After a brief explosion during the pandemic, the comics industry is undergoing an existential crisis. It faces tumultuous sales at local comic shops, and the creative malaise audiences felt this year in the superhero movie genre is well-reflected on the publishing side of Marvel and DC, the industry’s two biggest publishers. To say that most of the output from these companies lacks spark is to put it mildly.
Still, there were plenty of bright spots this year for the medium. While Mattel’s Barbie was a hit on the big screen, it was Hasbro’s Transformers comic that ruled the toy-inspired genre in print. And though Marvel’s actual comic books struggled creatively this year, a number of creators managed to craft moving and innovative stories inspired by Marvel (see: I Am Stan, a graphic novel biography of Stan Lee and The Super Hero’s Journey).
It’s a near-impossible task to sift through the countless waves of comics that come in weekly from the traditional publishers, not to mention the graphic novels that come in all forms and for all ages from various book divisions. But here is short list of what we’ve loved in 2023.
The Best Superhero Book Right Now
Writer: Kelly Thompson, Artist: Leonardo Romero: Publisher: DC
Birds of Prey has had many incarnations over the decades since the title first appeared in the 1990s, tethered to Black Canary and other Gotham City characters. It even became a failed Harley Quinn-led movie a few years ago. Forget all that. This is a superhero team book done right.
Yes, the kickoff plot is in the style of Magnificent Seven, something that’s even seen in Zack Snyder’s new feature, Rebel Moon. It’s a gathering of disparate heroes and anti-heroes on a potential suicide mission. But in Thompson’s hands it becomes like watching a great Grammy performance, where the team-up and mix of characters, old and new, brings something wonderful.
Canary is back but this time she leads Big Barda of the New Gods, Batgirl Cassandra Cain, fan favorite Quinn, and Zealot, a character from the Wildstorm imprint continuing her DC integration. The team comes together and plans a daunting mission to rescue Canary’s adopted sister from the heavily-fortified and Amazon-filled Paradise Island.
The dialogue is snappy, mixing comedy and heart. All the characters pop and actually feel cool. Zealot’s inclusion is one of the few times that a Wildstorm character works in the larger context of the DC universe. And Quinn, for the rare time, is not dreadful annoyance to us as readers.
None of this would work as well as it does if it wasn’t for the art by Romero, which has an Alex Toth-1970s vibe to it filtered through a modern lens (check out the double-page spreads capturing a cascade of action, a Thompson staple). It’s classic storytelling but not steeped nostalgia. The same can be said for the coloring by Jordie Bellaire, whose muted and off-line shadings give it a classic but also modern feel.
This is currently DC’s best ongoing monthly book and will remind why you love superhero comics.
The “I Can’t Believe This is On the List” Comic
Transformers
Writer/Artist: Daniel Warren Johnson; Publisher: Skybound/Image
A comic based on a Habsro toy ending up being one of the best things we’ve read is the last thing we expected. But in a year that also has a movie based on a Mattel toy as one of the best movies of the year, well, maybe it’s not that crazy.
In the hands of Daniel Warren Johnson Transformers buzzes with excitement and a love for the medium.
The writer-artist also created our favorite book of 2022, the emotional and visceral supernatural wrestling book Do A Powerbomb. Here, he opts for a back to basics approach that re-introduces the Transformers as two warring factions — Autobots and Decepticons. Each issue is accessible for newcomers but still a deep delight for long-time fans, never an easy task. Johnson also never loses sight of the core human story because most of the giant robot action would be meaningless without a strong emotional connection.
Oh, but what action. Johnson’s love of wrestling hits this title hard — look for suplexes and moves like Kobashi’s Burning Hammer — and his raw art style, which eschews the gleaming and polished looks of previous Transformers comics from other publishers, brings dynamism to each page. Some pages are so packed with panels that at times it feels like the pages are too small for what he’s trying to accomplish. But then he follows that up with massive panels or full pieces that smack the eyeballs out of their sockets.
In a world dominated by plenty of corporate comics, this Transformers title is a muscle car built in neighborhood garage. It’s junk metal with an indie vibe, scratchy and scuzzy, not some assembly line product made by robots.
The Sun Rises on the Western
The Enfield Gang Masssacre
Writer: Chris Condon, Artist: Jacob Phillips: Publisher: Image
Western comics are supposed to be a dead genre, right? Well, the only thing dead in this mini-series are the bodies that keep piling up issue after issue. Condon and Phillips, who explored Texas noir in That Texas Blood, go into the past to tell the “true” story of fictional outlaw Montgomery Enfield (ably aided by a fictional journal that accompanies the issues, giving it the feel of a true historical account and an expose of facts behind a frontier myth).
Enfield and his gang are indeed outlaws, but when a townsperson is killed, Enfield is conveniently made the suspect. An aging Texas Ranger and a mob thirsty for law and order take their shot(s).
The story is equal parts drama, murder mystery, and bloody gunslinger action. It is filled with complex morally grey characters, all presented in such a cinematic way that we’re surprised Kevin Costner isn’t already adapting this.
Local Man Revives Superhero Image
Local Man
Writers/Artists: Tony Fleecs, Tim Seeley; Publisher: Image
It’s a book that should be a joke – and believe us, it’s got plenty of those – but it somehow manages to be a well-thought out superhero noir that moves beyond simple nostalgia.
Tony Feels (co-creator of Stray Dogs) and Tim Seeley (co-creator of Hack/Slash) give us Jack Xaver, a once-high-flying member of a super-team named Third Gen, who returns his small-town roots. He is now disgraced, hated, and without prospects. But he can’t wallow too long, as he becomes enmeshed in a murder in which he’s the prime suspect. A mystery, fleshed out characters and gnarly fight scenes fill out the pages.
Each issue, however, is also a flipbook (!) that takes us back to the time of 1990s superheroics — think prime Image Comics or Marvel X-teams. The flipbooks give context, deepen character and drop hints for what’s to come.
It’s not easy to deconstruct or to meta-textualize a genre that’s had it done to it several times already, but this one is pulls it off, in a low-key yet elevated way.
The Non-Marvel Marvels, Marvel
I Am Stan
Writer/Artist: Tom Scioli; Publisher: Ten Speed Graphic
Stan Lee was a hype man who recounted his oft-told stories so many times they became legend. And there have been numerous biographies published since his death in 2018, some aggrandizing, some clear-eyed. So, did we really need another biography? The answer was a resounding “yes,” with Tom Scioli’s I Am Stan as proof.
Scioli takes on the entirety of Lee’s life, from beginning to end, in a graphic novel that is unique and illuminating, not to mention well-researched. The Eisner-nominated writer and artist illustrates key events, fact or myth, in one- or two-page vignettes told in a cinematic yet cartoony style.
The result was an impressionistic and anecdotal telling, both personal and professional, that vividly builds a portrait of one of the most important figures in pop culture history.
Scioli depicts Lee as a complicated man who did good and bad, as a vain man looking for validation, and as a man who wanted to bring respect to the downtrodden medium of comics.
The Super Hero’s Journey
Writer/Artist: Patrick McDonnell; Publisher: Abrams ComicArts
A hybrid of both memoir and a love letter to Marvel Comics, McDonnell produced a work that is perfect for 2023, given the challenging year Marvel has faced, with box office misses and various controversies.
The book begins with McDonnell attending boring ol’ church in the 1960s, followed by the family’s weekly ritual lunch at the soda fountain where his real altar lay, the comic book rack. Filled with Marvel comics, the wonderous pages hit him harder than a clobber by the Thing, transporting him into the Marvel Universe, where, unexpected and brilliantly, the story becomes a journey of self-discovery and a distillation of key Marvel heroes who, led by Reed Richards, must find a way out from a crushing sense of negativity by finding the only energy that conquers all, love.
McDonnell, who is best known as the award-winning creator of the long-running daily comic strip Mutts, repurposes classic panels from Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and a few others, and mixes it his own cartoony style. Stan Lee-penned dialogue is juxtaposed with philosophical entreaties by thinkers such as Henry David Thoreau, Virgil, and Milarepa. And in between are pages that evoke the superhero drawings of a young McDonnell.
It is a work that pure ’60s Marvel bombast, philosophy, and introspection. It is nostalgic and yet very much tethered to the now. And it’s a pointed reminder of how vital, energetic, poetic and ambitious those early Marvel books really were.
Bonus entries! These technically are not comics or graphic novels but they are definitely comics-adjacent…and they also show how the best Marvel stuff this year came from non-Marvel quarters.
MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios
Writers: Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, and Gavin Edwards; Publisher: Liveright
Seeing how this year went for superhero movies and Marvel movies in particular, the timing could not have been more prescient for a book that traces the rise of Marvel Studios, how it took over Hollywood, and then sowed the seeds of some of the issues the currently befall it.
The book may not be revelatory or break new ground, but it is incredibly well-researched and does an excellent job of putting this two decade-spanning Hollywood saga into context and order, something no one yet had done in such a thorough way.
If you love the Marvel movies, make a space for this book on your shelf.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: The Art of the Movie
Writer: Ramin Zahed; Publisher: Abrams Books
Across the Spider-Verse was an audacious, envelope-pushing sequel that propelled Miles Morales into the crazy multiverse of Spider-Men (and women and teens and pigs and…) that was a feast for the senses. This art of the movie book gives the reader that eye-popping feeling.
It captures the inventiveness and artistry that went into designing all aspects of movie, from the many characters to the many versions of New York, and not forgetting the Easter eggs and homages that pay tribute to the long history of Spidey.
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