Comic Book Resources

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

What about Thor kicking the hell out of Iron Man?

Oh, of all time. NM. Thought this was about cool moments of 2008.

You might want to space out the moments between titles a little more. The Stray Bullets mention was great. You don't want to overdo it with Spider-Man and Batman comics.

The Batman bit was a bit unavoidable, Brandon. I couldn't list one and not the other two! But sure, it certainly wasn't my original intent to have three out of the first 8 be one issue of Batman!

The intent is definitely to mix it up (although, admittedly, Spider-Man is going to have a lot of moments on the list - there are a lot of great Spider-Man moments!).

All I know is I better see one panel in particular in this year-long list. One word:

Burn

Nothing from All Star Superman? My favorite moment was the opening the Bottle City of Kandor on Mars.

How the Death of Captain America by Brubaker? Maybe when Bucky put on the suit.

Or Norman Osborne at the end of Secret Invasion?

Matt Fraction's Iron Man? When he went mano-et-mano on Zeke Stane.

Anybody remember when Spiderman took on Firelord in the late 80s/Early 90s. Firelord herald of Galactus and beat him. Battle took place over the whole city and spread over a couple of issues of 'Amazing'. Then at the end the Avengers arrive and a weary spidey says, "I wash you guys had gotten here sooner".

Nothing from All Star Superman? My favorite moment was the opening the Bottle City of Kandor on Mars.

How the Death of Captain America by Brubaker? Maybe when Bucky put on the suit.

Or Norman Osborne at the end of Secret Invasion?

Matt Fraction’s Iron Man? When he went mano-et-mano on Zeke Stane.

There are going to be 365 of these things, ya know?

If you're going through years and years of comics, you could probably get several years' worth of moments...
I hope you're going to have some Vertigo moments in there, be it Morpheus' humiliation of Lucifer in an early issue of the Sandman, one of John Constantine's endgames, or any of a ton of moments from 100 Bullets.
Oh, and some of the Walking Dead as well, though I don't know if you can show some of that here...

And if there's nothing from Planetary? Or if you leave out the opening sequence from the Authority #1? I'll be shaking my head at you...

If you’re going through years and years of comics, you could probably get several years’ worth of moments…
I hope you’re going to have some Vertigo moments in there, be it Morpheus’ humiliation of Lucifer in an early issue of the Sandman, one of John Constantine’s endgames, or any of a ton of moments from 100 Bullets.
Oh, and some of the Walking Dead as well, though I don’t know if you can show some of that here…

And if there’s nothing from Planetary? Or if you leave out the opening sequence from the Authority #1? I’ll be shaking my head at you…

Seriously, how about a moratorium on complaining about possible slights on day 8 (or heck, how about days 8-182 even) of a 365 day project?

I won't complain but you know what'd be cool?
Listing where we might be able to find these stories in print.

Nice picks so far Brian.

A shame people don't understand that a full year's of picks will take... y'know, a full year to publish.

Don't know if you're taking suggestions or not, but if so, I'd recommend (don't have the exact issue/page in front of me now) the scene from Daredevil's "Born Again" where Kingpin realizes that instead of crushing DD completely, he's given him a new lease on life. "And I... I have shown him that a man without hope is a man without fear". One of the best.

I'm just waiting for one moment from Nextwave. That'll do me.
Sod's law, it'll be number 367 on the list...

This is a great idea. There's always going to be the dissenters and nay-sayers for any choice, but thank's for reminding me of the joy and wonder many of these moments mentioned brought and future choices will bring.

How about including that early issue of The Invisibles where they escape from soldiers/mercenaries who arrive just a little to late, only to find an empty room containing a table with a hand grenade on it on which King Mob has taped a note which reads, simply, "Smile"?

fix the deadpool link please.

Everyone needs to chill out on the complaints/suggestions...
Brian knows his comics, and there's still 347 days left in this year. That's a lot of cool comic book moments, and I'm sure the majority of what you're clamoring for will show up at some point during the year.

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

Quick suggestion. You might want to think about listing the date next to each moment on the archive page.

Very good stuff so far. Most of these comics I have never read, so kudos to Brian for being educational as well as snappy and fun!

Can I put a shout out for any of those moments in 'The Authority: Kev' etc. when there is a standard 'Authority' exterior shot of 'The Carrier'. Accompanied by some pomposity-puncturing caption such as, 'THE CARRIER! ... and not some f**king Italian roller-skate'.

I laughed for a day when I read that one...

great comic moments of this year = DARK AVENGERS 1-2 SECRET WARRIORS and everything els dark reign =)

Yes, I know the movie is coming out this week. Yes, I know most people love it. But c'mon, wasting (what I assume will be) 5 straight spots on Watchmen is awful. There are so many great moments out there that will be overlooked because of that. I know that, inevitably, thousands of stellar moments cannot be included but 5 out of 365 seems a little excessive. If it came from a series that 300 plus issues under it's belt, then I'd understand.

That being said, there are two Daredevil moments of which I hope one will pop up. First, is the scene from Decalogue where the guy is describing all of the ninja tricks that Murdock knows and you see that Murdock has been at the meeting the whole time masking his presence. Second is from The Murdock Papers where Daredevil asks who the last person is that knows about the Papers, then catches the card an inch from Elektra's throat and says "Nevermind, I know who."

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

"wasting (what I assume will be) 5 straight spots on Watchmen is awful. There are so many great moments out there that will be overlooked because of that."

Oh no! How many is "so many"? Sounds like a lot! This could be a disaster! Let's see... The upper bound on "so many" is.... 5, or 4 if one allows Watchmen has at least one cool moment.

As I understand it, though, there's no aim or intention here to define the Top 365 Coolest Comic Moments Ever, nor The Coolest Single Moments From Each of 365 Comics, but rather to select 365 Comic Moments That Are Cool. I think they all have been so far, and I confidently expect that won't change whether or not when we get to the end there's been any moments selected from, say, Cerebus' 300 issue run or not.

If an entry reminds people who have already read the moment described therein how cool a moment it was, or leads people to discover a quality book they had hitherto not read, it's hard for me to see how it was 'wasted'.

YMMV, of course

Geez. Take it easy, pal. Just one guy's opinion here. But wouldn't five moments from five different books better serve your notion of leading people to discover quality books that they had hitherto (nice!) not read? That was my point- I prefer variety and think that I would benefit more from a diverse list. That being said, I love this list and i'm glad that they are making it for us. I apologize for offending your delicate sensibilities.

No apology necessary. I was not offended so much as amused at what to me seemed an overly strong reaction to what on reflection is a pretty small number. But the strength of the reaction may easily have been as much or more in my eyes as it was in your typing fingers; as we all know it can be difficult to judge tone online.

(It may be a generational thing, also, where words have suffered from deflation of intensity since I learnt them. To my eyes, "wasted" and, especially, "awful" indicate extreme intensities of feeling that perhaps they do not connote to you. It took me some time and much confusion before I realised that when a 20-something says e.g. "I can't believe you said that" they usually mean they are experiencing the same reaction that I'd verbalise as "I'm a little surprised you said that", rather than the stupefying world-view shaking shock the former phrasing implied to me.)

Five moments from five books may indeed have spread the wealth, recommendation-wise. But there can be benefits in varying the allocations, as well. A book that supplies multiple Cool Moment posts in effect receives a stronger, more emphasised recommendation. This is Watchmen, after all, not some random anonymous cookie-cutter superhero comic - it has Cool Moments to spare, and its quality, popularity and influence make it one of the key works in the medium. I don't see a problem with that being acknowledged in this list by weight of numbers.

If this column were a Week of Cool Moments, 5 from the one series would indeed be overkill. But there's a whole year of them, with almost 80% (!!!) still to go. At the end of the year, those five days seen in the context of 360 other days will seem less of a big slab than they might seem today next to 70 other days.

Consider, too, that with potentially hundreds of thousands of moments to pick from, restricting the domain of choice every now and then by selecting a theme for a week can add enough structure to make choosing Cool Moments a bit easier, reducing "choice paralysis". I loved the "First Use of a Catchphrase Week", for instance. (The contents of which (like the JLI example) seem to gain most of their coolness retrospectively, but are no less Cool for a' that.)

Anyway, good to see so many people enjoying the list. I don't know if supplying implicit recommendations is one of the official aims of publishing it, but I'm pretty sure sparking discussion of its contents is!

And of course, it turned out to be 7 not 5. I'm still cool with that

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

Awesome list, and if I may suggest it, why not take a few coo moments from Lucifer? There are some fantastic wrap-up moments at the end of the series, like God and Lucifer's conversation outside of creation and Lucifer's departure, or maybe when Lucifer and Michael drown in the thoughts of God and discover what their father's real plan was all along? And there are lots of wonderful side stories to choose from. I don't know if you already had this planned for down the road, but Carey made a lot of very cool moments in the series, and it'd be great to see a couple pop up.

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

We need some Crisis on Infinite Earths especially Kara's death

"Anybody remember when Spiderman took on Firelord in the late 80s/Early 90s. Firelord herald of Galactus and beat him. Battle took place over the whole city and spread over a couple of issues of ‘Amazing’. Then at the end the Avengers arrive and a weary spidey says, “I wish you guys had gotten here sooner”."

Yeah, that really was a good one. There are so many great moments, and as we've seen, multiple great moments in individual issues. A year hardly does it all justice, nor allows for everything to be presented but Brian is doing a fantastic job of it. Kudos sir.

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

Just a suggestion... I can't remember which issue specifically had it, but during Secret Wars, there's one moment where Iron (James Rhodes) Man gives a bit of an attitude to Reed Richards, asking Reed if he's surprised that it's a black man under the armor.

Reed's response made the entire issue. It's a classic bit that helped define Reed Richards for me as a kid and helped make me mentally colorblind when it comes to issues of race.

I sincerely hope you'll consider this moment for your column. Thank you for your time.

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

I hope you'll be including moments from Catwoman, like when Holly uses speech to ID drug addicts and crims. Also moments from Sleeper!

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

Keep up the great work. Halfway through them and so many awesome moments to still choose from. I don't know how I'd concoct this list. Hell of a lot of work.

Suggestions

1) Magnus' death fro Exiles #2 which set the whole mood for the rest of Exiles, that anyone can die and anything can happen.

2) Some awesome Tomorrow Woman moments. Like her speech to Matthew Tyler in Hourman #2 (Hourman droid) or sheer awesomeness resisting her programming in JLA#5 or blasting the Trinity Gods with pure emotion in Trinity #44 as a few examples.

3) Or J'onn in 52 building statues for all the Justice Leaguers who've ever died. Issue #24.

[...] CBR’s list of cool comics Tags: Comics, Rants [...]

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

I would like to nominate the final page of X-Force vol. 1 #116 where, after being introduced to the "all new, all different" team, they are mostly killed, including the team leader & narrator.

Also, Baby Jenny Quantum's takedown of Seth in The Authority vol. 1 #29.

But THE coolest comic book moment has to be "I can see you!" from ANimal Man #19.

Brian, I really am loving this series, and although we're only half way through I'm really hoping you might consider doing something similar next year.

But (you knew there was going to be a but, right) the list does seem very American superhero comics centric. Now, there is nothing wrong with that at all, but I was wondering if you had anything planned for some cool moments from comics such as 2000AD (you've already done one) or Charley's War (which has stunning moments aplenty) or maybe just some stuff which wasn't so american superhero based?

Suggestion for a moment that really belongs on the list:

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills. The final confrontation with Stryker where he's railing against the X-Men, especially Nightcrawler, while waving a gun at Kitty... and out of nowhere, an ordinary police officer shoots him. When asked why, the officer gives a brilliant and simple response... He saw a man pointing a gun at a teenage girl. What else COULD he do?

Please consider this moment for your list. I don't even LIKE the X-Men and I loved that moment.

[...] in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so [...]

Man, there hasn't been one moment from Sin City on this list yet. Marv is a "Cool Comic Moment" machine, and needs some love.

I would suggest the second fight on the farm, and Marv's attempt to get the quiet killer to talk, unsuccessfully.

Love the list. My suggestions:

1) Magneto's introduction from Uncanny #113, I think that was the issue number, from the Claremont/Byrne era. Byrne made him look so sinister and powerful in that one panel. Plus, the last time he fought the X-men, he kicked their asses, even Cyclops was crapping in his pants.

2) I do think Crisis should have a week, or at least, a few entries. Certainly, the deaths of Kara and Barry Allen, even though neither stayed dead.

3) An issue of Batman, I have no idea what issue it was, but it Starlin I think worked on it. Batman is stalking and taking down these thugs one by one in a junk yard. One guy, just chucks part of a car engine at, which was cool. The best part was his thought bubble - "No need to get fancy with this one" sicks in my mind for some reason.

Hi Brian,

Just a suggestion: As I was reading some old Avengers I got to #280 where Jarvis is recuperating from a beating at the hands of Mister Hyde after the Masters of Evil took over Avengers Mansion. The last page, after the lead-up through the whole issue, was a real stand-out image for me. Reminds me why Jarvis kicks-ass.

Maybe a whole week devoted to Jarvis and Alfred?

Also, as part of that same Avengers storyline Zemo ripped up Cap's only picture of his Mom (Cap crying over the ripped photo is a great moment you may have already featured), but didn't he later go back in time and retrieve the undamaged picture to make amends to Steve (was it in Thunderbolts?)

Thanks for the great blog. Cool Moments are mandatory daily reading.

In retrospect, any Legion moment should have been used for day 247.

And a Supergirl moment for #252?

Brian,

I don't know if you have any Cerebus lined up for this, but I was going to suggest the "Tail Moment" From High Society... (where he's meeting a Duchess I think, in his first fitted suit)...

Of course, you could leave out the bit where the JLA come rushing to the rescue...

What about some of the alien and Predator comics? A few of those have some excellent scenes.

Would love to see the "Danny Boy" moment from the Denny O'Neil Question series

Well, I'd accept a Walt Simonson Thor moment for day 337.

Maybe Superman vs Aliens, when Superman gets owned by an Alien could be on here.

We're getting so close to the end. I'm worried Strangers in Paradise won't make it on to the list.