Countdown to 2009: Jim's Top 10 Best Ongoing Comic Book Series of 2008

Every weekday of December (except for December 25, that is), Phillyist will be counting down to 2009 with our highlights from the past year and our predictions for the next. If you have a list you'd like to submit, let us know!

10. The Goon
Eric Powell's beautifully illustrated story about a big tough bastard who beats the crap out of zombies and other assorted monsters is crude, hilarious, loaded with awesome fights—and sometimes it's even moving.

9. Jack of Fables
The series that gets most of the critical attention is the original Fables, but I prefer this spin-off. Both were created by Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges, and the concept behind them is that all the characters from fairy tales, sayings, and stories actually live secretly among us as magically powered beings known as Fables. Jack of Fables focuses in particular on the insane adventures of the one and only Jack of the Tales, an arrogant blow-hard and nymphomaniac whose special ability is that he somehow always seems to come out on top. The writing is hilarious, the art is beautiful, and the concepts are fantastic.

8. Ghost Rider
Wunderkind Jason Aaron took over the writing on this book a while back and transformed it into a rollicking, full-throttle, over-the-top, hillbilly horror adventure featuring gun-toting nurses, evil angels, and a secret, international society of flaming vengeance spirits. Lots of action, a great story, and, most importantly, a ton of fun.

7. Wolverine
It's a bit cliche to love the self-healing, clawed Canadian mutant with the Adamantium skeleton, but I can't help myself. After all, Jason Aaron just had an amazing run on this title, and now Mark Millar's taken over with a fantastic storyline called "Old Man Logan," which follows an aged, pacifist Wolverine and an equally aged, blind Hawkeye on a dangerous road trip across the insane landscape of a post-apocalyptic America. It's wonderful stuff.

6. Thunderbolts
Keep in mind I'm not referring to the recent run on the title by the completely untalented Christos Gage, or the new issues by Andy Diggle. I'm talking about Warren Ellis' run on the title, which ended early this year. Ellis told a seriously twisted story that took a look at what happens when you put the foxes in charge of the henhouse; the Thunderbolts are a team of former (and current!) supervillains pressed into service to fight crime, and in particular to capture superheroes who haven't registered under the new Super Human Registration Act. It's intelligent, funny, interesting, and action-packed.

5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8
This comic made last year's list, and it's back again this year because it's still awesome. It continues to be a brilliant continuation of the television series, taking the characters and the story into fascinating new territory.

4. Batman
Like the previous title, this one has also made this list two years running. This year Morrison kicked things up another notch with the incredible "Batman R.I.P." storyline, wherein (spoiler alert!) Batman supposedly dies (but c'mon, nobody really dies in comic books). In the process of "killing" the character, Morrison re-established Batman as the toughest, baddest, smartest, scariest hero in comic books. He's just a regular guy who somehow holds his own amongst super-powered, God-like beings. He rules.

3. Scalped
This isn't your average comic book. It's not about a super-powered crime fighter in spandex. It's the crime noir-style story of an undercover cop trying to nail the top criminal on an Indian reservation, without losing his soul in the process. The plot makes surprising twist after surprising twist, keeping you constantly tense and on the edge of your seat. It's brilliant and brutal, and loaded with shattering portraits of complex characters.

2. Criminal
Speaking of crime noir-style comics without superheroes, here's Criminal! With this book, author Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips are creating their own dark universe populated by generations of criminals; a counterfeiter who writes a surreal newspaper strip on the side and has his own dark, secret past; and a dive bar at the center of it all. It's a collection of complex, dark, and twisted stories, about complex, dark, and twisted people.

1. All-Star Superman
At the same time he was brilliantly rebuilding Batman, Grant Morrison was also brilliantly rebuilding Superman in his amazing, epic, incredibly beautiful, incredibly moving twelve-issue run on this title (with stunning art by Frank Quitely). As far as I'm concerned, it's the definitive Superman story—and that's saying something.

Image by Frank Quitely and DC Comics, via Major Spoilers