style comic by Tania del Rio. This could have been just a cheap gimmick by Archie Comics. Instead, Tania took the manga idea beyond the look: it had good characters, a detailed mythos, and an actual arc.
• Star Fox—yes, the very one. It expands on the original game's backstory, introducing new characters, concepts, action sequences, occasional light-hearted humour and a small measure of romance, well-dosed for the game's genre.
• Anything, anything involving Taskmaster.
• Tiny Sepuku. A newspaper comic that gives hilarious romantic advice to readers through very funny characters.
• Trinity Angels, which is quirky and fun, but is often ignored by even VH 2-era Valiant fans, and is the only VH 2-originated Valiant property to not even rate an entry in The Other Wiki.
• Pearls Before Swine is an absolutely hysterical newspaper comic that could best be described as the South Park of comic strips. It involves several Funny Animals living in a Crapsack World who get into several normal and not-so-normal situations and make Incredibly Lame Puns on a regular basis. Unlike most comic strips, Pearls is decidedly not child-appropriate. It comments on several issues, takes jabs at the media, the government, society, and various other comics (The Family Circus and Dilbert being favorite targets), as well as the declining state of the newspaper industry, contains all kinds of death (one of the characters is an idiotic crocodile who regularly tries (and fails) to eat his zebra neighbor), Black Comedy, and various other family-unfriendly content. Hell, the main characters are a cynical Jerkass and a Wide-Eyed Idealist who is constantly abused by the other. But it's all Played for Laughs (most of the time), and makes for an entertaining read. It's not even afraid to belittle itself and its author. And yet it gets so little attention
• Xenozoic Tales: A well-drawn pulp-themed post-apocalyptic story with dinosaurs and larger-than-life personalities. It even went on to spawn an arcade beat-em-up and cartoon series. Unfortunately, creator Mark Schultz never gave the main story a proper ending, and it seems no one else has picked up the torch.
• Monica Rambeau AKA Captain Marvel AKA Photon AKA Pulsar AKA Spectrum is a Marvel Comics character who gained the power to absorb, manipulate and turn into energy on the electromagnetic spectrum, and fly at the speed of light while in her energy form. She is one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe. She was a member of the Avengers (the first black female member in fact) and even lead them for a while. But for some reason, few people have even heard of her.
• Ultraduck, by Mexican author Edgar Delgado who works at Marvel. While it may not be the most original tale ever, is still a charming tale of a young man trying to grow up to impress his crush while becoming a cool superhero. It has really good artwork, with a nice feel of a superhero tale, and is pretty cool! Keep in mind I'm talking about the remake, which you can find on Comixology, not the original one, which is charming on its own amateur right, but the remake shows how much the author has improved over the years.

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