Best Moment of 2008


green lantern 34Jim Doom says: Hal and Carol, Green Lantern #34

Hal Jordan’s anger had been getting the best of him, and Sinestro lectured him about letting that anger get in the way of doing his job. “You need to grow up, deal with it and get on with your life,” Sinestro tells him.

So Hal decides to do just that and orders the ring to take him to the source of his anger – Carl Ferris, the man whose plane exploded, taking the life of Hal’s father. Carol Ferris confronts Hal at the door, but he busts in, demanding to speak to “the old man.” He charges upstairs to find Carl Ferris lying sick in a bed hooked up to various life support machines. Carol explains that the crash consumed her father with guilt to the point of wrecking his health. Carol had only been pretending to be the public face of the company — her father had nothing to do with the operations, as he’d been too sick to get out of bed.

Learning of what Carol had done for her father and what her father thought of Hal was a huge revelation to him, and suddenly all of his selfishness and resentment was put into perspective. “All these years, all this time. And I’ve wasted it. I’ve wasted it at hating someone. Being angry at someone. Someone who didn’t deserve it. A lot of people who didn’t deserve it.”

The scene ends with a rain-soaked embrace between two lonely people. It’s a formative moment for the man who would become Green Lantern, but it’s also a touching moment between two very human characters. I wrote at the time “I think Geoff Johns is the only mainstream comic book writer who knows how to believably portray tenderness between two fictional adults with real feelings. It made me say ‘Wow.’ And as always, Ivan Reis nails it with his art.”

Geoff Johns has been the go-to guy for great moments over the past few years, and a lot has come from the pages of Green Lantern. Off the top of my head, I’m thinking about the people of Coast City showing their support of Green Lantern, plus that awesome moment when a Sinestro ring chose Batman.

Fin Fang Doom says: Rick’s crazy, The Walking Dead #51

If you’re living in a zombie apocalypse situation, you’re bound to go a little crazy. Michonne talks to her dead boyfriend. So talking to your recently shot-by-the-Governor wife on the telephone isn’t so weird, right? I mean, you can always tell yourself you have a direct line to heaven or something else crazy like that.

But the way this issue plays out, both Rick and the reader have no idea who he’s talking to until the end. This voice that almost magically picked up on the other side of the line is the only thing keeping Rick from giving up hope entirely. So when Rick finally asks who he’s talking to and Lori tells him it’s her, your heart just drops. Not only is Rick racked with guilt over the massacre at the prison, but now he’s losing his mind. Which also means that the one person left to look after Carl is crazy. Not good.

Except in this case, it is.

Doom DeLuise says: Batman’s not dead yet, Batman #681

This was the last issue of the Batman RIP story-arc, and it was mostly awesome through the whole thing. With all the hype about Batman biting the dust at the end of this thing, I was fairly pessimistic going into this issue, but what Grant Morrison did with Batman amazes me to this day. How does a writer go from so bad to so good, so quickly?

The moment that stands out to me is after the Black Glove buries Batman’s body. The Joker is busy telling the cocky sons of bitches how far they’ve underestimated the Caped Crusader, and that he’s going to battle back and destroy all of them, because that’s what he does. Meanwhile, back at the grave site, Batman pulls himself out of the ground, explaining that, “Benchpressing a pine coffin lid through 600 pounds of loose soil that’s filling your mouth, crushing your lungs flat and shredding your dehydrated muscles? That’s harder. But far from impossible.”

That’s just top-notch superhero writing, folks. For a minute, I was able to ignore all the hype and believe, just for that one brief and fleeting moment, that Batman had it in him to defy the odds and stand triumphant.

Too bad the moment passed, and now Batman’s dead.

And, of course, our picks for Best Moments in years past:

2007:
Doominator: Movie Trailers
Fin Fang Doom: The Death of Captain America
Doom DeLuise: The Finale of 52
Jim Doom: Coast City Lighting up the Sky with Green, Green Lantern #25

2006:
Doominator: Cyclops Coming Back with a Gun
Doom DeLuise: Captain Atom Going Nuclear, Destroying Bludhaven
Fin Fang Doom: Invincible “Supermen” Fight