2016 was not the best of years, but one thing remained constant, week after week, no matter what was happening in the world, is the release of good comics. As this year draws to a close, I wanted to share my highly subjective list of the best 20 comics to come out this year – in no particular order.
SPOILER WARNING – There may be some.
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Superman – American Alien #3
Writer – Max Landis
Illustrator – Jöelle Jones
Rico Renzi – Colourist
Max Landis’ “Superman – American Alien” was an intriguing experiment in humanizing the Man of Steel. In this issue, entitled “Parrot”, instead of telling yet another retelling of comics’ oldest superhero origin, Landis focused on humanizing Clark. In issue three, we get the delightfully fun story of a young Clark Kent whose plane crashes right next to a yacht that happens to belong to none other than billionaire, Bruce Wayne.
Of course, nobody’s actually seen Bruce Wayne since he was twelve, and the assembled guests just assume Clark is him. Eventually, he’s convinced to just go with it, and we get a rare glimpse of what Clark Kent looks like when he can throw off his cape and just, for once, have fun. Clark’s sense of right and wrong never once wavers in this issue – but it’s his sense of wonder that we really see come to the fore.
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Secret Wars 009
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Esad Ribic
Colours: Ive Svorcina
Secret Wars was technically 2015’s special summer crossover event, but thanks to the kind delays that history will ultimately forget, the final issue didn’t come out until early 2016.
Secret Wars made a name for itself by being a giant summer crossover event that, in an industry plagued with “event fatigue” was unexpectedly fantastic. Few writers can handle a sense of epic scale as well as Jonathan Hickman can, and Secret Wars was the culmination of three years and over 70 issues of plot crafting leading to the destruction of the Multiverse – the series’ tagline was “Everything Ends.”
All that remains is Battleworld, a patchwork planet of dozens of different Marvel universes, ruled over by its tyrannical saviour, Doctor Doom, and policed by Thors of a hundred worlds. Esad Ribic’s work was more than a match for the series’ epic scale, and though the delays were frustrating, the final result was most definitely worth the wait.
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Batman 048
Writer: Scott Snyder
Pencils: Greg Capullo
Inks: Danny Miki
Colours: FCO Plascenia
So, funny story, but at the start of this year, Batman was a Government-sponsored Jim Gordon in a giant, robotic Batsuit. Bruce Wayne had lost his memories – including those of being Batman – in one “final”(these are comics we’re talking about) confrontation with the Joker.
With another Batman watching over the city, and Bruce himself no longer tormented by the memory of his parents’ death, Bruce finally has a change to be happy again.
So of course, in, he’s met by someone who may or not be a cured Joker, who may or may not be asking him to not go back to being Batman. Things are kept ambiguous enough for Snyder to slip in a meta-message to the fans, about whether stories in comics even count if someone else is just going to come onto the series and change everything up again.
This final arc of Snyder’s may have been controversial, or even ridiculous – but it was there.
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Spider-Man 001
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Sara Pichelli
Inking assist: Gaeteno Carlucci
Colours: Justin Ponsor
When Marvel launched Secret Wars, they ended all their comics, and released all new #1s for an All-New Marvel Universe. Secret Wars was a perfect chance to shake up the line, and one of the largest opportunities brought forth from that shake-up was to bring the highly-popular Miles Morales Spider-Man from the Ultimate Universe into the regular one.
Miles has been a fan-favourite Spider-Man for years, following the footsteps of his universe’s Peter Parker. To have him here, interacting with the more familiar heroes of a Marvel Universe we all know and love was thrilling – and a long time coming. The sheer joy of this issue was aided greatly by the fact that it had Sara Pichelli on art. Pichelli draws a world that radiates joy, vibrancy, and exactly the kind of energy you’d expect from a comic about a teenager bouncing of skyscrapers in a superhero’s New York. Miles Morales’ Spider-Man is joy.
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Mockingbird 001
Writer: Chelsea Cain
Artist: Kate Niemczyk
Colours: Rachelle Rosenberg
Though the depressing and ridiculous controversy that attached itself to this series still leaves a sour taste in my mouth, the series itself was fantastic. Marvel NOW!’s success allowed it to experiment with its genres, and Chelsea Cain’s Mockingbird one-shot for Marvel’s 75th Anniversary of SHIELD was so well-received, they gave her her own series – and it was fun. Right out of the gate, the series was a charming delight that had fun with its characters, and its world, while still delivering serious heart.
The comic book experimented with comic-book storytelling itself as a genre, touting its first five issues as a puzzle box of sorts – fit all five issues together, layered as they are through each other, and you see more of how all the differing layers of the story fit together. Issue #1 handed me a mystery I wanted to solve, and what better way to start a series is there than that?
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Spider-Woman 005
Writer: Dennis Hopeless
Penciler: Javier Rodriguez
Inker: Alvaro Lopez
Colours: Rachelle Rosenberg
The premise of the current volume of Spider-Woman is a simple one – street-level superhero becomes a single mother. All other stories, from aliens taking over hospitals to battling Tiger Shark in the sewers, revolve around this.
This issue, however, is one of those one-shot downtime issues where weird superheroics intrude only peripherally on showing the reader where the character’s head’s at. We see Jessica Drew’s exhaustion, her paranoia on her first night out, sudden fears of a day-job that might actually get her killed. “It’s like somebody ripped off a callus” she tells her babysitter, “and now I have to feel everything. All the time.”
It’s issues like this that show the heart of the series, and tell you exactly why you’re in love with. It’s issues like this you come home to.
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DC Universe – Rebirth 001
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artists: Gary Frank, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis, Phil Jiminez
Inkers: Joe Prado, Matt Santorelli
Colours: Brad Anderson, Jason Wright, HI-FI, Gabe Eltaeb
When DC had its line-wide relaunch in 2011, it lost a lot to the new 52’s fresh continuity. The marriage of Clark Kent to Lois Lane never happened. Years of story were cut down, streamlined, or never happened to begin with. Characters got new origin stories, while others never appeared at all – like they’d never existed. Nowhere was this more conspicuous than in the absence of the man who’d been the Flash since 1986 – Wally West. While there were a few good titles to come out of the line, the DC Universe as a whole was never quite the same again – it had lost its roots, and its heart.
On May 25th, 2016, Geoff Johns(who’d been responsible for a lot of the New 52) gave the world DC Universe – Rebirth 001, an 80-page preview to another line-wide relaunch. It was, in essence, an apology letter directly to the fans, saying “We messed up. We’re sorry. We’re going to do better”- and they started by giving fans back the original Wally West himself, confused by a universe that seems to have lost so much of what makes it what it is. One that’s forgotten him entirely. The moment when Barry Allen remembers his former protegé and pulls him back into the world was my comics highlight of the year.
And then the issue ended with a reveal that teased an upcoming event that promises to be bigger than anything we’ve ever seen before, because Geoff Johns just can’t help himself. Oh well. We love him anyway.
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All-New X-Men 007
Writer: Dennis Hopeless
Penciler: Mark Bagley
Inker: Andrew Hennessy
Colours: Nolan Woodard
I have a lot of feelings about the All-New X-Men, feelings that will doubtless be explored in another article, but the basics of what you need to know is this – the majority of this team are teenaged versions of the original X-Men who are stuck in the present, trying to carve out their own personalities while also bearing the legacy of their adult selves – and on no one does that burden come down most heavily than it does on the shoulders of Cyclops, whose adult self died a revolutionary rebel who killed Charles Xavier and nearly sparked off a species war with the Inhumans(debatably. It’s complicated).
While every issue of this series has thus far been consistently strong, I will always remember this one for being the one that made me care about Toad, which is something I never thought could be done. Toad kidnaps the young Cyclops, hoping that by killing him as a teenager, he can change the future – maybe make things better for mutants. He’s okay with being the monster here. But Hopeless and Bagley show us the bitterness, fear, and shame that come with that decision, and that’s something I’m always going to see whenever I see the Toad again. Or any man who thinks himself a monster.
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Illuminati 006
Writer: Joshua Williamson
Mike Henderson: Artist
Colours: John Rauch
It’s an unwritten rule of event comics that while the main event series might seem tiring, convoluted, or even pointless, there will always be tie-ins that make the whole thing worth it. The best thing to come out of Assault on Pleasant Hill was not the return of Steve Rogers, or the new Thunderbolts series, or even the fun of Avengers fighting other Avengers.
It was the story of of Crusher Creel, the Absorbing man.
On Pleasant Hill, supervillians are not thrown into jail, but instead brainwashed and transformed into ordinary people leading simple, happy lives in a small town. It’s a horrifying and invasive erasure of free will that is barely touched on in the main series, but in this issue, we’re given a tale of a simple man named Harold, who ran an ice cream shop. Made friends with his customers. Finally asked out Sheriff Eve for a dance. He was happy. Until the moment it was all taken away, and he remembers he’s the Absorbing Man, a violent criminal, and has been for all his life. It’s a unique cruelty he undergoes, and confusing pain of it is expertly illustrated.
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The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 007
Writer: Ryan North
Artist: Erica Henderson
Colours: Erica Henderson & Rico Renzi
If there was a competition for Comic Book That Tried the Hardest and Totally Succeeded at Having the Most Fun, it would be yet another thing Squirrel Girl was unbeatable at(although someone would be losing the competition for Best Named Competition). This issue takes things to a whole new level, written as it is in the style of the old, classic choose-your-own-adventure books, giving the reader a chance to choose-their-own-comic, and be Squirrel-Girl!
Bonus – when you get to the end, there is a special certificate you can scan and cut out certifying you to be awesome at being Squirrel-Girl, thus entitling you to all the free snacks, so yeah. This issue is definitely worth hunting down.
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Vision 007
Writer: Tom King
Artist: Michael Walsh
Colours: Jordie Bellaire
The Vision as a series is a microcosm of the Vision’s general personality itself – cold, haunting, but when spent time with and looked at closely, possessed of great depths, and soul.
The series follows the suburban adventures of the Vision and his manufactured family as they try to find out what it means to be human, and to live a normal life. It gets dark real quick. Issue #7 takes a small break from the action to give us a summarized version of the Vision’s history up to this point – specifically, those parts of it that had to do with his first love, the Scarlet Witch. Michael Walsh comes in as guest artist for this flashback issue, and he draws the Vision with a wide-eyed innocence, and joy – like a person discovering the world for the first time, with all the polite formality of a synthezoid more at home with the clear-cut rules of programming.
The Vision’s history is a strange one, but this issue takes that strangeness and adds human context – the heart-swelling love that rises in the good moments, and the gut-wrenching trauma that comes with the bad. If you have to read only one issue of The Vision’s run – pick this one.
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Daredevil 008
Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Goran Sudzuka
Colours: Matt Milla
Mark Waid and Chris Samnee were the ones who got me interested in Daredevil, and while their run is unparalleled, the new volume is in fantastic hands with Charles Soule and Goran Sudzuka. Goran Sudzuka’s art is as gritty as you can get without printing your comics on sandpaper, but it somehow fits in fantastically with the versatile storytelling of Charles Soule, whose stories will make you grin with sheer delight one issue and in the next one make you reel from an emotional beat for something you didn’t even know you could feel for.
“Blind Man’s Bluff”, Part 1, happens to be of the former variety. Daredevil plays poker.
For those of you who might not remember, Daredevil? He’s blind. He has no idea what his cards are showing, proving once and for all, poker’s not about what cards you have, but how well you can read your opponent’s bluffs while keeping your own face clear. With his heightened senses, this is something Daredevil does very well.
This issue is a casino spy story, told in the best way – and with the appearance of Spider-Man on the very last page, it’s guaranteed to have you coming back for more.
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TMNT – Bebop and Rocksteady Destroy Everything 004
Writers: Ben Bates and Dustin Weaver
Script: Dustin Weaver
Artists: Dustin Weaver, Nick Pitarra, Ben Tiesma, Damian Couciero, Pablo Tunica, Tadd Galusha, Aaron Conley, and Ryan Browne. Whew.
Colours: Bill Crabtree, Michael Garland, Jean-Francis Beaulieu
If the title of doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about whether or not you want to read, there’s not much I can do to convince you either way. However, I can provide context!
In 2011, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles co-creator Kevin Eastman and his team brought us a brand new series of our favourite heroes in a half-shell, starting the world of the turtles from scratch, updated origin story and everything. Since then, they’ve been on a roll of unstoppable good stories and universe building. They built a world more cohesive than anything I’ve seen in comics, especially taking into account all the mini-series that diverged into their own things.
This series makes things as divergent as they’ve ever been. Long, complicated story short, mutant henchment Bebop and Rocksteady(the Warthog one and the Rhino one) find a time sceptre, team up with their pre-mutant human selves, and nearly wreck all of time with it as the TMNT desperately try to catch up with them. Chaos builds at a pretty constant pace, but increases exponentially in issue four, as an extra time scepter is found, and Bebop and Rocksteady jump in and out of all of history trying to find each other to apologize for a fight they had with each other, picking up past and future versions of themselves along the way. Yes, it’s confusing, but by Who, it’s fun.
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Wonder Woman 001
Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Liam Sharp
Colours: Laura Martin
With her appearance in Batman v. Superman, her upcoming movies – both solo and League – Wonder Woman’s very sharply in the public eye. Writing her, however, has proven to be a challenge that not everyone’s managed that the fans have been happy with. Someone who’s arguably hit the mark best, is writer Greg Rucka, and having him back on Wonder Woman makes it a pretty safe bet that it’s going to done well. DC upped the ante, though, when they brought in the art team of Liam Sharp and Laura Martin.
This issue dives right in the story, drawing us into to Wonder Woman’s world. The story is basic – Wonder Woman hunting through the jungles for someone she needs help from. We have the subplot of Steve Trevor and his team hunting for someone else who is coincidentally in the vicinity. Plot is short here, most of the issue is atmospheric, the story sitting back to let the art do most of the work. Issue one says, “If you continue to read this series, this is what it’s going to look like. What it’s going to feel like.”
Like Wonder Woman herself, the experience was mythic, powerful, intriguing, and above all – wondrous.
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Wacky Raceland 001
Writer: Ken Pontac
Art: Leonardo Manco
Colours: Mariano Sanzone
Remember the old Hannah-Barbera cartoons? Scooby-Doo, Penelope Pitstop, Yogi Bear and the like? Remember that one other show, Wacky Races where different Hannah-Barbera characters would have whimsically wacky races in outlanishly fun cars? A simple, delightful cartoon for children of all ages.
It’s gone through some changes.
Hannah-Barbera launched several new titles this year, from the similarly post-apocalyptic reboot of Scooby-Doo called Scooby Apocalypse, to the simpler, but deeply enjoyable take on The Flintstones. Of all of them, Wacky Raceland is my favourite. On paper, there is no reason this series should work, but on the comics page, somehow, it absolutely does. I love how unapologetic it is in its extremity. I love how well old cartoonish concepts can, with the slightest twists, be molded to something absolutely horrifying here. It’s a comic that, with no reservation, sets out to have as much fun as it possibly can, and I’m just happy I can come along for the ride.
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Guardians of the Galaxy 010
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Valerio Schiti
Colours: Richard Isanove
Speaking of comics that just have fun, let’s talk about that one time the Guardians of the Galaxy took over a planet that had pissed them off.
No, really.
They weren’t subtle about it, either, although to be fair, the Badoon started it, really. Brian Michael Bendis’ storytelling is light, fun, and hilarious, but the real star here is the art of Valerio Schiti. She gives each member of the team their moment to shine, and the people in the comic have an animated fluidity about them that sells each comedic point fantastically, and the action she captures will had my jaw dropping in sheer awe.
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Detective Comics 939
Writer: James Tynion IV
Script: Eddie Barrows
Inks: Ever Ferreira
Colours: Adriano Lucas
Every good relaunch has a trick or two up its sleeves. A premise that’s a bit of a gamble, but that can potentially be the most interesting one of the line. When DC’s Rebirth came around, Detective Comics was one of those.
The recently concluded Batman & Robin: Eternal showed off just how compelling a team of Gotham’s finest sidekicks and allies could be – We Are Robin and Robin War did much of the same. A team of Gotham’s finest was in instant draw for me. Led by Batwoman(who is quickly becoming my new favourite bat-character), the team of Red Robin, Spoiler, Cassandra Cain and, surprisingly, Clayface sets the series up for an intriguing dynamic that was delivered in full.
This issue has the effects of the first arc come to a head, as a shady government unit of operatives emulating Batman himself release a swarm of drones to find and kill every suspected terrorist in Gotham city, regardless of the civilian deaths that might cause. Red Robin, hacker extraordinaire, manages to hack their systems…but only by having them target a single person – himself.
Red Robin faces down an army of killer drones with the same confidence and strategic thinking that defined him from his very first appearance. There was no better way for the character to make his final stand.
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The Wicked + The Divine 1831
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Stephanie Hans
In the world of The Wicked + The Divine, gods of various pantheons come to earth as mortals, to inspire the populace in whatever form that takes. They are loved. They are hated. And at the end of two years from their first awakening, they die. The main series deal with the gods of 2013, who’ve incarnated as modern music stars, and is complicated, strange, deeply entertaining and one hell of a ride.
The 1831 special gives us a glimpse of gods past, or, at least it does in part. Most of that pantheon is dead already – Hades, in fact, dies in the opening pages of the issue. The four remaining gods – Innana, Woden, Morrigan and Lucifer – gather together for an evening of company and the sharing of horror stories. The gods of this time are some of the greatest poets and writers of their age. Literary references abound, and though nearly all of them go right over my head, it doesn’t matter – the art is breaktaking. The story is wonderful too – cold, atmospheric, and filled with a just the right amount of horror for a reader to want to come back and try and figure out just where things went so terribly wrong.
Kieron Gillen did a great job here, but this issue is all about seeing Stephanie Hans at her best.
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Ms. Marvel 011
Writer: G. Willow Wilson
Artists: Takeshi Miyazawa & Adrian Alphona
Colours: Ian Herring
The unwritten rule of event comics is in full force here, as this tie-in to Marvel’s Civil War II event proves itself better than the main series by leaps and bounds.
Like the previous Civil War, the issue that has all the heroes punching each other really hard is intriguing enough to lead to some really good debate – or at least an examination of the issue. Civil War II has Iron Man facing down Captain Marvel, who is championing the cause of predictive justice. Iron Man believes it’s wrong to jail people for crimes they haven’t done yet, while Captain Marvel believes it’ll keep the world safer than it’s ever been – and Ms. Marvel is stuck in the middle.
This issue not only examines the downsides of predictive justice, but also the consequences of some of Ms. Marvel’s actions. Actions that have may have broken ties to her greatest hero, and affected the life of her closest friend in irrevocable ways.
She’s forced to grow up, here, and though it’s heartbreaking to watch, it’s inspiring to know that she’s only going to come out stronger on the other side.
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Deadman – Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love 001
Writer: Sara Vaughn
Illustrator: Lan Medina
Colours: José Villarubia
I usually wince a little when people try to call comics graphic novels in an attempt to make them sound like a more legitimate form of storytelling, because comics already are so. However, there are some things that novels give you that most comics just don’t, and as such – Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love earns the graphic novel label wince-free.
It’s a ghost story, if the title hasn’t given it away already. Not so much a horror story, though there are trace elements of that if you’re really looking for it. Berenice sees ghosts, whom she mostly ignored, and Deadman is a ghost, spending his afterlife helping those both living and dead. Reading through this gives me the exact same feeling I get reading a good book on a rainy day – the art draws you in and keeps you there, in a grey, quiet, lonely mansion on the edge of a small town.
The series’ two protagonists – longtime DC character Deadman and completely new DC character Berenice – feel like close friends, opening up to the reader, sharing the stories they haven’t – or can’t – tell anyone else.
Issue #1 made me extremely happy, and I look forward to the series being completed, to take another long read through it on a rainy afternoon.
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Batman 010
Writer: Tom King
Pencils and Inks: Mikel Janín
Colours: June Chung
Have you ever watched a painter or a cartoonist at their work? Sometimes, you’ll be watching them and you think you know what they’re drawing, but a single brushstroke or line drawn and everything you thought you knew about that picture changes completely.
Batman #10, part 2 of King’s “I am Suicide” arc, does that for me with over 65 years of the Batman-Catwoman relationship – these panels in particular:
The issue sees Batman invading Santa Prisca, while his own version of the Suicide Squad, made up of Arkham Inmates, carry out the rest of his plan. The art is incredible, as we see Batman fight off jets, crash land onto the island, fight off an army, get his spine dislocated, reset his own back while breaking out of a cell – all while the captions detail a letter Catwoman wrote to him, trying to explain herself. To explain last issues reveal of why she murdered 237 people in cold blood.
The art alone, or the letter alone, would have been enough to make this an issue to blow my mind, but to have them put together the way it was puts this down for me as one of the best crafted issues of the year.
It should be noted, issue #12 is similarly structured, and is definitely worth a look.
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The Mighty Thor 012
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist, Present Day: Russel Dauterman
Colours, Present Day: Matthew Wilson
Art & Colour, Old Asgard: Frazer Irving
Jason Aaron’s long run of Thor – way back from when Thor was still a dude – gets two things down really well. The drawing out of a mystery, and an epic sense of mythology. We see the latter here in full force in a story entitled “The Untold Origin of Mjolnir.”
Ever since Jane Foster first picked up Thor’s discarded hammer Mjolnir and became the new Thor, the weapon’s been acting…different. Last issue, it went so far as transforming itself into Jane Foster to help keep her identity a secret – there is more to Mjolnir than we know. The hammer drags Thor to the library of the gods, and it is there that Thor discovers the true history behind her hammer. The art changes in the flashback, as Frazer Irving takes over. The art is a perfect fit for a tale of epic myth, and you can feel the storms and magic within rise straight up off the page.
In this tale we learn that the hammer was not just a weapon the dwarves forged, but also one that has trapped within it a galactic storm that once threatened to consume all of Asgard itself. And though Odin managed to contain the storm’s fury within the hammer…
Mjolnir is an essential part of the Thor mythos. To be deemed worthy by Mjolnir is to be Thor. To get an added glimpse into the force that powers the hammer is quite appropriately awe-inspiring
It’s been a good year for comics, and there were a lot more than 20 that I’ve enjoyed. I can’t wait for the new year, and the new year’s worth of good stories that will come with.
