NS4W 2014 Comic Book Movie of the Year

[Don LaFontaine]In a world full of movies…only one can be the best comic book movie of 2014[/Don LaFontaine]

2014 blessed us with a plethora of movies, as per usual; we had a lot of garbage, and a few standout moments. I won’t recount all the moments from every movie (as I haven’t seen them all), but…let’s take a look at our nominees for the NS4W 2014 Comic Book Movie of the Year!

No, these aren’t in any particular order, so, deal with it! Also, I can’t put in Amazing Spider-Man 2, because that shit was just awful. Onward to the list, because EVERYONE LOVES LISTS!

Big Hero 6

The most recent addition to the list of comic movies comes to us thanks to the love affair between Disney and Marvel…which, also comes to us thanks to a separate love affair between Man of Action and Marvel. For those uninitiated, Man of Action brought us Ben 10 and is also behind Ultimate Spider-Man and Marvel’s Avengers Assemble. Man of Action gets it; they consistently provide very quality entertainment, and having met the guys behind the pens, a truly awesome group of guys who are ALL ABOUT fan service. It’s a tale as old as time, genius boy creates awesome robot and saves the day, don’t sleep on this one.

Guardians of the Galaxy

What can I say about Guardians of the Galaxy that I haven’t previously covered? Marvel’s motley crew assembled and took the world by storm. Suddenly, outside of a niche fan base…everyone became Groot. Not complaining, it just goes to show what a remarkable movie was delivered by Marvel. You take what is by all accounts the B-Squad of Marvel and make one of the highest grossing films of the year. It could bring you to tears, it was action packed, and, somehow…it was hilarious. That’s an insanely hard balance to pull off successfully. Especially when you build the film around a cast that has a raccoon, a tree, a WWE wrestler, a green chick, and the goofy guy from Parks and Rec.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Our favorite heroes in a half shell get another reboot. The Madonna of the comic world, these turtles keep reinventing themselves year after year and have remained a constant for the better part of 30 years. Fanboys and girls alike groaned when Michael Bay was placed at the helm, and sure, things were tweaked a bit…but, like many Michael Bay movies, he takes us on a very fun ride, even if the boys looked like giant green turds. Come on, don’t  tell me you’ve never looked at a sewer grate and wondered if just maybe, Donatello was down there working on something.

Captain America: Winter Soldier

Marvel strikes again, I’ll be honest, I was never a Cap fan, in fact, I found the first movie insanely boring. Somehow, and I’m not complaining, the sequel was injected with the Super Soldier serum as well and they delivered us an action packed movie. To see Cap in the modern setting was a nice shift, seeing Black Widow and Falcon get a good bit of screen time…all the yes. Then, if that wasn’t enough, in one of the coolest things I can recall, they tie the movie in with ABC’s Agents of SHIELD. Cap played a huge role in keeping the continuity of the expansive Marvel Universe, which in itself is impressive.

X-Men: Days of Future Past
There is much to be said about the X-Men franchise in the movie world. They’ve taken liberties as much as anyone and at times done justice, and at other times, just crapped all over the legacy, in an effort to correct that, this film is basically giant reset button. Retroactive Continuity (RetCon) all over the place, they are using time travel extensively to essentially unfuck a lot of things they did previously. While a lot of fans were less than pleased, we did get some pretty awesome action moments, and let’s be honest…Quicksilver was kind of amazing.

So there you have it folks, yes…Spidey was left off, no, there isn’t a Sin City sequel listed, and yes, I left off the 300 sequel or prequel or whatever it was as well. You can’t win them all. So which one did YOU love? There can only be one! Vote below and be sure to stay after the credits!

Yours in crunk,
-Panda

YOU MAY VOTE ONCE A DAY IN EACH CATEGORY! VOTING RUNS THROUGH DECEMBER 24TH!