At the end of a decade that saw comics and graphic novels reach new heights of mainstream popularity, we saw the fruits of the medium’s rapid growth with a 2019 full of outstanding titles by up-and-comers and industry legends. The narrative and stylistic range of the best titles released this year is very impressive, starting with Clue: Candlestick’s board-game adaptation and ending with the lush fantasy adventure of Ye. Young publishers like Vault and TKO came into their own with remarkable new releases, delivering two very different takes on war stories, and in the world of superheroes, publishers did thrilling work revitalizing concepts like Green Lantern, the Hulk, and the X-Men by trusting unique creators to explore IP in fascinating new ways. This was an especially fantastic year for comics spotlighting female characters of all ages, from the kid-friendly witchy whimsy of Witch Hat Atelier to the adolescent turmoil of Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me and middle-aged introspection of Is This How You See Me?. These are The A.V. Club’s 20 favorite comics of 2019.
Clue: Candlestick (IDW Publishing)
The board game Clue is no stranger to adaptations. Its defined cast of characters and narrative-based gameplay have made it the source material for a film and book series, and IDW has released multiple Clue miniseries offering fresh interpretations of the murder mystery. Dash Shaw’s Clue showcases how an eccentric creative perspective can enrich a decades-old concept that is repetitive by nature. Written, drawn, colored, and lettered by Shaw, these three issues create a lot of excitement through sheer graphic boldness, find new ways to heighten the most iconic design elements of the board game. Shaw crafts a murder mystery that blossoms into something unexpectedly poignant by the end, all the while keeping a strong through-line of humor with joke panels drawn in the style of New Yorker cartoons. There’s no shortage of imagination in his interpretation, and he maintains a level of interaction with the reader throughout, inviting them to solve the mystery along the way. [Oliver Sava]
Commute: An Illustrated Memoir Of Female Shame (Abrams Books)
As the subtitle might indicate, Commute is a raw and sometimes uncomfortable read, poking at an open wound and refusing to let it heal. Erin Williams, who both wrote and illustrated the book, has crafted a deeply personal graphic novel about her own experiences, but she’s also made something that has some universal appeal. Williams’ life will look very familiar to a lot of women around the same age who work in a major metropolitan area and struggle with money, performative femininity, the behavior of strange men, and gentrification. It’s not that Commute is about all of those things directly or even explicitly, but rather that all of those things touch Williams’ life and so she writes about them, draws pictures of them. She imagines the lives of strangers in sketchy, loose visuals and applies the same artistic style to her own, even though it’s more concrete from her perspective. There are no answers in Commute, but there are a lot of questions and small, intimate observations that add up to a powerful portrait of a life being lived the best it can be. Commute isn’t refined or elegant, but it is kind and honest in a way many memoirs rarely are, allowing ugliness to show where needed. [Caitlin Rosberg]
The Dreaming (DC Comics)
The Sandman predated the creation of Vertigo Comics by five years, and the universe Neil Gaiman created has outlived the imprint, which DC shuttered in 2019 after 26 years. The Dreaming shows why these ideas have endured over the decades, telling a deeply chilling story about what happens when the dream space that connects all living beings is corrupted and rewired. Writer Simon Spurrier is completely in sync with the unique voices established by Gaiman and later contributors, and Spurrier enthusiastically experiments with narrative structure because he’s working with a concept that is about exploring storytelling in all its myriad forms. Main artist Bilquis Evely and colorist Mat Lopes take Spurrier’s wild ambitions and turn them into crisply detailed images brimming with emotion, heightening both the beauty and the horror of the scripts. Guest artists like Abigail Larson, Dani, and Marguerite Sauvage tell stories crafted for their strengths, and the series also gives us the much-anticipated reunion of Spurrier and his Coda collaborator, Matías Bergara, who illustrates an unforgettable issue in hell. [Oliver Sava]
Delicious In Dungeon (Yen Press)
Thanks in no small part to a bevy of successful actual-play podcasts, tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons have been enjoying a resurgence in popularity that has begun to creep into comics. This may be most typified by the excellent The Adventure Zone: Murder On the Rockport LImited which came out this year, but there’s also Delicious In Dungeon, which has seven volumes translated into English so far. The book follows a band of adventurers as they delve into a dungeon that’s filled with all types of monsters and unexpected traps. Every level of the dungeon poses a different kind of danger, but the group has made it thanks in part to the knowledge of a dwarf warrior who has learned to cultivate and hunt the wildlife that lives in the dungeon so he can survive there without venturing back out for food. There is a larger threat looming over the adventurers, and layers of deception and magic to unfold. Creator Ryoko Kui’s art gains fascinating depth as the story does, too. The characters are designed intentionally and with a lot of personality packed into them, like some of the very best TV cartoons currently being made, and the dungeons themselves are fascinatingly rich, with enough structure that they hold up under the stories’ needs. The best part is the recipes sprinkled throughout every book; as the party encounters new monsters and items, their dwarf chef teaches them and the readers new ways to prepare their bounty, and the illustrated recipes that accompany his explanation are delightful enough to tempt readers to try at home. [Caitlin Rosberg]
Far Sector (DC Comics)
On the cover of Far Sector #2, Sojourner “Jo” Mullein relaxes with some Black Lightning fanfic, sitting underneath a poster of supermodel superhero Mari “Vixen” McCabe with a John Stewart Green Lantern bobblehead on her side table. It’s a far cry from the typical superhero cover, an image that emphasizes comfort and calm, speaking to the headspace we enter when we engage with our favorite media. It’s indicative of the immense care writer N.K. Jemisin and artist Jamal Campbell have put into making the newest Green Lantern an engaging, relatable character, keeping her grounded while she solves a murder case in a world steeped in sci-fi spectacle. DC only released two issues of Far Sector in 2019, but the confidence and specificity of the storytelling makes it one of the strongest superhero debuts in recent memory. Jemisin, a Hugo Award-winning novelist and short story writer, takes to the comic medium like a seasoned pro, giving Campbell a story that pushes him to new heights as he builds a rich alien environment, culture, and cast of characters. It was a huge year for Campbell, who introduced another new DC hero in the pages of Naomi, and DC is doing great work pairing him with collaborators who showcase his star power. [Oliver Sava]
Giant Days (Boom! Studios)
Giant Days has been a staple of a lot of best-of lists from critics and readers with wildly different tastes, one of the few titles that a wide spectrum of people can agree is great. John Allison’s ability to capture larger-than-life personalities dealing with everyday peccadilloes, and his eagerness to find joy in small intimacies, are at the heart of what makes Giant Days so special. The humor is remarkable and well-honed, and Max Sarin has continued to deliver bright, loud characters that never feel too big or too much to be believable. Sarin, Allison, and colorist Whitney Cogar are a dream team for comics, creating a book that skillfully balances emotional beats with comedic ones with the sort of consistency you could set a watch by. For a while it seemed like the only comfort for the end of Giant Days was how long it lasted, when what was initially supposed to be a six-issue run expanded to four years of delightful friendship-fueled ridiculousness. The sorrow from fans at the announcement of the finale and the longevity of the series’ run are both testaments to just how beloved and well-crafted these characters are; news of the whole team’s reunion for Wicked Things, a new book premiering next year also set in the Tackleford universe, is cause for celebration. [Caitlin Rosberg]
Gideon Falls (Image Comics)
The mystery of Gideon Falls has been unfolding for several years now, but as readers get closer to the heart of the mystery and the speed ramps up, the book has only gotten better. Character arcs have begun to collide, and plots that were set up at the very beginning have started to pay off. This year brought what is either time travel, multiple dimensions, or both. Andrea Sorrentino has continued to deliver appropriately grim, gritty, and gory art that feels claustrophobic and endless in turns. It can be hard to pull off horror in comics without resorting to extensive blood and guts, and while there is plenty of physical violence in Sorrentino’s work, the oncoming sense of dread is fueled far more by the sense of wrongness and uncertainty that Gideon Falls holds. Dave Stewart’s colors are muted and dark for the most part, but the brilliant red that accents the most terrifying moments serve the book very well. Gideon Falls may deal with a lot of the same themes as some of Jeff Lemire’s other work—things like legacy and fear—but the willingness to dive deep into the darkest parts of human nature and imagination makes the book really stand out. [Caitlin Rosberg]
The Hard Tomorrow (Drawn & Quarterly)
2019 was an ugly year for global politics, and unfortunately it doesn’t look like the future is going to get any less nasty. Eleanor Davis is scared, and she channels all her anxieties into The Hard Tomorrow, following an activist fighting fascism in the near future while trying to start a family. It’s a graphic novel that speaks to the current political climate with incredible insight, exploring the camaraderie that develops amongst activists and the resilience needed to push back against an oppressive authority with basically unlimited power and resources. Davis’ highly expressive linework and evocative designs give each character a distinct personality, and personal dynamics are so clear in the artwork that she doesn’t need to spend too much time in the dialogue explaining how these characters relate to each other. Davis is a cartoonist fixated on how the comic-book form creates a unique storytelling experience, and she leans into this for The Hard Tomorrow’s breathtaking final sequence, putting hope directly in readers’ hands to remind us why the fighting can’t stop until we create a better tomorrow. [Oliver Sava]
House Of X/Powers Of X (Marvel Comics)
Jonathan Hickman taking over the X-Men was going to be big, but there was no way of predicting just how big. In these two miniseries, meant to be read as one long 12-issue story, Hickman completely changes how mutants operate in the Marvel Universe. He gives them their own island nation, eliminates the line between “good” and “evil” mutants, and most dramatically, eradicates mutant death with a resurrection protocol that brings back nearly every dead mutant from the past. Featuring art by Pepe Larraz (House Of X), R.B. Silva (Powers Of X), and colorist Marte Gracia, these books are a master class in superhero rejuvenation, full of daring ideas that work with the complex history of the X-franchise while blowing everything wide open for a new era of stories. Designer Tom Muller works with Hickman to give the books a distinct aesthetic that carries over to the Dawn Of X ongoing series, and the use of data pages provides a documentarian view of the rapid changes to the status quo. For the first time in a long time, the X-Men comics feel like a place where anything can happen, and the weekly release schedule if HOX/POX resulted in some of the year’s most satisfying comic-book discourse as fans collectively lost their shit. [Oliver Sava]
The Immortal Hulk (Marvel Comics)
The Immortal Hulk started the year in hell and destroyed the universe by October. Writer Al Ewing takes the idea of “Hulk Smash” further than anyone before, turning the character into a cosmic force of destruction in the far, far, far future while also situating him as a global disruptor in the present. Hulk punches planets and dismantles broken political systems, making this a superhero book that embraces the most grandiose elements of the genre while also offering pointed commentary on the current sociopolitical climate of the United States. The core art team of Joe Bennett, inker Ruy José, and colorist Paul Mounts jumps from tense, grotesque horror to exhilarating action with ease, and bringing in more gamma mutates like Bruce Banner’s therapist, ex-wife, and best friend allowed even more opportunities for body horror that is both so creepy and so cool. The book had a murderers’ row of guest artists in 2019 including Kyle Hotz, Ryan Bodenheim, Tom Reilly, and Matías Bergara, with Germán García and Chris O’Halloran dropping an artistic A-bomb for the milestone Immortal Hulk #25. [Oliver Sava]
Is This How You See Me? (Fantagraphics Books)
Few social events are as loaded as high school reunions, where people are forced to reconnect with others from one of the most stressful periods of their lives. There’s a lot of pressure to present someone better than before, but these are also the people who can see through the bullshit. Jaime Hernandez has been telling stories with his Locas characters for nearly 40 years, so there’s a deep history for him to pull from when he gets them back together for a reunion at a punk show in Is This How You See Me? Like The Love Bunglers, one of the decade’s best graphic novels, time is the magical ingredient here. The narrative jumps between the past and present to emphasize the growth of these relationships, and the artwork accentuates how the passage of time physically transforms these characters. If you’ve read all of Hernandez’s track in Love And Rockets, this book hits like a sledgehammer. It’s a testament to how well he’s developed these characters over decades, and he nails the anxiety of entering this emotionally fraught space along with the thrill of reconnecting with familiar faces who have changed dramatically but haven’t lost their spirit. [Oliver Sava]
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me (First Second)
Rosemary Valero-O’Connell draws characters who breathe. You can feel their nervous inhale when they’re about to start a tense conversation, the exhale of a longing sigh. Winding word-balloon tails ride waves of air, informing the pacing of the loaded conversations in Mariko Tamaki’s script. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me tells a powerful story about a queer teenage girl learning to reclaim her heart from her manipulative on-again/off-again partner, launching Valero-O’Connell into the top tier of talent working in YA comics by pairing her with one of the strongest writers in the industry. Tamaki brings all of the empathy and astuteness of her previous graphic novels like Skim and This One Summer to her script, giving her collaborator characters with a lot of different layers to explore. With its pale pink coloring and clean lines, Laura Dean has softness and warmth that makes it a very pleasant read, but the story doesn’t pull punches when it comes to the intensity of adolescence. It’s a time of huge change for a person’s mind, body, and social circle, and this graphic novel highlights the struggles and the satisfaction that come from finding clarity with your own identity and your personal relationships. [Oliver Sava]
November (Image Comics)
November is Matt Fraction at his finest, a noir mystery that has left readers with significantly more questions than answers at the end of this first of three volumes. The plot is fascinatingly fluid, moving among three different character perspectives and jumping through chronology without warning. None of that would be possible without Elsa Charretier’s hard work with both art and colors, using limited palettes to delineate which point of view and which timeline any given panel is meant to display. Even when the transition is for just one single panel, Charretier’s work is skilled enough to make it clear what’s happening. Her work is delightfully a little retro, in the same vein as Darwyn Cooke or Bruce Timm with lush curves and craggy faces alike. Though the plot is still unfolding, a few things have been made clear: A woman who’s lived a hard life was given the job opportunity of a lifetime, and there’s some extremely organized bad behavior on the part of the police. It’s a detective story with some massive conspiracies woven in, and even though the stakes are still pending, if the characters are to believed, this might be the end of the world. [Caitlin Rosberg]
Pretty Deadly: The Rat (Image Comics)
Pretty Deadly is a comic that deserves a museum exhibition. Few titles come close to the beauty, power, and emotion of Emma Ríos and Jordie Bellaire’s astounding visuals, and Kelly Sue DeConnick develops stories with shifting genre influences and poetic scripting that demand a lot from the art team. There’s a lot of history at play here, and Pretty Deadly functions as an anthropological study of shifting cultural tides, executed with passion and intensity that gives it immense entertainment value. After three years away, Pretty Deadly returns in 2019 with The Rat, a five-issue miniseries jumping into the crime-noir genre. The narrative ventures into Hollywoodland to investigate the murder of a young woman entering the rapidly growing movie business, providing a very different landscape to explore compared to the Western and war stories of the first two arcs. DeConnick uncovers the seediness beneath the glamour with her tale of addiction, obsession, and the loss of innocence, and the artwork perfectly captures this contrast of cinematic glory and artistic torment. Ríos’ lyrical layouts transform in exciting ways that make each issue a surprising visual feast, with Bellaire’s colors adding new layers of complexity and Clayton Cowles’ lettering providing a road map to guide readers through unconventional page designs. [Oliver Sava]
Sara (TKO Studios)
TKO Studios now has two generations of books under their belt, but when Sara first hit shelves last year, the publisher was still a bit of an unknown. Seeing Garth Ennis and Steve Epting’s names on the cover was more than enough for a lot of readers to give it a chance. Ennis and Epting have both earned fans with work like Preacher and Velvet, but Sara could’ve been a gamble. The book centers on a group of Russian snipers during World War II who are combatting the slow invasion of their winter-bound homes. The titular Sara and her squad are all women, clearly inspired by the very real female snipers that fought Nazis on the Eastern Front for much of the war. Epting’s precise, realistic art is well-served by Elizabeth Breitweiser’s rich colors, lending the Russian winter a depth and texture that would be easy to overlook in a vast wash of white. The context is real even though the specific characters and interactions may be fiction, and the whole book stands strong under the weight of actual events, both historical and current. Sara and her compatriots are the kind of compelling protagonists that readers crave, full of determination and the little quirks that make them very human, but dedicated to a greater cause than themselves. (Sara premiered in December 2018, after our best-of-2018 list had been created.) [Caitlin Rosberg]
Sobek (ShortBox)
Sobek made it to our midyear best-of list, and it’s held onto that slot as the back half of the year has passed. ShortBox has been curating a collection of independent creators and comics with a high bar for quality and creativity, and Sobek is part of that growing reputation of excellence. It’s a short comic, completely self-contained, which is a big part of the appeal in a year when many comics are relying on decades of canon and several tie-in titles to be complete. The pacing and comedic beats in Sobek are near-perfect and a largely text-free read lets creator James Stokoe’s artwork really shine. Every page is drenched in lush detail, inviting readers to slow down and really appreciate the skill that went into not only the visual feast but also the careful plotting and joke crafting. What’s really striking about Sobek is that, as a whole, Stokoe doesn’t show just how much effort goes into a book like this. The story is simple and the comedy is relatively straightforward, but both bely how much craft and work are required to make a book as graceful and perfectly executed as Sobek. [Caitlin Rosberg]
These Savage Shores (Vault Comics)
These Savage Shores has a simple, crowd-pleasing concept: What if the supernatural beings of Western culture faced off against those from the East? European vampires face off against an Indian rakshasa in this hard-hitting genre bender, telling a historical action-horror wartime romance about love and death during the early rise of colonial powers in India. Writer Ram V, artist Sumit Kumar, and colorist Vittorio Astone explore horror on two very different scales, from the grisly intimacy of vampire attacks to the monumental destruction of war. The team gracefully uses a nine-panel grid, finding the right balance of visual and written information to keep the story moving at a charged pace while still finding quiet moments of introspection and emotional connection. Kumar and Astone do exceptional work differentiating between the heavily industrialized London and the lush natural environment of Indian cities, making the latter a warm, inviting environment that is cruelly overtaken by both greedy men and bloodthirsty monsters. As vicious as the violence gets, the story is balanced by the tenderness between the demonic Bishan and his lover, Kori, putting affection at the center of this tragic tale. [Oliver Sava]
The Way Of The Househusband (Viz Media)
On paper, The Way Of The Househusband shouldn’t work. A slice-of-life manga about a retired yakuza who spends his day taking care of his wife’s needs sounds farcical at best, perhaps even outright mean if it was mocking. But creator Kousuke Oono clearly adores slice-of-life stories and respects the power they have, and has made an immersive story with a lot of heart. This is one of many manga that is exactly what the title says, and is stronger for it. The man formerly known as the “Immortal Dragon” is married to a wonderful career woman and spends his days cooking, cleaning, and fending off the threats of men who were familiar with him in his previous life. Oono leverages a lot of visual humor, particularly slapstick and exaggerated facial expressions that are particularly common in manga. The former Immortal Dragon is the very definition of a wife guy, and watching his hijinks as he does his best to keep his past life from impacting his present one—whether he’s buying groceries or hunting down his beloved wife’s favorite figurine—is highly entertaining. The book is refreshing, goofy, and charming in the extreme; fans of Assassin Nation, another of this year’s great comics, should definitely check it out. [Caitlin Rosberg]
Witch Hat Atelier (Kodansha Comics)
Though Witch Hat Atelier was translated to English just this year, the book is quickly becoming a favorite for manga aficionados and new readers alike. The first four volumes were published in 2019, and the story has only become more fascinating and engrossing. Kamome Shirahama’s line work is astonishingly detailed and precise, and, combined with the rich world-building, it creates a real, weighty sense of place and time. Witch Hat Atelier is carefully and intentionally structured, which helps it avoid a lot of the issues that kids’ fantasy books often run into when combining young people, magic, and danger. As Coco and her fellow students learn more and come closer to becoming fully fledged magic practitioners, they face new challenges and secrets that come with real stakes. Animated by lovely visuals and character designs, the young magicians are put into a position where their choices can both help and hurt others, and are given opportunities to learn and grow from their failures. Witch Hat Atelier has the creativity, heart, and consistency to rival any middle-grade or YA fantasy series, and the beauty to build a lasting legacy with readers. [Caitlin Rosberg]
Ye (Top Shelf Productions)
Ye is difficult to describe, existing both outside of genres and straddling several of them at once: It’s not quite fantasy or YA, but it may also be both. It’s a story of self-discovery and learning the language to define that discovery, a hero’s journey where the hero is largely silent. The titular character is a young mute man who lives an isolated life, and is one day exposed to a dark force that has terrorized his whole world. His trip to find the cure for his darkness takes him on a wild adventure around the remarkable world author Guilherme Petreca has created for him. Petreca’s work on the backgrounds renders the setting into something possible and weighty even if it’s a little too weird to be real. The denizens of Ye’s world are draped in piles of knitwear and look like something Jim Henson would have had a field day with, expressive with larger-than-life personalities. Ye ends up learning more about himself than he expected, like any true hero’s journey, but he also uncovers a lot about how the world around him has shaped his own self-understanding. That sort of message could be cloying and tried in less skilled hands, but Petreca makes Ye a sympathetic and very human protagonist that readers can easily see themselves in and join on this journey. [Caitlin Rosberg]
80 Comments
I’d also like to mention the relaunch of Unstoppable Wasp where Nadia Van Dyne, Hank Pym’s daughter from his first marriage, celebrated her first birthday party with her friends and met her extended family for the first time.This includes her half brother by way of a Skrull clone of Hank Pym (https://images.app.goo.gl/T3aSsKoPadUAMS2BA). And her two great nephews by way of Chaos Magic, Demon soul shards, and reincarnation (https://images.app.goo.gl/JYfse33bP4DQEuya9).
The two issues where Nadia has a breakdown and then learns she has Bipolar Disorder are some of the best issues I’ve read this decade.
I thought unstoppable wasp was kind of generic with 1 dimensional characters. Certainly wasn’t any better than the boring fair Marvel shovels every month. I read the first 5 issues and couldn’t care.
Boooooo.
I’ll be glad when Unstoppable Wasp’s continuation is stopped.
Waste of resources and energy.
I’m liking the “Dawn of X” arc but it’s odd that the characters seemed impressed by the whole resurrection thing. I’m pretty sure all Marvel mutants have a secondary mutation that makes them come back from the dead eventually. About the only inconvenient part of death in X-Men comics is having to figure out how to leave the Australia outback. That being said I love the fact that there are a lot of not subtle clues that Wolverine, Jean Grey and Cyclops(any probably Emma Frost) are all totally fucking each other. I’m holding out hope for a Cyclops/Wolverine kiss this year
I think that’s why it’s a subtly strong move. They’re all coming back anyway; just make it text and move on. In theory, it forces creators to go new places for drama.
My favorite part about it is when the council is making the first laws of the island and “mutant shall not kill mutant” is thrown out as the obvious first law, only for Apocalypse to say “Why? It’s hard to hold someone accountable for killing a person who shows up again a week later.”
Also great:GOOD TALK by Mira Jacob, I MOVED TO LOS ANGELES TO WORK IN ANIMATION by Natalie Nourigat, LITTLE BIRD by Darcy Van Poelgeest and Ian Bertram, THE WEATHER MAN by Jody LeHup, UMBRELLA ACADEMY: HOTEL OBLIVION by Gerard Way, A FIRE STORY by Brian Fies, KID GLOVES by Lucy Knisley, OFF SEASON by James Sturm and NANCY by Olivia JaimesJust to name a few.
Thank you for shouting out Weatherman and Little Bird. Outer Darkness also deserves a place on this list. I’d throw in Cats of the Louvre by Taiyo Matsumoto while I’m at it.
It’s been a great year for graphic novels. I am the selector of GNs for my library, and I don’t have nearly a large enough budget for every title I wanted in 2019. 2020 is looking expensive too.
Chainsaw man was a great read as well. The most consistently insane book I’m reading.
I’m not sure how you can include one manga on here without including a title like Kimetsu No Yaiba.
Wonder Twins and Little Bird both deserve some spots on any best of list for this year.
Wonder Twins was a lot more fun then I expected it to be. I picked it up on a lark and really enjoyed it.
A best comics list with multiple mainstream superhero titles? I’m not sure where my browser redirected me when I tried to go to the AV Club, but I think I’ll start commenting here instead.
Other than House of X and the Hulk…?
This threw me hard, too. I triple-checked the URL when I first skimmed through.
I’d put Amazing Spider-Man on this list since I suffered through 10+ years of Dan Slott written fan fiction where he proved to everyone that he didn’t understand the character at all and what he really wanted to write was a Doc Ock series. And yet in just his first issue Nick Spencer undid so many of the mistakes made with the character by Slott and has continued to do this with each issue. For the first time in a long long time, I now look forward to reading ASM again.
I’m hesitant with Spencer getting the ASM book after Secret Empire…
At almost two-dozen issues, AS-M you should have no concerns about Spencer-itis. The book rocks.
(And I’ll never understand the Slott hate. He—and frequent co-writer Cristos Gage–did awesome work on the title, putting Spidey in places he’d never been before.)
The entire panel of this Spider-Man fansite/podcast I follow said the same thing, that “instead of getting Superior Foes Spencer, we would probably get Secret Empire Spencer”. But after the first issue they were all pleasantly surprised, and by the end of the first arc they were all saying “In Spencer we trust!” It’s been a year (?) and I would say his worst book would get a B/B- from me. The book is so strong now and has fixed so many errors from the Brand New Day/Slott era:- Peter is back together with MJ.
– Peter realized that it was wrong of him to take credit for the doctorate Otto earned while he had control of Peter’s body.
– The Black Cat’s character was redeemed after Slott had turned her into a murdering psychopath for no reason.
– Peter almost proposed to MJ but missed her at the airport – I have no idea if Marvel will ever let them bring back the marriage, but the fact that they had this in the book means that Quesada’s influence/control is much less than it used to be.That’s just off the top of my head. The book is just fun now. Also, Peter’s roommate is Fred aka Boomerang. If you read Spencer’s Superior Foes of Spider-Man series starring Fred, this will be good news to you.
If you like Spider-Man written competently and not needing other superheroes to come in and rescue him every other issue, I’d recommend giving ASM a shot.
This sounds great. Thanks!
Maybe I just am not a big enough fan of “cannon” Spider-Man, but his run hasn’t worked for me (admittedly I fell of around issue 11.) Fixing the things that weren’t working wasn’t enough for me. I was so excited when they announced that Ottley is the main artist, but the action is mostly pretty tame, and Spencer’s comedic work doesn’t work for me at all. If most fans are happy about it though, I will just say it’s not for me and move on. Besides, Ottley deserves a victory lap like this after Invincible.
Vol. 4 in trades of Spencer’s run has a resurrected Kraven with Arcade’s help hunting the animal-themed-villains of New York (most of Spidey’s rogue gallery) with valid reason and it felt like a great, rather complete story whilst being part of the larger-framework of the Spidey-time-line.
Even if you’re not like me and want a return to cannon Spidey, most readers wanted an end to whatever the hell Dan Slott was doing for the past 10+ years (killing off Spidey, replacing him with Doc Ock, Peter Parker becoming a Tony Stark ripoff global businessman, dating Mockingbird for no reason, showing *no* sense of responsibility).As for the artist, the fact that they are continuing to release the book twice a month means we can’t have a single artist on the book – we are stuck with having Otley for a few months, then another artist for a few months, repeat. I would be fine with the book going back to once a month if it meant we could have Otley on the book permanently.Personally I find the action in Spencer’s run great, especially since we don’t have the resolution to every conflict be what it was in every other Slott issue – Spidey fighting a threat that he should be able to defeat on his own, but for “reasons” he needs to have the Avengers/SHIELD/Mockingbird/some random superhero come in and rescue him.As for the sense of humor, I found Spencer’s Superior Foes of Spider-Man series one of the funniest Marvel books I ever read, a complete surprise considering it was a book starring Shocker, Boomerang, Speed Demon, the female Beetle, and Overdrive – I had zero expectations for it. If you like that sense of humor, that’s what we’re getting in the current ASM.
Haha, most?! Slott had about the most successful (Critically and sales wise) run on Spider-Man since the eighties.Superior Spider-Man was a full on disertation on why Peter was the best superhero. You are just wrong.
Slott fundamentally did not understand the character of Peter Parker, who should be all about responsibility, not being a Tony Stark knock off, billionaire businessman blowing off responsibilities. The Big Time run showed promise, but quickly devolved into issue after issue of a villain that pre-Slott Spidey would have easily defeated but now Spidey needed the Avengers, SHIELD, or other random superhero to come in and save him.SSM was all about proving that his favorite character was Doc Ock, not Spider-Man as he claimed multiple times. SpOck spends ~30 issues doing everything better than Peter, then the Green Goblin shows up and out of nowhere SpOck says “I can’t defeat him, I must bring Peter back”. That is terrible writing. Slott should’ve known that bringing Peter back was going to happen at this point because ASM2 was coming out in theaters. But apparently he thought SpOck was going to continue past this movie – it’s been stated that Spider-Verse was meant as a SpOck story, not Peter.And the reason the sales on Slott’s ASM run were so high is because of all the events and number ones. Look at the numbers for ASM #1 volume 3 (?). They were huge, not because of the sales, but because of the number of issues printed – comic book stores reported many copies of that issue remaining on the shelf, unbought, but they were told by Marvel that they had to buy extra issues. Then issue #2’s numbers plummeted back to what they were before the #1 issue. Having high numbers in a run due solely to events and rebooting the book is not a good argument to say that Slott’s run had high sales all the way through.
Slott understands Peter Parker better than any writer since the Stern/DeFalco years. ‘Twas a glorious ten years for this longtime reader.
I’m all for other people having different opinions than mine but … no, that’s just not true.Slott fundamentally did not understand the character of Peter Parker. His version of Peter had him take credit of a doctorate that he did not earn (that Doc Ock earned while in control of his body) and use it to create a business. If Slott understood anything about Peter he would know that his sense of right and wrong, his sense of responsibility would never let him do that. Spencer rightly chose that as the first thing to correct.Also, once Peter got his business, he showed zero sense of responsibility. Multiple times his employees told him “You have to attend this meeting, you have to do this – this is vital for the success of your company.” and Peter would just run off to be Spidey – not because there was something important he had to do as Spidey, but just because he needed to go web-swinging. Peter Parker as the global businessman (aka Tony Stark Jr) was a completely different character with no sense of responsibility. He didn’t care about any of the employees who depended on him to do his job.At least Stern/DeFalco understood that Spidey could fight his own battles. They had him defeat Juggernaut and Firelord, a herald of Galactus. Spidey written by Slott could not defeat villains that he had defeated on his own in stories by previous writers – he needed the Avengers, SHIELD, Silk (*Silk* for God’s sake) to come in and rescue him and defeat the bad guy. Also, Slott is on record saying that he does not like the Spidey vs Firelord story and that Spidey should not have been able to win that fight, which shows that he missed the entire point of that story.Agree to disagree, but the Slott era was a dark time for Peter Parker and Spidey which history will not look kindly upon.
I would also include Dial H by Sam Humphries and Joe Quinones to this list. It’s just a gorgeous reimagining of a goofy Silver Age concept that takes that Silver Age goofiness to its logical conclusion. And Quinones does some of his best work ever, drawing in various styles from the past and creating new superheroes in every issues.
I used to look forward to this list so much every year. But that was when avclub had actual critics and didn’t push material based on its politics.
A lot of comics best-ofs, including some that have been in the AV Club, lean too heavily on the indie/artistic comics and graphic novels and neglect the quality mainstream comics. This is a great mixture of the two and has given me some comics to look up.
FWIW: Little Bird won 2019 for me. Completely out of left field, never really heard much from the creators before and out of no where they started consistently dropping a book of staggering creativity.
It’s only 20 slots, I get it, hard decisions have gotta be made. From my perspective and money though, it’s hard to beat Little Bird in the western comics scene this year.
Little Bird is fantastic. I loved it. Good Talk really won me over. As did I Moved to Los Angeles to Work In Animation.
I’ve dug the hell out of Dawn of X. The most I’ve enjoyed the X-books since Joss Whedon left the books more than a decade ago.While not agreeing with every creative decision, I’ve loved what’s been done so far for the exciting stories and different take on the whole concept.It’s made the X-men feel vital and at the cutting edge of the Marvel Universe for the first since Grant Morrison left in 2004 and the characters got sidelined with Decimaton.
I’ve only read three comics series in physical issues in 2019, as opposed to digital or trade waiting, so I’ll recommend the three of them:* Spider-Man: Life Story by Chip Zdarsky & Mark Bagley – An alternate continuity Spider-Man story that has the events of mainstream continuity happen roughly in real time to a Peter Parker who ages up appropriately. Each of the issues is a decade, so issue one is the 1960s with a teenage Peter, issue 2 is the 1970s with a Peter in his twenties. It’s a fantastic synthesis of so much Spider-Content.* Die by Kieron Gillen & Stephanie Hans – A great, dark take on the “party gets sucked into the gaming world for real” genre with a very dark, gothic sensibility with a lot of twists. It looks gorgeous, plus Gillen has also been releasing beta rules for an RPG based on teh comic in parallel.* Once & Future by Kieron Gillen & Dan Mora – A twist on the return of King Arthur in Britain’s darkest hour which it almost seems churlish to mention any of the plot details beyond that. Main character Duncan McGuire is super relatable and his grandmother is both hilarious and bad ass.
Spider-Man Life Story sounds really like the ‘60s edition of Marvels …which isnt a bad thing I guess
Honestly, it’s better than I made it sound.
I just read the whole thing and it was pretty damn good!( and just read Marvels :Eye of the camera after that, and while I enjoyed it , it just read like “Marvels: extra side content “, rather than doing anything new with the idea
Only read the first TPB of Die, and it maybe feels a little clunkier than Gillen’s best, which is faint criticism. I could have done without another Jumanji plot, but his strength is his characters.
It was marketed (at least in part) as Goth Jumanji, so that didn’t bug me. I do like the game verse plot mechanics, but as you said that’s secondary to the excellently drawn characters. I haven’t read much of Gillen’s other work, so I can’t argue how relatively clunky it is or isn’t.
Really, why creating a fictional Great Patriotic War story like Sara, when there are literally thousands of interesting and awesome stories of very real soldiers (snipers, AA crews, partisans, pilots and even some tank crews) who fought against very real Nazis, and whose voices are silenced or ignored? It seems really disrespectful to celebrate these fictional stories (which the artists have full control) set in real events and History; while silencing and ignoring again the real people who fought and died there, fighting for their lives only with their witts.
Well this is just odd
The very concept of historical fiction is disrespectful and “silencing”? Hmmm…. NAH this is about the character being a woman.
I wasn’t a fan of Whenever
a new writer takes over a long running title, there’s bound to be some
retcons. These mini-series are 88% retcons. So even before parsing out
the narrative’s quality, I frequently screamed in my mind “THAT’S NOT
RIGHT!” When that much canon needs to be changed, it’s best to set it
outside the mainline continuity.
Worst of all, it abandons the goal of peaceful integration to make mutants isolationist cultists.
Also the “data pages” have outlived there usefulness where they quickly became wasted space.
Especially with X-Men. After every huge shake-up at least one member dies, a new team is created and an old team is disbanded, one enemy of the X-Men becomes an ally, an ally to the X-Men becomes and adversary, and Charles ends up in a wheelchair, gets new legs, dies, or gets resurrected.
Next time Xavier should be resurrected as just a head attached to a dozen legs.
it doesn’t abandon the goal of peaceful integration at all. Far from it. Creating a nation recognized by the rest of the world, is a smart way to make It so the rest of the world has to acknowledge mutants, and their rights. Krakoa gives them borders that can’t easily be accessed. So they can avoid another genocide at the hands of humans. And the X-Men have every intention of being peaceful with nations that recognize their sovereignty.And they’re not cultists. But should a mutant need a place to live safely, they have that place waiting for them. I mean the story established that the rest of the world had an entire program setup to destroy mutants should they recover from the Genosha incident. And for me, the data pages did a lot to Untangle and streamline some of the most convoluted parts of x-men lore. Particularly omega mutants and the phalanx.
This!
On top of everything, the goal of peaceful integration was more or less abandoned almost 20 years ago when Morrison took over. Whedom tried to inch back into it, but it never really took.As someone who’s been reading X-Men comics consistently since like 1992, I gotta say the OP of this threat is way off base.
I love juicy vaginas.
I feel like a lot of the retcons or moves in the Dawn of X books have been in service of forcing them to find new directions. Like the fact that mutants can’t REALLY die anymore means you can’t pull a shock death out of your hat (hell, they killed Xavier as a first beat and then treated it like a routine thing to fix instead of a line-changing Moment). The fact that all mutants are living (somewhat) in harmony means you can’t go back to the usual well of mutant bad guys…they need new enemies. Honestly, my biggest complaint with the original HoX/PoX books was that the dialogue felt stilted and off and lacking a beating heart, which I thought might be intentional at first… but the subsequent books seem to be treating characters more like their normal-voices selves, so I dunno. Also the island nation thing was technically done in Utopia, but obviously not to this extent. Either way, it’s fun having a bunch of connected stories playing off each other and exploring a narrative moment in time from so many sides.
Oh, you sweet summer child.
Every author views characters differently. Like when Marvel brought back Doug Ramsey (Cypher) and now he could read and master body language and suddenly bookworm Dougie is Martial Artist Death Machine Dougie.
Simon Spurrier took over Doctor Aphra from Kieron Gillen and kept it the most twisted, fun, yet oddly sympathetic corner of Star Wars. So I’m fully on board to read him taking on Gaiman’s world.Next year Doctor Aphra will relaunch written by Alyssa Wong so I expect further twisted oddly sympathetic fun.
I didn’t hear that Aphra was being relaunched till yesterday and now I’m very pleased. Would have been bummed to see her go if this latest series was the last of her solo adventures.
Our Dreams at Dusk That Blue Sky FeelingBloom
I gotta read BLOOM. I heard it’s great.
Second year in a row that Maneaters hasn’t made the list.
Tragic, yo.
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl sadly ended its incredible 50 (58?) issue run this year as well. Ryan North and Erica Henderson created what was probably my favorite mainstream publisher comic in years. I’m an old ruthless cynic and was completely won over by their great storytelling, relentless optimism, and the best cameos in Marvel. It’s smart, witty, and the rare comic for all ages that delivers something for everybody. Doreen and the gang will be sorely missed and she definitely deserves a place on the list of best comics of 2019.
Clue: Candlestick was fantastic. The art contributed to the story so much, and it had some great callbacks to the boardgame. I also love Giant Days but haven’t finished it, maybe like 2/3 of the way through. However, the creator has a new comic out, “Steeple” and it is lovely.
No Squirrel Girl!?
Unbeatable Squirrel Girl & Ms Marvel have both been stellar. Sam Wilson’s Capt America run was probably my favourite Capt. America era ever (late 80’s/early 90’s with Serpent Society held top spot until rereading as an adult showed how badly Diamondback wasn’t written by any females (later remedied by 2018-19’s Domino solo series although seeing the two eras I feel I’ve compleyely missed the character’s rags to riches story).
Hickman completely changes how mutants operate in the Marvel Universe.
He gives them their own island nation, eliminates the line between
“good” and “evil” mutants, and most dramatically, eradicates mutant
death with a resurrection protocol that brings back nearly every dead
mutant from the pastThis is only part of this description that Hickman changed. Everything before that has been done before and better.
No Invisible Kingdom? Can people please show this expertly written story with quality art some respect? No Coda?The Dreaming is god awful. It’s written so goddam slow. The art is spectacular, but it’s plot plods along exactly like Lost where the story goes nowhere and keeps heaping on new mysteries without resolution. That book shouldn’t even touch this list.
I think the only issue I had with the new era of X-Stuff was that I lost my local comic shop before HoX/PoX wrapped up, and with it went my ability to more easily afford additional titles, so I pretty much hit the brakes on everything and have to sit it out, at least in single issue form. Also the part where I knew they’d planned to do a number of X-Books, but followed it up with more of their beloved rampant double shipping, which would’ve put a heavy strain on me even if I’d still had the old shop to rely on. Good jerb, Marvel! Although it IS kind of freeing to not be able to support a creaky, overburdened pull list for the first time in 7ish years, even if a lot of interesting stuff has to be ignored upfront.But still, kind of nice to see an X-Men situation where they aren’t being pushed off to the side due to petty reasons and/or facing down yet another round of extinction/incessant conflict with some other group in order to fuel yet another Thing vs. Stuff event. Which is probably coming eventually, knowing Marvel’s habits.
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I don’t know in which direction the cause/effect of Comic Book Ascendance and the ever-faster burning of the world runs, but it’s very real.
Really? No Crowded? No Gwenpool Strikes Back? I’m not saying they were the best of the year, but I feel like they hit the top 20 easily.
I’m not gonna deny, I’ve long been curious about HOX/POX, but I’ve been reluctant to get the trade because I honestly suspect to find out that anything I like about the comic is going to be undone within a year or two. Even if it’s just a great story on its own, it’s just disappointing when that happens.
Late to the party & only collecting in tpb’s but thrilled for Giant Days (waiting for the final run in Vol. 12 to drop). Skyward (2018) & Moonstruck have been somw of my favourite non-Big-2 books of the last decade. Don’t know if web-comics get a look in, but My Life as A Background Slytherin has brought my life untold joy every couple of weeks foe the last few years too. *Flounces away*
I bought Commute: An Illustrated Memoir of Female Shame yesterday, and read it last night.First off, the description above is really off. It’s about a person who suffers from depression and anxiety, and dealt with it mostly through drinking and sex. The majority of the story is told in flashbacks during her long commute into Manhattan. There are a few passages where she infers what certain people – mostly men – are thinking. One passage is about her being alone on the train at night, and imagining she could possibly be raped. But she concedes this is just a mental game she is playing on herself. There is absolutely nothing in it about gentrification. Did Rosberg even read this thing? Erin Williams commutes to and from Upstate New York – in one brief part, housing prices are vaguely discussed in passing with another commuter. But it is hardly in a gentrified area. You get the idea she’s coming from Beacon, or something, which is not exactly Harlem or Bushwick, etc.
I found it to be an overall interesting read, but I felt I was being subjected to a long self-therapy session. The author spends a lot of time blaming others for her own distresses, or pinning her problems on people she invited into her life who are just as tormented, aimless, or wearying as she is.
Hulk is utterly terrific, and just WILL NOT stop being awesome.
No mention of Little Bird?? Such a good short run story!
https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/little-bird-1-of-5
Far Sector has been kinda interesting, but calling it the one of the best comics of the year seems like an incredible leap for a comic that has only 2 issues out. Talk about jumping the gun, damn.
Far Sector???
As soon as I read that I stopped and realized this was a thinly veiled propaganda list of socialist agendas. And this is coming from a left-leaning Democrat.
IMHO, the second arc of Pretty Deadly was as bad as the first was good. I’m crossing my fingers for this one.
I never comment on this site, but I will say I don’t think Clue deserves to be on the list of best comics for a very important reason – it uses a horrible trope and associated stereotypes to forward the plot. Dash Shaw may have thought he was trying to be inclusive by having a character be ex-military and gay, but he did two things that are hurtful to the LGBTQ community. First, he killed that character in the first issue, contributing to the “bury your gays” trope of not allowing queer characters to live. That trope is unfortunately still prevalent in pop culture.
Second, even had the character lived, he was living with an unrequited love for another man. This perpetuates the stereotype that LGBTQ people are unworthy of love and will end up alone.
I’m disappointed in the AV Club did include this title on the list. Hopefully you’ll be more aware of hurtful stereotypes when selecting your choices in the future .
Hey, I respect your list but this is a very narrow view of comics dominated by obscure feely-feel books. Hox/Pox aside, this list honestly needs more mainstream comics. I love obscure art house movies but I’m sure going to rank big box office as well. Also, immortal Hulk started strong and has crapped out entirely, it was a lazy pick imo
Far Sector #1 is one of the best single issues I’ve read in 2019. Really interesting (and accessible) world-building, and Jamal Campbell is drawing absolutely out of his mind through two issues.
Wow, four mainstream books? You guys okay? I know you don’t often like to give mere superhero books any props.You guys messed up not including The Wicked + The Divine, though.