Best of 2011: Best Adapted Series

As 2011 comes to a close, it’s safe to say that it has been a banner year for the comics industry and fans alike. Here at Comic Booked, we have always taken our comics pretty seriously, and after a stellar year of new material, we are pleased to present you with our awards for Best of 2011! For this year’s awards we asked each of our team members for their input and nominations to see who they thought were the best of the best in the comic book industry over the past year! After a few weeks of careful thought, consideration and deliberation, we’ve selected these titles as our choices for the best that 2011 had to offer! Here we have the awards for Best Adapted Series!

In order to be nominated for Best Adapted Series, a title had to be an adaptation of something that wasn’t already a comic, such as a film, Television series or a video game adaptation. Without further adieu, here are the nominees for Best Adapted Series!

• This is cheating, and I don’t care, but I’m giving this to Adam Beechen’s Batman Beyond. While it’s Batman, which is a comic book, this book is an adaptation of a television series that was a futuristic adaptation of a comic book. This was a comic I waited a good ten years to see come to fruition, and I could not be happier with the results. The ongoing Batman Beyond series spun out of a mini-series that was released during the tail end of 2010, and made a name for itself outside of the regular DCU. It feels like you jump in right where the animated series leaves off, and it’s a very comfy fit! Right now it’s kind of up in the air as to when this book is returning to store shelves (as it was delayed during ‘The New 52’), we can only hope to see it again soon! – Jordamus Prime

• Dynamite Entertainment’s Dark Shadows takes a highly unlikely idea and makes it work: It continues the story from a soap opera that ended decades ago yet the characterization and art are so spot on and capture the tone of the series it’s almost like the show never ended!- Skott of Fables

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was a bit hesitant nominating this one, as this year really only saw the publication of the conclusion of Season 8 and (several months later) the start of Season 9. But that just means that it’s been Team Whedon doing what they do best: epic conclusions and promising beginnings.- Nick C
•  Buffy Season 9 might even be better to me than Season 7. I grew up with Buffy. When she was starting high school I was finishing middle school. She was in many ways my role model as well as what I saw as a kindred spirit. I longed to have friends like her friends, to love as she loved, and then as I got older I noticed there was an arc for each part of my life. Buffy Season 9 is the perfect arc for most of us who’ve grown up with her right now, and I am so happy to have that girlhood, now womanhood, spark rekindled. Buffy Season 9, FTW. – Nicole Sixx

 

• Courtesy of Christos Gage and Rebekah Isaacs, Angel & Faith takes two of Joss Whedon’s most compelling characters and spins them off in a title that, in hindsight, should have been on the shelves years ago. Pitch-perfect in echoing both the tone and the look of the disgraced vampire and sometimes disgraced vampire slayer, this is the high-water mark of the post-television Buffyverse to date, so much so that it almost justifies the abomination of a storyline that got us here in the first place… I said almost, latter half of Buffy Season 8, you’re not getting off that easily.- Colin Bell

• DC Universe Online Legends The game is great and the adaptation has been exceptional. Finally someone realizes they have room to take some risks and they are. Superman killing Lois Lane… great stuff!- Jason Padua

• Star Wars: The Old Republic – The Lost Suns. Not only is it written by one of the writers behind the MMO, it serves as our first real glimpse into the game they’ve created, adding a whole new layer to the rich Star Wars lore that has built up over the past 30 years.- Robert LeMoyne

• Doctor Who – IDW Publishing – The best source material always leads to the best comics- The Exile

• Darkwing Duck. Even though the Disney style is easy to emulate, the art of the book is really well down, complimenting the classic cartoon quite well. Even the stories are much better told that I imagined they’d be, with a deeper continuity than even the show had. Not only that, but it’s so much fun to see Darkwing Duck back in action.- Michael Wirth

• Star Wars Revelations by Tom Taylor and Colin Wilson. Leaves the prequels gasping in its dust. Great new characters, morally complex and genuinely thrilling. -Emmet O’Cuana

Winner, Comic Booked’s Best Adapted Series 2011-

Buffy Season 9!

Congratulations to Buffy Season 9‘s creative team and publisher for being Comic Booked’s Best Adapted Series of 2011! A special congratulations also goes out to all of the other nominees for being some of the best titles available this year!