24 for ‘24: CXF’s favorite comics of the year

While those other comics sites had their year-end best-of lists ready to go by Thanksgiving, we … got busy and put it off till the last possible minute. But hey, that just means we were able to take the full scope of the year’s comics into account.

In doing so, we settled on these 24 books that made our team laugh, cry, pump our fists and generally feel something. From the Big Two to the little indies that could, there’s something here for damn near everyone. 

Here they are, presented in alphabetical order.

Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees

A serial killer attempts a quiet life in a small town, but when a copycat emerges, Samantha Strong finds she can’t hide much longer. Drawn in a style similar to Richard Scarry’s Busytown children’s books, cartoonist Patrick Horvath doesn’t let the cute critters of Woodbrook get in the way of the gore necessary for a good grisly murder. The series is available in trade, and IDW has announced a sequel series for 2025.

The Boy Wonder

Juni Ba turns the story of Damian Wayne into one of his beautifully illustrated fairy tales, as the young Robin tries to find his place in the Bat family, please his father and avoid the fate presented by his grandfather. Ba succeeds in making each of the Robins distinct and emphasizing Damian’s Middle Eastern heritage. Simply masterful storytelling that has us looking forward to next year’s Monkey Meat follow-up at Image. A collection of The Boy Wonder will be available in February.

Cemetery Kids Don’t Die

Writer Zac Thompson bet big on himself this year, putting out indie titles at Oni Press, BOOM Studios, Dark Horse and Mad Cave, many of which were critical successes. But our favorite was this Oni book with artists Daniel Irizarri and Gege Schall, about four friends addicted to a dark-fantasy virtual reality video game they play in their sleep, and the one friend who gets a little too into it. Also, for fans of Thompson’s previous work, there’s a mushroom lady! Cemetery Kids Don’t Die is available in trade.

Dawnrunner

Ram V is our writer of the year, hands down no arguments. No writer shows up more times in this list. This first entry sees Ram put his spin on the mech story alongside artist and increasingly frequent collaborator Evan Cagle. Read Dawnrunner in trade, and watch Ram and Cagle work together again in the recently relaunched New Gods at DC.

Detective Comics

Like we said, Ram V had a year. That year included wrapping his 30-issue “Gotham Nocturne” arc on ‘Tec. Not many writers get that long a run on a Big Two book these days, let alone 30 issues that was one continuous narrative structured like an opera. It’ll be interesting to see how the boys at the BatChat podcast eventually break this story down to rank it.

DOOM

Writer Jonathan Hickman has taken on a number of varied projects for Marvel since leaving his post as Head of X in early 2022. One of the best is this one-shot that tells the story of an aging Victor Von Doom making a last stand against Galactus against the backdrop of a dying Marvel Universe. It hits a common beat of Hickman’s — everything dies — but it does that in service of giving Sanford Greene space to draw a breathtaking cosmic tale. We’re looking forward to art from Greene when Bitter Root returns next year at Image. Buy DOOM here.

Loving, Ohio

Four teens approach high school graduation in a small town dominated by a cult whose reach extends to nearly all levels of life. Stricken by grief over the death of their friend, awash in drugs and stuck in the sway of a religious-political machine with a siren song, they uncover a serial killer operating under the cult’s protection. This graphic novel by Matthew Erman and Sam Beck is both surreal and all too real, with a permeating sadness that feels all but impossible to escape, and a note of measured hope at the end. Loving, Ohio is available from Dark Horse Comics.

Mary Tyler MooreHawk

What is Mary Tyler MooreHawk? Is it a series of comics about a girl adventurer and her cohort of fellow action scientists? Is it a series of magazine articles about the dwindling age of physical media and the collectors and archivists who seek to preserve what is being deleted in the name of tax write-offs? Is it a time loop story that exists expressly to ensure it will be told? Or is it just cartoonist Dave Baker fucking around? It is all these things, and more. Quite frankly, this book is hard to describe in a paragraph. Read it for yourself. DO IT. Mary Tyler MooreHawk is available in hardcover from IDW.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man

One would think it shouldn’t have taken this long for Miles Morales — arguably one of Marvel’s most visible Black characters; certainly its most visible Afro-Latinx one — to be written consistently, and consistently well, by a Black creator, but … eh, why start at the bottom? This book is fun. Miles Morales: Spider-Man takes its lessons less from Brian Michael Bendis and Saladin Ahmed but from the media those previous writers inspired, such as the Spider-Verse movies and the PlayStation Spider-Man games. Even when affected by larger Marvel events, such as last summer’s Blood Hunt, the series by writer Cody Ziglar and primary artist Federico Vicentini figures out how to roll with it, generating an arc in which Miles struggles with the violent urges created by his vampirism, having to keep himself in check when the Vulture comes calling and accepting help from a deepening supporting cast. No wonder Ziglar’s been on board for dang-near 30 issues. Listen to Ziglar talk about the series on The ComicsXF Interview Podcast.

The Moon Is Following Us

Two parents enter their daughter’s dreams to pull her out of a sudden coma, fighting alongside a host of fantasy characters and sacrificing fragments of their life essence to access weapons to use against the monsters imprisoning her. Artists Daniel Warren Johnson and Riley Rossmo trade off, with Johnson capturing Sam and Duncan’s fear and sadness in the real world and Rossmo drawing the dream world, each playing to their strengths over Johnson’s story and Mike Spicer’s colors. This Image Comics series is four issues in to a 10-issue run. Listen to the creators talk about the series on The ComicsXF Interview Podcast.

The Nasty

Young Scottish video rental store employee Thumper Connell attempts to re-create one of his favorite horror movies in time for a local film festival but is set upon by a disbelieving mother, a moral crusade against “video nasties” and his imaginary friend, the fictional film slasher Red Ennis. Writer John Lees educates us on the real-life video-nasty moral panic of the late 20th century, while artists George Kambadais and Adam Cahoon draw a comic that is equal turns funny and horrifying, not unlike the schlock its characters profess to love. The Nasty is available in trade from Vault Comics.

NYX

When we ranked all the X-Men: From the Ashes comics, this comic by Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly and Francesco Mortarino took the top spot, with good reason. At the time, our own Adam Reck wrote: If the general tone of From the Ashes is a Krakoan diaspora hangover where mutants struggle to reintegrate with American society, NYX is succeeding in a way that few other books in the line are. The creators grasp the characters, give them heart and are not only presenting a new normal, but challenging them with relatively grounded threats proportional to the protagonists.

The One Hand/The Six Fingers

Two series that are one! On One Hand, writer Ram V (there he is again!) and artist Laurence Campbell follow Detective Ari Nasser as he puts off his retirement to investigate a case that has plagued him his entire career. On the other hand, or rather the Six Fingers, writer Dan Watters and artist Sumit Kumar follow Johannes Vale, a grad student compelled to murder and scrawl sigils with the blood of his victims. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game played across the two books, with a resolution that invites you to reread both series for clues. The two series are collected in one trade from Image Comics.

The Pedestrian

A silent, body-stocking clad sentinel swishes his way through an economically depressed town, saving everyday citizens from a black-and-red criminal cult, with the aid of many of the people he once helped. The quirky Magma Comix series by writer Joey Esposito and artist Sean Von Gorman boasts a unique concept and the fact that it’s the only Magma series we’ve read. A collection is due out Jan. 29.

Poison Ivy

Marvel characters, good and evil, are known for their feet of clay, while DC characters are more traditionally black and white in their morality. And yet, DC has been able to turn more of their villains into solo series leads. Especially their Bat-villains. Especially their Bat-villainesses. But Poison Ivy, written by G. Willow Wilson and drawn primarily by Marcio Takara, has been a surprise in its longevity. While Catwoman and Harley Quinn’s shades of gray developed more effortlessly over time, Ivy has a more Mystique-like quality, in that she is an unrepentant terrorist who cares about maybe one or two people on the planet and the rest can burn. Yet Wilson has found an emotional core to the character and mined it for nearly 30 issues, with no signs of slowing down.

The Power Fantasy

A handful of superpowered individuals have enough juice to destroy the world. What does peace at all costs look like, and how does it play out over the back half of the 20th century? Writer Kieron Gillen follows up his run in the X-office with this loud bang of an Image Comics series, joined by Caspar Wijngaard, an artist who continues to top himself with each new project. Did we need another Watchmen riff with a lorebook as thick as a Dungeons & Dragons player’s handbook? No, but we’ll be happy to continue devouring this one. Listen to the creators talk about the series on The ComicsXF Interview Podcast.

Public Domain

Kid … Chip Zdarsky will break your heart. How the Chipster finds time to continue to write and draw this Image Comics series about the family of a long-dicked-over comics pioneer, nevermind its spinoffs, in between long runs on Daredevil and Batman, is beyond us, but we’re glad it’s here, showing readers all the ways comics can destroy you while you pour all your love and hard work into them, sometimes with little more than a ticket to the movie premiere to show for it. Vol. 2 of Public Domain will be available in trade in February. The trade of its spin-off series, The Domain, by Zdarsky and artists Rachael Stott and Eren Angiolini, will be available in March.

Punk Rock Karaoke

School is out for summer, and Ariel Grace Jones is determined to make it one for the books. Together with bestie bandmates Michele and Gael, Ariel believes they’re destined to break into the music industry and out of Chicago’s Southside by singing lead in their garage punk band, Baby Hares. But before Baby Hares can officially get into the groove, the realities of post-grad life start to weigh on this crew of misfits. CXF writer Latonya “Penn” Pennington had this to say about the debut graphic novel by Bianca Xunise, published by Viking Books for Young Readers: “I’m impressed with the artwork, storyline and characters. Great ode to punk rock music and punks of color.” Buy it here.

Rare Flavours

Our final Ram V book on the list reteams him with artist Filipe Andrade, with whom Ram worked on The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, also published by BOOM Studios. Like that book, Rare Flavours delves into an aspect of Ram’s Indian heritage, specifically food. Rubin Baksh, an ancient cannibal demon, conscripts young filmmaker Mohan into making an Anthony Bourdain-style documentary on the flavors of India, while Rubin attempts to dodge his pursuers and mask his true intentions. Over time, we learn the truth about Rubin, and at the same time we are endeared to him though we are also made painfully aware of his sins. Each issue includes a recipe presented as fable, an interstitial moment that teaches us about the power of food, the people who prepare it, the people for whom it is prepared and the larger story. You’ll never look at a dish of paal payasam the same way again. Rare Flavours is available in trade.

Resurrection of Magneto 

Writer Al Ewing’s final word on Krakoa was this surreal journey through the mutant afterlife, as Storm seeks to bring back Magneto for the final battle against Orchis. If you never read another X-Men comic after this, you’d see the man born Max Eisenhardt emerge from a morass of self-loathing and tangled continuity reborn anew, as powerful as he ever was and ready to be a leader of mutantkind again, and be good stopping there. Artist Luciano Vecchio levels up to join Pepe Larraz, R.B. Silva, Valerio Schiti and Joshua Cassara in the discussion of the best artists of the First Krakoan Age, leaning on the visual language of the tarot brought to the fore earlier during the “X of Swords” crossover. Buy it in trade.

Star Trek

We at CXF dig this IDW fantasy-draft Trek comic by Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly (making their second appearance on the list after NYX) and assorted artists so much, we did our own draft recently. Captain Sisko and his crew’s adventures appear to continue well into 2025, culminating in next year’s “Lore War” event starting in April.

Transformers

There were plenty of reasons to doubt this latest iteration of the Robots in Disguise at the outset. “Is it going to be as expansive as the original ‘80s comics?” “Didn’t we already get the best Transformers comics in More Than Meets the Eye and Lost Light?” “Oh, Daniel Warren Johnson’s no longer the artist after issue #6? Is it still going to be as good?” And every month, writer Johnson and artists like Jorge Corona and Jason Howard calm our fears, giving us the emotional beats and ‘bot-on-’bot violence that made us fall in love with this book in the first place. Skybound’s Energon Universe has raised the bar for licensed comics across the industry, with effects that can be seen from IDW’s relaunch of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Dynamite’s rebranding as the home for Disney and Warner Bros. properties as well as its traditional T&A fare. We’ll keep reading this comic Till All Are One (or, y’know, the quality starts to dip).

The Ultimates

Writer Deniz Camp has a lot to say about the state of the world and America’s sins as a nation. And by some miracle, Marvel is giving him a lot of room to say it in this refreshening of the Ultimates concept. Issue by issue, Camp and artist Juan Frigeri lay new pieces on the table of Earth-6160, taking a subtext-is-for-cowards look at the effects of America’s atomic testing on island populations (She-Hulk), Native American protest movements (Hawkeye) and, soon, experimentation on prison populations (Luke Cage). Camp’s love of weird sci-fi also has given us perhaps the most heartbreaking version of Doom’s origin to date. In the words of CXF writer Jake Murray, “This comic feels not just very ‘un-Marvel,’ but what Marvel could be if it was more willing to take risks and put its properties in the hands of ambitious creatives with the reins off more often.”

Zatanna: Bring Down the House

Perhaps best known as the magic lady in the fishnets through whom writer Paul Dini worked out many of his fetishes over the years, this DC Black Label series by writer Mariko Tamaki and artist Javier Rodriguez dares to ask, “OK, but what if Zatanna was good, actually?” In this retelling of her origin, Zatanna Zatara is a Las Vegas magic act hiding out from her own powers, until dueling magical factions (and old hookup John Constantine) come looking for her and force her to confront her powers and her past. And because Rodriguez draws it, everything is trippy and beautiful at the same time. Zatanna will get a new ongoing in February, written and drawn by Jamal Campbell, while Rodriguez will go on to draw Absolute Martian Manhunter in March alongside writer Deniz Camp. Zatanna: Bring Down the House, meanwhile, will be available in trade in March.

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