Goodby 2024. Hello 2025! We don’t normally do this, but Nick, Elise, and Sloane all had a bit of extra time at the end of the year this year and realized - this year was a great year for comics. So we said heck with it, and put together a list of some of the ten best new comic series to grace the new comics wall this year. Enjoy!
Ultimate Spider-Man
Marvel Comics
By Jonathan Hickman (writer) and Marco Chechetto (artist)
What better way to kick off our best of 2024 list than to start with a book that defined it. If you’re not familiar with the background - the first iteration of Ultimate Spider-Man debuted back in 2001 and really upended the Marvel Universe (and was one of the things that really helped Marvel out of some tough financial times in that specific moment). So 24 years later, we revisit the line with a new ultimate universe, built on the back of the old one by the original ultimate universe’s Reed Richards (aka the Maker). Imprisoned since the end of Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars, this evil Reed escapes the 616 universe and decides to find a still-forming one and make some changes (all documented in the Ultimate Invasion series by Hickman at the tail end of 2023). This all sets the stage for a very different ultimate universe.
In this universe, Peter Parker never got bit by a radioactive spider. He never became spider-man. He’s in his late thirties/early forties and has a wife and 2 kids. Aunt May died and Uncle Ben is still alive and friends with J Jonah Jameson. Kingpin just bought the Daily Bugle and Uncle Ben and JJJ have decided to leave the paper in favor of fighting the good fight as independent journalists. And in the middle of the night one night, Peter gets a message in a bottle - here’s the powers you never knew you were missing, and a costume, and proof that our world’s been messed with. Will you accept this great power and all the responsibility that comes with it?
This book is a lot of fun. It’s a blast to see an older Peter making iterations on the same mistakes. It’s cool to see a cast of characters freed from the continuity shackles and with differing motivations. There’s an inherent tension that you pick up when you see Spider-Man and Green Goblin team up, and you wind up questioning everything you think you know about the Spider-Man story with every issue.
- Nick
Zatanna Bring Down the House
DC Comics
By Mariko Tamaki (writer) and Javier Rodríguez (artist)
I’ve been a fan of Mariko Tamaki’s writing since I stumbled across Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me in a bookstore years ago and fell in love with it. When I saw she was writing a Zatanna book and it was gonna be black label I subscribed so fast. When I originally wrote about this book in our Look Aheads back in April I called out the gorgeous colors in the preview pages as a factor in my interest in this book and Javier Rodríguez’s art and colors did not disappoint. This was the first Zatanna solo book that I’ve read and I had such a fun time I cannot wait to read more.
- Elise
FML
Publisher Name
By Kelly Sue Deconnick (writer) and David Lopez (artist)
Okay, this book comes with a fun story. I wrote about FML as part of our October Comics Look Aheads. A few days after the look aheads went live, Kelly Sue called the store to say that she read the look aheads and offered to share the first two issues with us digitally to help us to further promote her work. Once I picked my jaw up off the floor, I was incredibly excited to have a chance to read the series from the get go, so I sat down and immediately dove into the preview copies.
I was not disappointed in the slightest by this series. It’s funny. It’s dark. It’s got elements of horror that are dismissed by most readers because we’re living in 2025 now. It’s about grappling with the horror of being both a child and a parent in an age where school shootings, pandemics, climate change, and nationalism are all on the rise. It’s about looking all of that in the face and telling it to go @#$% itself. It’s about survival and resilience by way of screaming at the insanity of what our world is and has become. And it’s doing all of this through a uniquely pacific northwest feeling lens.
The series is going into its third issue as I write this and I can’t wait for more. The store still has plenty of copies of the first two issues, so if you need a little heavy-metal catharsis, hit up our comic wall or ask one of the folks behind the counter and we can show you where it is.
- Nick
The Cabinet
Image
By Jordan Hart and David Ebeltoft (writer) and Chiara Raimondi (artist)
You may notice some common themes in my favourite books this year and those are colorful and fun. The Cabinet did not get nearly enough attention this year for how wonderful it was. I first picked it up because of the colors when I flipped through it on release day. I stuck around for the irreverent humor, lovable characters and bonkers world building. The cabal of evil wizards all wear cool sneakers? Sure! The magical cabinet holds infinite magical powers including the ability to trap a god? Sounds good! Every issue left me giggling and asking myself, “When will the next issue come out?!” and every crazy adventure made me want more. I can’t wait for the next part to come out later this year.
- Elise
Absolute Batman
DC Comics
By Scott Snyder (writer) and Nick Dragotta (artist)
I mean. It had to go here right? Scott Snyder returns to Batman in 2024, pulls out and tosses aside some of the “extraneous” parts to his origin story (the mansion, the butler, the billionaire background) and reimagines Bruce as the son of a school teacher and social worker, who’s dad is killed on a trip to the zoo by an active shooter. This sets Bruce on the bat-path, but in a way that my brain can best describe as “nine-year old boy describing Batman as death metal plays in the background.” We’re talking knives in his cowl’s bat-ears; a bat symbol in his chest that becomes a battle axe; a batmobile that says “hold my beer” to Christopher Nolan and is just a freaking dump truck with the back end shaped like a bat.
But what’s really cool and innovative about this book is the message. Remember the meme from a few years ago where they said “what if Joe Chill was a cop?” This. This is what Absolute Batman is all about. An anti-establishment message of, “@#$% the police and the crime bosses and the corrupt wealthy elite that enable all of them.” And it does this all with a tone that borders on satire, but also feels oddly serious at the same time?
It was absolutely a comic I needed to read at the end of 2024. And it is absolutely a book I look forward to reading all through 2025.
- Nick
Absolute Wonder Woman
DC Comics
By Kelly Thompson (writer) and Hayden Sherman (artist)
I’m going to preface talking about this book by saying that I’m not particularly into Wonder Woman as a character. Superhero comics are kind of hard sell for me these days, and as someone who didn’t grow up with Wonder Woman I kinda just kinda never got it? The Island of the Amazons, the Invisible Jet, the Lasso of Truth – don’t get me wrong, I love the amazons but all of the disparate parts didn’t make any sense as a coherent whole, it all just felt… idk kinda silly, maybe? Hard to get in to.
I say all that just to explain that when I say that I LOVE the new Wonder Woman it’s not just because I think Wonder Woman is neat. The new Absolute Universe version of the character brings together all of the core elements of the character into a reimagined whole that requires no previous exposure to the character to get into, and is also frankly just. Bad ass? She wields a huge sword, was raised by Cerce in hell, and flies into battle on a skeletal pegasus. She’s got these immaculate Sword and Sorcery, Heavy Metal, Conan the Barbarian vibes that would do it for me all on their own, but what really elevates the book is that underneath all of these layers of grit, she’s still Diana. She’s got Wonder Woman’s gentleness and compassion and heart. Seeing the confluence of the confident, strong, warrior woman who’s also underneath it all kind, and gentle, and gives her enemies a chance to back down… suddenly I see the appeal of the character. This is why the people who love her do.
I’m not the only person having this reaction to the book, by the way. I’ve gotten lots of great feedback from long-time Wonder Woman readers and new converts both, including people who don’t normally read superhero comics like me. Most folks who are reading all three of the currently ongoing absolute universe titles agree that this is the best of the bunch. Kelly Thompson’s writing is amazing, and don’t even get me started on the art – It’s a perfect fit for the series and I absolutely love that Hayden Sherman draws Diana like a real person, tall and muscular with kind of a schnoz, and not like just another generic supermodel. It’s something that I’ve been recommending to all sorts of comics readers, and it hasn’t been a miss yet.
- Sloane
Uncanny X-Men & NYX
Marvel Comics
By Gail Simone (writer) / David Marquez (artist) and Colin Kelly & Jackson Lanzig (writer) / Francesco Mertarino (artist)
Okay, so this one was a bit of a two-fer. I tried to write one review for each and found that I really couldn’t talk about one without talking about the other.
I know that a lot of people walked away from the X-Line when the first Krakoan age ended. I know that for me personally, I loved the note it went out on (X-Men #35 still makes me tear up at the end) and I almost dreaded seeing what would come out afterwards. And broadly I have been pleasantly surprised by all of books on the X-Line. That said two titles in the line definitely distinguished themselves to me and to our community - Uncanny X-Men and NYX.
Gail Simone’s Uncanny X-Men feels like some sort of long-forgotten vintage Claremont-era X-Men. There’s a whole host of new kids with wild new powers (one of which involves her horse somehow?) coming into contact with a rag-tag underground style group of X-Men lead by Rogue. Everything about this book is fun to read, from the quippy dialogue and comic book banter to the slow burn plots that are iconic parts of that older era of x-book. This is the book for the returning reader, who wants to jump in and get right to the mutant action, but doesn’t have time to get 100% caught up on the krakoan age.
By contrast, Lanzig and Kelly’s NYX is all about not forgetting what it means to be a mutant in diaspora. It follows brand-new outed mutant Ms Marvel, along with bartender Anole, hero-turned-professor Prodigy, mean-girl Sophie Cuckoo, and Laura Kinney aka Wolverine as they are pulled together by conflicting forces of mutants and humans all coexisting within New York City. This book really feels like the spiritual successor to Krakoa, and keeping its memory bright, while also mourning all that mutants have lost. If you’re not over Krakoa yet, this is the book to be reading.
- Nick
Batman/Dylan Dog
DC Comics
By Roberto Recchioni (writer) and Werther Dell'Edera and Gigi Cavenago (artist)
As embarrassing as it is for me (a comic store employee) to admit I am not a huge Batman Person™. It takes a lot to get me interested in a Batman book. I know, boo! Hiss! That being said, this was an ABSOLUTE delight. Werther Dell'Edera and Gigi Cavenago’s incredible art is made explosive by Giovana Niro’s bombastic colors in a way I never want to stop looking at. The story itself sees the Dark Knight leaving his home turf and teaming up with Italian paranormal investigator Dylan Dog in London. More than anything this book was fun to read. Roberto Recchioni’s writing is campy and gonzo in a way that had me laughing out loud and describing pages to my coworkers while I read it behind the counter. I really hope to see more of Dylan Dog from DC and I definitely wouldn’t mind another team up.
- Elise
The Power Fantasy
Image Comics
By Kieron Gillen (writer) and Caspar Wjingard (artist)
Kieron’s a person who has written some of my favorite comics (The Wicked + The Divine, Die, Darth Vader) ever. His books have made me laugh, cry, and on at least two occasions hit so hard emotionally that I have had to sit down. So when he announced back in March of 2023 that he was coming back to Image to do a creator owned work called The Power Fantasy, I was absolutely and immediately on board and the book has yet to disappoint me in the slightest.
The premise, just in case I haven’t cornered you at the store and talked about it at length yet, is that in 1945, we began to see powered individuals emerge onto the world stage, and now in 1999, there are six “super powered” individuals living in the world. People whose internal powers are so great that they cannot and should not ever get into open conflict with one another. The book absolutely and immediately sells this premise from issue one, and builds on itself with every subsequent issue so far. There’s beautiful and horrifying worldbuilding with simple quotes like “the music of the future needs a future to exist in” and little Hickman-esque infographics that tease out everything coming down the pipe.
Caspar’s art pairs beautifully with the prose. In a book that spans 1945 to 1999 (and beyond?) he really gets to flex his muscles with design choices across the decades that pull the reader further and further into the book in a way that’s hard to describe. And he manages to humanize all six of the super powers, in a way that makes them all feel absolutely human at times and apocalyptically alien at others.
This book asks you, “hey can you imagine what would happen if all of your messy queer friendships imploding was literally the end of the world?” And then it takes the reigns of the image that had just begun to form when you read that and says “no no, worse than that.”
The Power Fantasy is so good that when it shows up in our weekly receiving, everyone on-shift stops what they’re doing to read it.
Even Doug. It’s just that good.
- Nick
And that’s what we’ve got for our best of 2024. We hope you enjoyed reading these reviews as much as we’ve enjoyed writing them. And hey, I hope that you find one or two of these books to take with you into 2025.
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