>Not only are we quickly approaching the close of another year, but we are soon coming to the conclusion of a decade as well. All this month you can expect to see my blogs covering a range of the best of the 00’s, and eventually leading up to a year end wrap towards the end of December. For my first installment of the best of the present decade I’m touching on a comic book subject more contentious than comic books; comic book based movies. To keep things among only the best of the best, I’m ranking these in a top 5 format, which means some good movies may be left out. But again, this is for the best of the best.

5. X-Men 2 (2003) This is further proof that the second movie is the best in most trilogy’s. This one had elements of some of the most classic X-Men comic stories. You got a touch of “God Loves, Man Kills”, the Weapon X story, a sampling of the Phoenix saga just before the credits, and a smorgasbord of mutant cameos, including a spot on performance of Nightcrawler as played by Alan Cumming. The message of tolerance was thankfully not lost at any point in the intensity of the action.

4. Watchmen (2009) My ranking of this film may provoke some debate, but I genuinely enjoyed this one and believed it was not only a faithful adaptation, but just downright fun to watch. Of course I’ll go with the “book is always better than the film” saying in this case, but Watchmen still remains as one of the best direct interpretations of a graphic novel to film I’ve seen.

3. Iron Man (2008) The Spider-Man movies were fun, and X-2 made it into my top 5 list here, but I gotta say that 2008’s Iron Man was by far the best Marvel movie yet. Robert Downey Jr. was born to play Tony Stark in what I consider the best casting in any comic movie. From the looks of the upcoming sequel, the original may be outdone as is often the case when following the trilogy formula- first movie establishes character and back story, second movie kicks total @$$, third movie is good but not as good as the first 2.

2. Sin City (2005) The most direct panel to screen interpretation of a comic movie, shown in glorious black and white (with splashes of yellow of course) Sin City was a gorgeous, yet brutal movie to behold. Frank Miller’s artwork really came to life, and the casting of Micky Rourke as Marv was just perfect. I’m hoping a sequel involving the story a Dame to Kill For is in the works, and am willing to forgive Frank Miller for the fiasco that was the Spirit.

1. Batman: the Dark Knight (2008) I doubt that anyone will consider this a surprise for my #1 pick of the decade. Not only was Heath Ledgers portrayal of the Joker the best version of the character any any medium, but the psychological subtext of the fact that Batman is just as crazy as the Joker, that morality is always in question no matter how upstanding a citizen you are, and anarchy is just the other side of the coin with order. This is a film that is a tough act to follow, and I kind of hope that there aren’t any efforts to try to follow it up with a sub par movie. This one stands not just as my favorite comic movies of the past decade, but as one of my all-time favorites.

So there you have it! My personal best of the best of the past 10 years. I have to give a nod to Spider-Man 1 and 2, Batman Begins, a History of Violence, and the Road to Perdition although they didn’t make the list. Now we’ll just have to see if the 2010’s can top what happened in the 2000’s.

-Jim

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