Year in Review: 2011

The year 2011 was a rather monumental year for comic books, superheroes, Bart Allen and myself. I graduated from college in 2011 and officially began reading comics, thanks to DC's largest reboot ever, the New 52. Of course, it is rather ironic that the even that took Bart away from comics was the very thin that got me into them.

The world of film also had a big year, with three films grossing over a billion dollars — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. The Academy Awards were dominated by The Artist, which won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Costume Design and Best Original Score. But more significantly, 2011 saw a flurry of incredible superhero films. From Marvel, we saw Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger (the final pieces of the Avengers puzzle), X-Men: First Class (a successful reboot of that franchise) and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (a rather forgettable sequel to a rather forgettable film).

DC, however, only produced one film in 2011, the poorly received Green Lantern. It only earned $219 million against its $200 million budget, and scuttled DC's grand plans of launching a Marvel-like connected universe. But things weren't so bleak for DC, they did have a rather popular animated series, Young Justice, running at this time. (Bart didn't show up until the second season of that show, but we will get there.) And, of course, DC had the exciting, dreadful, wonderful and awful New 52 that created as many problems as it solved. But hey, it got people talking.

Best Issue: Flashpoint: Kid Flash Lost #3

This issue was rushed and inconsistent, but it was a loving tribute to Bart and the Flash family. And, most importantly, it allowed Bart to go out the hero — to selflessly sacrifice himself once more to save the universe. And it successfully gave us the best of both worlds — a heroic death scene for Bart, while creating a method for his eventual return. I really couldn't have asked for a better ending than that.

Best Writer: J.T. Krul

Last year's winner, and six-time overall winner, Geoff Johns, was another strong candidate this year. He actually included Bart in his Road to Flashpoint story, but rather annoyingly made Bart obsessed with gaining Barry's approval. Sterling Gates gave Bart a beautiful ending, but his three-issue Kid Flash Lost series was weighed down by the inexplicable inclusion of Patty Spivot. So that leaves us with J.T. Krul, who had a rather uneven Teen Titans run. He wasted a whole lot of time on a meandering fight against demons in India, then hastily cobbled together a nonsensical battle scene for  issue #100. But he wins this award for being the only writer to attempt to explore Bart's unresolved trauma of being murdered. Those scenes were brief, but they were by far my favorite part of 2011.

Best Artist: Francis Manapul

I'm really excited to finally give this award to one of my favorite comic book artists of all time. Granted, this award is mostly for quality over quantity. Manapul only drew a handful of Flash issues and threw in a smattering of covers. And his Kid Flash Lost covers had nothing to do with the story. But it all looked great. Much better than anything else that came out this year. Especially Nicola Scott's desire to give Bart a round baby face on top of an incredibly stiff muscle-bound body. Manapul actually made Bart look like a lanky 16-year-old with long hair that was brown — not red.

Best Supporting Character: Barry Allen

Last year's winner, Superboy, almost came away with his third award for that delightful race against Kid Flash. But the two of them barely had any interactions with each other in the Teen Titans after that. In fact, Bart barely had any meaningful interactions with any of his teammates. He was briefly infatuated with Solstice, but that died off pretty quickly. And at the end, he chose to hide his suffering from everyone else. Patty Spivot did help Bart escape from Brainiac and begin his run to save the universe, but ultimately, I feel like Bart's bond with Barry was more significant. As annoying as it was, this relationship became a significant component of the entire Flashpoint saga. Bart was the only one bold enough to call Barry out on his bad behavior, and almost seemed on the verge of truly becoming a sidekick for the first time in his career. At the end of the day, Bart couldn't save the universe himself and had to resort to super-charging Barry. Which may be a bit convoluted, but is rather significant.

Best Villain: Brainiac

I almost gave this award to Barry, since he is directly responsible for the Flashpoint crisis. Barry's rival, the Reverse-Flash, also almost won for being indirectly responsible for Flashpoint. Two-time winner Superboy-Prime nearly won his third award, but his appearance at the end of Teen Titans completely came out of nowhere. And he was rendered so weak, and easily defeated, that the whole event became utterly pointless. Same goes for the fake Inertia, who was never properly explained. So that leaves us with Brainiac, who successfully conquered the world 500 years after Flashpoint. Of course, it was Brainiac's decision to capture and study Bart that opened the door for Bart to undo Flashpoint and save the universe. So ... if you really think about it, Barry Allen destroyed the universe and Brainiac saved it. In a manner of speaking.

Next time, we'll begin the year 2012, in which we'll continue to follow the adventures of the New 52 Kid Flash, and, more importantly, become introduced to the animated version of Impulse in Young Justice. Also, since I'm going to be covering a lot more TV episodes, I'm going to stop organizing comics by the cover publication date, and start going by the date they were actually released. The DC Universe app is very helpful in this organization process (seriously, if you don't have it, get it!). Anyway, this means that our next review will be Teen Titans #3, which technically came out November 23, 2011.