This year has been a huge one for superhero media. The Marvel Cinematic Universe turned 10, marked by the studio releasing the "most ambitious crossover event" ever -- a phrase that ended up being meme-d the heck out of online. After getting off to an underwhelming start, DC is also set to relaunch its own cinematic Universe with upcoming films, Aquaman and Shazam! creating a much-needed positive buzz. As for Fox, Deadpool used his second film outing to set some superhero movie wrongs to right. On the small screen, capes and masks continue to invade networks and streaming services. The CW's Arrowverse is still going strong at the six-year mark, with new hero on the block, Black Lightning joining the ranks and Ruby Rose's Batwoman set to follow him.
Meanwhile, Marvel's TV slate grew with the arrival of Cloak and Dagger and new seasons of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and The Runaways, as Gotham's fourth season reaffirmed that the Batman prequel series is still as insane as Arkham's inmates. As for the source material, the engagement of one of comics' longest "will they, won't they" couples dominated discussion while the Super Sons showed the older generation how it was done; the worlds of DC and Young Animal clashed in Milk Wars, Rise of the Black Panther capitalized well on the success of T'Challa's cinematic debut earlier in the year, and the X-Men were painted Red, Blue and Gold. Finally, let's not forget about animation. Batman not only travelled back to the Victorian times in the Gotham by Gaslight adaptation, he also journeyed to feudal Japan in Batman Ninja. As for the Teen Titans? They just went to the movies.
15 HIT: AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR
After one decade, four phases and 18 movies of build-up, it all came down to Avengers: Infinity War to deliver the pay-off MCU fans had been patiently waiting for. Despite a few complaints about the legitimacy of what we saw during the film's downer of an ending, the movie was largely received positively and made all of the money ever.
The biggest surprise was that Josh Brolin's Thanos -- who was loftily promised to be "this generation's Darth Vader" -- put in a convincingly nuanced performance as the philosophical Titan, making up somewhat for years of villainous CGI duds in other superhero movie fare. Despite the obvious impermanence of some character's fates, it was still refreshing to see the bad guy win for once.
14 FLOP: ARROW (S6)
The CW's flagship Arrowverse show has gone through a rocky tenure. Though it got off to a strong start in 2012, that quality has proven difficult to keep consistent. Weak villains, unfinished subplots and an ever-revolving door of mortality has garnered mixed reactions from fans and critics. The show's sixth season this year did little to change this.
After a literally explosive finale a year earlier, Oliver Queen had to juggle his crime-fighting gig with running Star City and becoming a full-time single father. Political corruption, the public's attitude to vigilantism and whether blood is thicker than water when it comes to family were certainly rich sources to mine, but the show failed to explore them with enough depth.
13 HIT: BATMAN: RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Writer Tom King continued his critically-acclaimed run on DC's Rebirth-ed Batman this year. The third volume, Rules of Engagement -- drawn by Joelle Jones -- collects #33-37 and features the Dark Knight on horseback on the cover, which, on its own, is already a good enough reason to read it. Inside, the story deftly weaves rom-com conventions with superhero action.
One minute, you're in the thick of a swashbuckling fight, and the next, you're a fly on the wall of an adorably awkward double date between Clark Kent and Lois Lane, and Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle in the run-up to their highly anticipated nuptials. Critics have roundly applauded King for barely putting a foot wrong on the series, with this volume being one of the peaks.
12 FLOPS: SUPERGIRL (S3)
The third season of Supergirl was far from terrible but, amid a crowded superhero TV landscape, mediocrity will unfortunately get you lost in the crowd. Melissa Benoist continued to be adorkably charming as Superman's cousin and Chyler Leigh's Alex Danvers continued to be a great model for strong LGBTQ representation. So, what stopped the rest of the show from achieving greatness?
The A.V Club's Caroline Siede never awarded the show a higher grade than a B+, praising its "zaniness" but bemoaning the lack of cohesion between its many hanging plot threads, culminating in a particularly messy 21st episode. "Supergirl's third season started off with a lot of promise [...] Yet somewhere along the way something went wrong. Supergirl lost its focus."
11 HIT: THE INCREDIBLES 2
In the absence of a decent Fantastic Four movie, The Incredibles 2 finally gave us the big screen, superhero family drama we were missing, 14 years after the first instalment. The Disney/Pixar sequel flipped the Parr family's roles, with Bob (Mr. Incredible) staying home with the kids while Helen donned her Elastigirl suit to restart her career.
As if this wasn't a big enough change, their youngest child, Jack-Jack starts to demonstrate his wild array of powers. The film had a lot to live up to considering the collective affection for its predecessor, and through a balance of humor and depth, it managed this incredible feat. This was proven at the box office, too, as it's currently the third-highest-grossing animated movie ever.
10 FLOP: DEADPOOL VS. OLD MAN LOGAN
Two fan favorite characters pitted against one another? It sounds like a title that can't possible fail. But, like Freddy vs. Jason and Batman vs. Superman, this Marvel miniseries proved that a good, old-fashioned slug-fest doesn't always please everyone. The drama kicks off when Logan refuses to let Wade be his wingman on a hunt for an Omega-level mutant.
The frenemy sparring match certainly has a fun premise but most critics felt the story didn't deliver on this, with the tired-out mechanic of pitting Deadpool against anyone and everyone in the Marvel Universe arguably bringing "diminishing returns" with over-use. Wade Wilson was also criticized for the worst crime of all: not being funny enough. (Sorry, Wade.)
9 HIT: MISTER MIRACLE, VOLUME ONE
Mister Miracle -- husband to Big Barda, one of Jack Kirby's best-loved New Gods and not to be confused with Marvel's Vision -- is perhaps one of the last names you'd expect to be amongst DC's biggest comic hits of the last two years. But thanks to the Eisner-award winning duo of Tom King and Mitch Gerads, the Fourth World character's reboot has been surprisngly successful.
King attributes the comic's rawness to the "sorrowful time we're living in. For me, Mister Miracle is very purposefully about the idea of living in a time of trauma, when what happens everyday doesn't seem real and is incredibly upsetting. But you have to somehow get through that [...] I hope that people in the future read it, and [...] relate to it."
8 FLOP: BATMAN NINJA
Batman Ninja is a wild experiment that combines the modern, Western world of Gotham with the history and culture of Japan. The story kicks off with Gorilla Grodd's time-meddling device sucking Batman, his allies and some key figures from his Rogues Gallery back to medieval Japan where they have to blend in to survive and, later, battle each other to thrive.
The film throws samurai, giant mecha battles, armies of monkeys and, of course, a full-blown ninja Batman together -- your enjoyment of which will be highly dependant on your enjoyment of Japanese pop culture. Though audiences found it a fun ride, the film proved very decisive with critics, some of whom didn't think the plot held together very well.
7 HIT: MY HERO ACADEMIA (S3)
Some of the best superhero stories in recent years haven't come from the West. Anime like Tiger and Bunny, One Punch Man and My Hero Academia have offered surprisingly unique spins on a genre that some argue is "fatigued." The latter series aired its third season this year and remains one of the medium's biggest new hits.
In a world in which most of the human population are super-powered, the show follows a class of heroes-in-training, including Izuku Midoriya, who hopes to fill the shoes of the world's No.1 superhero, All Might. Season Three continued to balance high drama and teen shenanigans, with the students' petty squabbles at boot camp interrupted by a surprise villain attack.
6 FLOP: LUKE CAGE (S2)
Though Daredevil and Jessica Jones are held in high regard, Netflix's other Marvel properties -- Iron Fist, Luke Cage and crossover series, The Defenders -- have been met with less than universal acclaim. Season One of Luke Cage was applauded for its social commentary and performances, but some felt it fell apart after the introduction of a new villain.
In this year's second season, Luke had to deal with the consequences of fame and had his idea of heroism tested by a new threat to Harlem's community. Though the performances were once again solid, critics felt that, with not enough material to fill the time, the pacing dragged, resulting in some story strands feeling too repetitive.
5 HIT: LEGION (S2)
Legion is one of the most surreal shows currently airing. The X-Men-adjacent series is based on the comics of Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz, translating Sienkiewicz's abstract art style surprisingly well into the medium of television. Set in the '60s, the series' main focus is on the schizophrenic psychic mutant, David Haller and his relationship with the elusive Shadow King.
Showrunner Noah Hawley took inspiration from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the films of Terrance Malick to create something daringly different for a superhero show, a decision that continued to go over very well with critics as the series entered its second season. Alongside the more conventional X-Men movies, Legion is a breath of strange, fresh air.
4 FLOP: KRYPTON (S1)
Making its debut this year, Syfy's Krypton is a Superman prequel series that delves into the history of the House of El -- specifically, the political manoeuvrings that threatened to tear the Man of Steel's birth family apart. Kal-El's grandfather, Seg-El takes a lead role, forced to become a spy within Krypton's government to ensure his family's survival.
Though it received plaudits for managing to pull off a fairly interesting Superman-free Superman story, the first season was considered, as a whole, to be just "okay" by critics and viewers, thanks to some dodgy action sequences, pacing problems and lacklustre character arcs. But, there might be just enough potential there for a possible second season to improve upon.
3 HIT: X-MEN: GRAND DESIGN
Ed Piskor, creator of The Hip-Hop Family Tree, has a proven knack for distilling long and complicated chronologies down into easily processable packages. This year, he took on one of the most convoluted chronologies in pop culture history -- the X-Men -- and compressed their 40-year history into one story. That's 280 issues... into six. Truly uncanny.
The collected volume is a must-have for any X-fan or comics collector, particularly the coffee table-sized Treasury Edition that comes with a "Second Genesis" cover. Not only does Grand Design serve as a great refresher for old fans or a handy introduction for newbies, but Piskor replicates the four-color style that early X-books of the '60s were drawn in to hit that nostalgia sweet spot.
2 FLOP: VENOM & X-MEN: POISON X
This throwback to the '90s baited our love of all things "rad." Unfortunately, most readers weren't won over by the X-Men Blue/Venom crossover. Who's to blame? Well, story-wise: Cyclops. While attempting to rescue his space pirate of a father and his gang from some good-for-nothing symbiotes, Cyclops decides to fight fire with fire and enlists -- who else? -- but Venom.
Naturally, this opens the floodgates to a mutant-infecting spree, with Venom bonding with Cyclops and Jean soon succumbing to Poison. As fun as this sounds, the main problem critics identified was that the characters never felt like they were in any believable or lasting danger, and with no stakes, the story just wasn't gripping enough.
1 HIT: BLACK PANTHER
Marvel rang in the start of its most profitable year in the movie biz ever with Black Panther, a film that defied expectation to smash box office records. At a time when many were starting to doubt that the formulaic MCU could still surprise, T'Challa's first solo outing on the big screen was a revelation, earning near-universal praise.
Following his father's passing, T'Challa was poised to rule to Wakanda until a long-buried family secret unearthed itself in the muscle-bound form of Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger. The scene-stealing villain tested T'Challa physically and emotionally for the Black Panther title, and his well-intentioned extremism was highly compelling. Along with gorgeous scenery and a dynamite soundtrack, it doesn't get much cooler than Black Panther.