Year: 2006
Major Events: 2006 was a huge year. We had the Civil War, a fantastic Cosmic event (Annihilation), and killed all but 198 mutants in the X-Men: Decimation event. With all that death, it was probablly appropriate that Marvel launched its “Marvel Zombies” franchise.
There were also … Weddings! Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, Black Panther and Storm and, also, She-Hulk and John Jameson–but that one doesn’t last. Reed and Sue celebrated their 40th anniversary and they don’t look their age at all.
Also: Spider-Man got armor and publicly unmasked; Daredevil went to jail; and Kitty Pryde saved Earth by causing a world-breaking missile to phase through, but got stuck in phase mode and lost in space for a long, long time. In the same story, Colossus returned after being believed dead for a long, long time.
Speedball became Penance, an S&M tragihero, after seemingly getting raped in prison–which finally made the Speedball character interesting. In other sexually deviant events, Crossbones raped Red Skull’s daughter. Yes, Marvel went very dark–exemplified by Charlie Huston’s gritty Moon Knight reboot.
Finally, Tony Stark formed the Illuminati, who sent Hulk into outer space where he enjoyed his Planet Hulk story arc.
Creatively, Daniel Way began writing Wolverine solo books and man are they awful. J. Michael Straczynski ended his run on Fantastic Four and Bendis left Daredevil (sad); Fabian Nicieza ended his Thunderbolts run (not sad); and Chris Claremont quit Uncanny X-Men (glad).
Best New Series: Immortal Iron Fist, X-Men: First Class. Together, these series proved Marvel could do adult and all-ages with equal excellence.
Major Series Cancellations: Marvel Team-Up, both Spider-Man and X-Men Unlimited series, Thing, 4 (Marvel Knights), Young Avengers.
Important Deaths: 2006 is famous for its deaths–in part due to the mutant Decimation event. Here’s a few notable ones: Banshee, the entire Alpha Flight team plus Namorita and Major Mapleleaf, the entire Nova Corps, Quasar, Night Thrasher, Bill “Goliath” Foster, Corsair Summers, Icarus, Air-Walker, Flag Smasher, Tara Nile, and lots and lots of mutants.
Top 10 New Characters: Not necessarily in order of importance–more in order of how much I enjoy them.
- Aaron Stack (NextWAVE version)
- Orson Randall (Iron Fist)
- Penance (formerly Speedball)
- Baraccuda (Punisher MAX)
- Amadeus Cho
- The extended cast of Planet Hulk
- Daken
- Alexander son of Ares
- Danielle Cage
- Darwin
Also important: Venus (Agents of Atlas) and Ant-Man (Eric O’Grady).
Top 20 Stories:
- Astonishing X-Men #19–24/Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men #1: Unstoppable. It will make you cry.
- Punisher MAX #25-30: Wherein Punisher kills sex traffickers.
- NextWAVE: The most joyously anarchic Marvel series ever. And one of the best ever, too.
- Immortal Iron Fist #1-6: One of the best character reboots ever.
- Captain America #8-15: Bucky becomes Winter Soldier.
- X-Factor #1-6: The reboot and beginning of Peter David’s second run with this team–one of the longest and best runs in Marvel history.
- Incredible Hulk #92-105: Planet Hulk.
- Civil War: Frontline: The only time I remember where a spin-off series surpassed the main one.
- She-Hulk #14: The Awesome Andy issue
- Punisher MAX: From First to Last
- Doctor Strange: The Oath
- Daredevil #82-87: Daredevil goes to prison.
- Civil War #1-8
- Annihilation #1-6
- X-Statix Presents: Deadgirl
- Punisher MAX #31-34: Baraccuda
- X-Men: First Class #1
- Fantastic Four Special: My Dinner with Doom
- Annihilation: Silver Surfer
- She-Hulk #6-7: Wherein Starfox bangs the title character and gives a thumbs up on the cover.
