Weekly Awards For The Comic Books From July 23, 2008

The Followers of The Revolution poll yielded us the first tie for The Che for the best comic book of the week. Justice League of America #23 tied with Green Lantern Corps #26 as the best read of the week. This was an incredibly close week as there was no one dominant issue that broke away from the rest of the pack. The results for best read of the week were as follows:

Justice League of America #23: 12% (9 votes)
Green Lantern Corps #26: 12% (9 votes)
Brave and the Bold #15: 10% (8 votes)
Legion of Super Heroes #44: 10% (8 votes)
Superman #678: 10% (8 votes)
Trinity #8: 9% (7 votes)
Uncanny X-Men #500: 9% (7 votes)
Immortal Iron Fist #17: 8% (6 votes)
X-Men Legacy #214: 8% (6 votes)
Daredevil #109: 6% (5 votes)
New Avengers #43: 1% (1 votes)
Ultimate X-Men #96: 0 votes

The Followers of The Revolution went ahead and delivered another tie in the voting for the Sequential Methadone Award for the worst comic book of the week. Uncanny X-Men #500 tied with New Avengers #43 as the worst reads of the week. The results for the worst read of the week are as follows:

Uncanny X-Men #500: 23% (12 votes)
New Avengers #43: 23% (12 votes)
Trinity #8: 15% (8 votes)
Ultimate X-Men #96: 9% (5 votes)
Green Lantern Corps #26: 5% (3 votes)
Justice League of America #23: 5% (3 votes)
Legion of Super Heroes #44: 3% (2 votes)
Superman #678: 3% (2 votes)
Immortal Iron Fist #17: 3% (2 votes)
Daredevil #109: 3% (2 votes)
X-Men Legacy #214: 1% (1 vote)
Brave and the Bold #15: 0 votes

All right, let’s go ahead and dish out The Revolution’s weekly awards.

The nominees for the Che for the best read of the week:

None.

The Winner: N/A

Yeah, that’s right; this is the first week doing the weekly awards that The Revolution has not awarded the Che award to a special deserving title. The fact is that this week was incredibly average with no one impressive issue. I do not believe that a contestant can win a beauty pageant just by virtue of being the least ugly girl of the bunch. And a comic book cannot win The Che by virtue of simply being an above average read.

And now the nominees for the Sequential Methadone Award for the worst read of the week:

New Avengers #43
Uncanny X-Men #500

The Winner: Uncanny X-Men #500

This was an incredibly tough decision. Both issues were poorly written and very deserving of the Sequential Methadone Award. However, I went ahead with Uncanny X-Men #500 for several reasons. First, New Avengers has won this award so many times that I feel like I am picking too much on that title. Second, New Avengers #43 was a tie-in issue. And even thought Bendis started out strong with some great Secret Invasion tie-in issues, the fact remains that as a general rule I have always found big event tie-in issues to be rather weak reads. Third, Uncanny X-Men #500 was a huge anniversary issue and came amid tons of hype.

So, Uncanny X-Men #500 wins the Sequential Methadone Award marking the very first time that The Revolution has given this award to Uncanny X-Men. And considering that I am a lifelong Uncanny X-Men fan, I am surprised that I am actually giving this issue such an ignominious award.

I have already properly skewered Uncanny X-Men #500 in my review. Suffice it to say, I am still stunned that Brubaker was attached to such a poorly written comic book. I am a big fan of Brubaker and have loved his run on Captain America and his run on Daredevil. I find that Brubaker always delivers such a consistent and well crafted issue each and every month.

Therefore, I have to place most of the blame for Uncanny X-Men #500’s poor story and the outright amateurish dialogue on Matt Fraction’s shoulders. I have found Fraction to be terribly overrated during his stint with Marvel. I have yet to be impressed with a single Marvel title that Fraction has written on his own. At this point, Fraction appears to be trying his best to become Marvel’s answer to DC’s Judd Winick.

So “congrats” to Uncanny X-Men #500 for winning the Sequential Methadone Award for the week.