My 6 Favorite Things of 2013
Welp, 2013 is over, and I don’t think I accomplished any of my stated goals for the year. I’m still fat, I’m still broke and I still haven’t been discovered by the comic book industry and handed the reigns of Spider-Man. But why dwell on the negatives when 2013 was arguably a pretty great year all around? At least when it comes to geeky stuff!
From reddit
I don’t normally do these sorts of lists because I have a terrible memory and I don’t know what I was enjoying last week, let alone last March. But I wanted to see if I could pull this off, because there were a lot of great things this year, and I’m a member of the Internet, so of course I’ve got to do one of these lists. They’ll withdraw my membership card if I don’t, right?
Join me after the jump for my six favorite things in pop culture from 2013. And please feel free to share your own favorite things in the comments below!
6. Song: ‘Pure Imagination’ by Fiona Apple
I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this before, but I’m terrible when it comes to music. I don’t keep up with it, I don’t follow it, and I don’t know any musicians. I never even heard of people like Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber or Amy Winehouse until they started making the news for the crap they did. Basically, I don’t know music, but I know what I like. And this year, of the few songs I actually heard and listened to, my favorite would have to be this cover of ‘Pure Imagination’ by Fiona Apple. It was for a commercial, but it’s still a hauntingly beautiful tune. And that it comes from a certain Chocolate Factory just makes it more touching.
Runner-Up: Heck if I know.
5. Internet: Bee and Puppycat
I don’t remember when my favorite kind of comedy became ‘adorkable silliness’, but I just love the stuff. And Bee and Puppycat is almost refined adorkable silliness in its most basic form. It’s straight-up cutely funny, and it’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t seen the cartoons and doesn’t love them as much as I do. The Internet has given us so much to love over the year, from web comics to parody songs to Kickstarter campaigns, but the adventures of the unemployed, candy-loving Bee and her space-faring, monster-fighting Puppycat hit me right in the giddy thrillzone.
Click to watch Part 2. And I think there’s a Kickstarter to get even more episodes!
Runner-Up: Bravest Warriors
4. Video Game: Grand Theft Auto V
Once again, the Grand Theft Auto franchise lived up to and surpassed the hype. Grand Theft Auto V was the biggest, best game yet, and I played straight on through without losing interest once in the narrative. Michael, Franklin and Trevor were the best protagonists in the franchise so far, and their story never got dull or pointless, like some previous games. Added gameplay features like personal vehicles, property and vehicle ownership, and, especially, those heists, made Grand Theft Auto V a standout for one of gaming’s best franchises. Those heists were the best addition to GTA since 3D.
And after I beat the game, I really got into racing in the multiplayer mode for some reason. I don’t normally like racing games, but I was a fiend on the GTAV race tracks!
Runner-Up: Batman: Arkham Origins
3. TV Show: Arrow
Arrow’s first season ended strong earlier this year, but Season Two has blown everything else out of the water! Whether it’s a better use of the characters, a tighter focus on the superheroics or maybe all of the various DC character cameos, Arrow Season 2 is everything I could possibly want from a superhero TV show. There isn’t a single thing about Arrow that isn’t working these days. I even like Laurel, even though the show can’t seem to do anything too interesting with her. I’m loving the new Oliver, I’m loving his camaraderie with Diggle and Felicity, and I’m loving episode after episode.
Name-dropping R’as al Ghul is a surefire way to get my geeky blood bubbling. And for some reason, I am just loving this plot point that Ollie is some kind of all-powerful captain in the Russian mafia. All I need now is for Roy Harper to become his sidekick and my love for this show will be absolute.
Runner-Up: Breaking Bad.
2. Movie: Thor: The Dark World
This choice was a tough call, because I don’t think any one movie was a standout in 2013, not like The Avengers was in 2012. For the longest time, I was riding the runner-up as the best film, but Thor: The Dark World came out swinging in late November and definitely came away the better, more fun movie. But then maybe I’ll always be a Marvel geek at heart. Thor 2 was a supreme improvement on the first film, with more character depth, a bigger, more all-encompassing adventure, and a lot more heart and humor. Also, putting Thor and Loki together as a comedy duo was a stroke of genius.
Runner-Up: Star Trek Into Darkness
1. Comic: Saga
As much as I love superhero comics, this indie darling by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples has me by the feels and isn’t about to let go anytime soon. Saga is one of the most joyous, heart-felt comics I have ever read, with characters who are more real and personal than any of those spandex-clad superheroes I love so much. In mere pages, Vaughn is able to impart such humanity in these fictional characters that it leaves me wanting to be a better writer myself.
And the story is a definite ‘saga’ in and of itself. All of that heart and strong characterization comes in front of an epic story involving intergalactic war, true romance, troubled bounty hunters and more fascinating sub-plots than one can shake a stick at. Add on a few of the most emotionally powerful cliffhangers in comics (Lying Cat!) and you’ve got the makings of another all-time classic.
Runner-Up: Hawkeye
——————————
This year had a lot to offer, and hopefully next year will have even more. What were some of your favorite things? Let me know in the comments!
Posted on December 18, 2013, in Cartoons, Comics, Lists of Six!, Movies, Music, Television, Video Games. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
Henchman-4-Hire 
6. Song – Amanda Palmer’s “ Bad Wine and Lemon Cake.” Seriously check this one out. Thanks to Juli Q for the heads up on its existence. Runner Up: The theme song to Steven Universe.
5. Internet – Bravest Warriors. A webseries from the creator of Adventure Time about teenagers in space solving problems with love turned out to be the best thing the internet could create with its vast resources. Who knew? Runner Up: This list of gifs with sound: http://www.collegehumor.com/post/6940859/20-best-gifs-with-sound-of-all-time
(The Gandalf one is particularly amazing)
4. Video Game – GTA V…I think it was the only one I played… Runner Up: Oh and I played Pokemon Y.
3. TV Show – House of Cards. Easily the best new show to come out this year. Plus watching the whole thing in one run is so much nicer. Netflix wins TV. Runner Up: Avatar: The Legend of Korra, really pulled out a win in the end there.
2. Movie – This is the End. I’ve seen a lot of movies this year. And considering that Star Trek 2, The Wolverine, Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, Pacific Rim, Hobbit 2, and pretty much everything but Thor 2 was at least somewhat of a let-down, it was nice that this comedy was there to be constantly funny the whole way through. Runner Up: We’re the Millers. This could have been awful so easily, but it was hilarious and even a little touching.
1. Comic – Superior Spider-Man. Doc Ock as Spider-Man is the best idea in years. Oh man I’m gonna miss him. Runner Up: Scarlet Spider, ya did good kid. Good luck on New Warriors.
You were right, Steven Universe was good. Though I kind of liked the pilot more than the rest of the series, especially the designs of all the characters.
I liked House of Cards alright, but I wasn’t so blown away. And the second season of Legend of Korra was kind of a let down for me. I’ve never particularly cared for the whole ‘spirits’ part of the Avatar world. Seems extraneous when so much else is going on. And I just didn’t think the second season as a whole lives up to even the first season, and definitely not the original Last Airbender.
This is the End and We’re the Millers were both solid. As were Superior Spider-Man and Scarlet Spider.
6. Song: I’m actually like you, I don’t keep up with music that often, so I’m gonna give this to Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” for the simple fact that is the only song that I know the name of this year, that and all the “Get Loki” parodies.
5. Internet: Since both “Bee and Puppycat” and “Bravest Warriors” were already mentioned I’m just going to go with that “Epic Split” commercial Van Damme did which I found so ridiculous that I still see it once a day just to laugh at it.
4. Video game: I’m gonna go with “Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag” for this one, nothing wrong about GTAV, except maybe the radio music, but it seems that they focus so much on Trevor that I think they left the others characters hanging, at least Michael was connected to the main story heavily, but other than the “Save Lammar” missions Franklin, who personally could have been easily my favorite character of the 3, got so little to actually do that there were times when I wondered why make him one of the protagonists.
But while there are plenty of games where you can play a mobster or other kind of street criminal,how many games about pirates are there? Personally I think that as an Assassin Creed game AC4 fails spectacularly but is without a doubt the best pirate game ever created, it gets a little melodramatic towards the end but it does a good job of showing you how despite of how “fun” of being a pirate is, why that time and life was destined to fail eventually, I think had they decided to make this into an entirely new IP instead of a sequel then most of my problems would have been rendered mute, despite all that this is actually the game I had the must fun with this year.
3. TV show: I was also going to give this one to “Arrow”, but because I have to be different to the ones already mentioned I’m gonna go with the 4th season of Arrested Development, just when I thought there weren’t great comedy shows anymore they bring it back so I can remember why I loved the AD in the first place.
2. Movie: In this one I’m going to go with “Now you see me” while it is far, FAR away from the best movie of the year while I was watching it I was completely and throughly enthralled, gripping my seat, wondering how did that happened, and while it is kinda like “The Dark Knight Rises” in that everything falls apart when you actually get out, stop and start thinking about it, I honestly don’t regret watching it and if on TV I won’t hesitate to watch it just because I was honestly entertained with it.
1. Comic: “Fury MAX: My war gone by”, without any doubt the best comic book nobody read this year and last, which I found odd because I thought that having Garth Ennis on the Max line was an instant seller, but maybe that’s just with The Punisher.
In this we found the rare and endangered species known as the light pigmented Nicholas Fury (or white Nick Fury for short) going through different wars during his life, at first it goes through a simple pattern, it starts like the usual war story, he is sent on a mission, he gets captured, we hears his thoughts about about the conflict, he escapes, it isn’t until later on that we see the spirit of this comic, showing the cruelness of what warmongering has caused to the people that participate in it or even were just close to it, showing how the politics of it all were all screwed up from the beginning, where in the end nothing meant anything, and I have no qualms in saying that in the final issue, after everything it builded up for 13 issues finally came crashing down, I actually cried a little, which is not an easy feat, a must read.
Sadly, I have yet to play Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Though rumor has it a certain someone might be getting it for me for Christmas…
And Fury MAX, you say? For some reason, I’ve just never been drawn to Ennis’ Fury, probably because I don’t care about the character the way I do the Punisher. But if it’s good, I’ll definitely have to find a copy somehow and check it out. Thanks for the tip!
6. Song – Light em up- Fall out boy
5. Internet – Amazing Superpowers
4. Video Game – GTA 5 or last of us
3. TV Show – Arrow- best superhero show ever, so many easter eggs and loved the flash origin scene. best show out their, runner up would be Walking Dead
2. Movie – This is the end or Man of Steel, I was unable to see Pacific Rim, Thor, and the Wolverine
1. Comic – Scarlet Spider or Hawkeye///// worst goes to teen titans
This is the End was a definitely winner. I especially loved the ending. Who knew that particular band could bring such joy?