I spent a vacation completely unplugging from all things online and instead only reading the first 7 Perfect Editions of Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys. While this was the best my brain’s felt in ages, it also means my 2025 to-read pile is growing seriously threatening. We haven’t quite reached “I won’t even make eye contact with it” territory, but we’re close. And my god, the comics just keep coming. Will they never cease!
This is an interesting month for releases as it marks the first wave of DC Absolute trade editions in the market, even though the Absolute Universe #1 issue energy hit shops in October 2024. I suspect that won’t hamper these first wave releases much, as the Absolute U is both quite good and quite new reader friendly. Would have been nicer to have these ready to roll after all that Superman hype in July, but nobody asked me!
In addition to this month’s favorite reads, you can also check out Comic Book Herald’s official Mid-Year top 30 comics.
You can find the (near) full 2025 list of all my favorite comics this year on Bookshop. I’m up over 70 for the year! Don’t hesitate to let me know any of your favorites I may have missed via dave@comicbookherald.com!
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The Uncanny X-Men: Days of Future Fun
I have two ways to sell you on Jeffrey Brown (of Darth Vader and Son fame) taking on the X-Men. On a creative “adult” level, every cartoon gag makes me want to pick up a colored pencil and channel Chris Claremont and Paul Smith. On a Dad level… my kids can’t stop reading this book, and now ask me about the X-Men ALL THE TIME. Just when you think your heart can’t get any fuller, there’s a 5-year-old asking you to tell them Nightcrawler’s origin. And then the next day telling you about Lockheed! Wooooorth it.
I typically have a “oh that’s cute” reaction to Brown’s work, and the gags are so quickfire and short that they don’t make for very filling read-alongs. But when you have kids learning to read? By the goddess, that’s the sweet spot.
Spider-Man: Shadow Warrior
I’m jealous of the 10 year olds that are going to grow up on Shogo Aoki’s Venom vs. Kingpin, as Aoki’s mangafied spiders channel the zeitgeist energy of Todd McFarlane’s cocreation of the black-and-white blockbuster hit. What happens in Shadow Warrior? I don’t know, man, and frankly, I could give a damn. This is Kaiju No. 8 and Chainsaw Man energy brought to the webslingers, with more swirling kinetic black-and-whites per pixel than 9 out of 10 superhero comics at your local American Comic Shop. It’s not just the ethos of looking like manga either; it’s the freedom to let your pen explode, the creative rush of Into the Spider-Verse, of youth, of movement, of a break from the past. To flip through Shadow Warrior’s pages is to imagine a genre not held in the thrall of a depressingly nostalgic middle aged demo with nothing better to do than talk about the way things were. How about the way things are going to be? Those are the comics I’m interested in.
Dream Machine
I love me an online comics fair, and this year’s LDC Comics Fair offered some really cool, unique reads. LDComics is a “a women-led comics forum, open to all,” and if this year’s fair is any indication, it’s an annual occurrence I’m going to want to track right up there with Shortbox to make sure I don’t miss out on under the radar diamonds in the rough.
My personal favorite is Ky Lawrence’s Dream Machine, a freakout fever dream sci-fi short story that dares to ask what a comic would look like if Jason and Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron era Daniel Clowes’ brain melded into the body of Larry Marder. There’s a plot here, I’m sure – sci-fi machinery that allows connection across the dreamscape with the dead – but the emotion of one twin seeking his other in order to tell them he’s sorry the way things went down? That’s as clear as day.
Cry When the Baby Cries
Becky Barnicoat’s memoir depiction of becoming a parent is painfully earnest, often quite funny, and tremendously accurate. A good 80% of the truths of new parenthood Barnicoat describes here are things my wife has told me or we’ve experienced together. Presumably the other 20% are just where my wife drew the line but Barnicoat chooses to reveal. Much like Liana Finck’s How to Baby, Barnicoat pokes through the illusion of social media portrayed parenting to reveal the messy, disastrous, and occasionally transcendent experience of actually bringing a baby into this world.
Barnicoat’s experience resonates deeply, and her willingness to draw herself as an absolute decaying mess during the most fraught moments lends a humorous self-deprecation to the entire read. I was particularly impressed and thankful that Barnicoat extended the work into the toddler experience (most books like this stop right after baby), and that Barnicoat revealed a miscarriage after two healthy kids. My wife and I have had a similar experience, and you realize when it happens that it’s one of the most common life experiences that very few people ever share. Whether with humor or with grace, that’s where Barnicoat excels; sharing the unshareable to arrive at a deeper truth.
New Gods Vol. 1
It’s no secret for readers here, or MMY listeners, that something in my superhero fandom died with Krakoa. There was just something about investing that heavily in a work so transparently botched and compromised due to all the editorial, corporate mismanagement we all know lies at the heart of Marvel and DC (and, uh, nowhere else, I’m sure!). There are other forces at play, but the era of my life gleefully swallowing whole superhero continuities is forever diminished – and I’m quite ok with that! It’s not like I’m straining my groin playing 3×3 hoops with the local college kids in an effort to stave off impending middle age! Who told you that?!
That said, there are a number of creative forces that still give me hope for the genre. Ryan North, Dan Mora, Deniz Camp, Pepe Larraz, Kelly Thompson, Nick Dragotta, Peach Momoko… and of course Ram V. Ram’s Detective Comics was a masterclass in a creator not simply telling high quality Batman comics, but in navigating the *machine*. Ram’s found a unique way to symbiotically merge with editorial and create scenarios where the money-driven publication schedules of monthly superhero comics are used to facilitate *intentional* guest artists. Whereas many works fall prey to the cursed “fill in artist,” on New Gods, Evan Cagle’s superstar in the making core work is joined by incredible partners filling out integrated supplemental narrative, with personal faves like Jorge Fornes, Jesse Lonergan, and Filipe Andrade all taking their cracks at the latest in the Kirby-verse. It all creates a sense of a controlled, calculated work, which is important when we’re talking about a post-Darkseid future for New Genesis and Apolokips, and new dark forces kicking both “Good” and “Evil” forces off their respective homeworlds. I sure hope whoever is doing *that* has a plan.
Through the first volume, I’m admittedly more along for the ride and excited about the long-term potential than I am ecstatic about these specific 6 issues on their own. New Gods doesn’t yet pack the adrenaline-laden amphetamine rush of the Absolute Universe. And admittedly, Ram’s playing with a well worn premise – you thought Darkseid was bad? What if there’s a secret, even bigger threat to the New Gods?! Sometimes this hits (Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic’s Gorr the God Butcher) and sometimes it’s Perpetua.
Nonetheless, this being Ram V, I’d bet on the long-term. And honestly, I’m underselling the short-term. In six issues we have Orion vs Mister Miracle and Big Barda, the most interested I’ve literally ever been in Highfather’s deal, Black Racer (nuff said), and the best Lightray story you’ve ever read. It’s the kind of run that gives you hope for supes.
Ionheart
During our My Marvelous Year reviews of MCU movies, I keep finding myself wishing for these films to take chances that surprise me. There are, of course, millions of other calculations that go into good art, but if you have vision and unexpected choices, I have all the time in the world for your work. Ironically, when I do a Google search for Ionheart, it assumes I mean Ironheart. No, Google, I’m looking for the story that feels free to follow its own path.
Ionheart is not what you think it’s going to be in the best ways possible. There’s an early version of Ionheart that could be a quite good YA sword and sorcery graphic novel, with the increasingly popular twist of a POV character from our world (increasingly popular here used I guess to describe since the times of Mark Twain). But Ionheart is decidedly not that book. Or at least, it’s not *just* that book. Thank our future robot overlords!
Out now from Top Shelf, with the first English translated work of Austrian cartoonist Lukas Kummer, Ionheart justifies its 300 plus pages with heartfelt, engaging and engrossing inversions of fantasy. Kummer’s style is clean and emotive, somewhere between Futurama and Andrew MacLean’s Head Lopper. The tidy delivery of story implies a possible YA work, but the subject matter and narrative approach skew older. I’m excited to see where Kummer goes next.
Aliens vs Avengers
There have been a handful of times in my life where I let corporate cynicism completely blind me to the possibilities of good art. One of the most memorable came when it was announced the 2021 Guardians of the Galaxy would only let you play as a Star-Lord that looked like a Paul family castoff. I snap-judged the game as a bust… only to find it’s probably my favorite Guardians story/experience of… all time.
That same cynic surfaced when Marvel announced the dream team of Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic (YES!) would be reuniting on a 4 issue mini, Aliens vs. Avengers (WTF?!). Saying this as someone who owns print copies of Frank Miller and Walt Simonson’s Robocop versus Terminator, franchise crossovers are inherently transparent cashgrabs, even when the creators involved are firing. Putting Hickman/Ribic on a “Disney owns Fox now!” book feels like Patrick Mahomes and Steph Curry teaming up to sell crypto.
Leave it to Hickman and Ribic to completely upend this theory. In the parlance of the local youths I play hoops with, Aliens vs. Avengers is in its bag. In one of the stranger miracles of comics this year, these four issues feel like a proper sendoff to Hickman’s Marvel Universe works, a Marvel Universe: The End spurred on by those wiggly lil’ Xenomorphs. By god, there Hickman and Ribic go even delivering on the Sinister pits of Mars teased in House and Powers of X and never delivered upon in Krakoa proper. It’s not quite the Hickman X-Men ending we’ll never get (cries in the key of loss), but it’s probably the closest we’ll get!
This is the part of the write-up where I hope I’m enough paragraphs deep no one sees this: I flippin’ watched all the Alien movies for the first time because of these comics. They’re that damn good (my review: You should definitely watch and Alien and Prometheus to fully enjoy this work. Everything else is sus but kind of a good time. Who knew!). Hickman and Ribic really cut to the essence of what’s intriguing about Prometheus, emphasizing the Engineer’s angle as gods unsatisfied with their creations, and the all-out devastation from a war where both sides simply want to annihilate the others.
Oh and by the way, this book makes such great use of the Marvel Universe. Huge moments for Hulk, Miles Morales, Venom, Wakanda, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, Armor, Emma Frost, Sinister… like I said, Hickman’s in his bag! So, yes, I can be brave enough to say it: I was wrong. I was wrong! Aliens vs Avengers is excellent. It’s an all-timer, an instant Marvel graphic novel for the canon.
Absolute Wonder Woman Vol. 1
I have gone back and forth approximately 12,000 times whether or not I like Absolute Wonder Woman more than Absolute Batman, and if you ask me again tomorrow, I’ll probably make it 12,001. I have no idea which of these is the “better” book (it’s almost like obsessively ranking comics you love is a preposterous endeavor?), but I do know how thrilling it is that they establish the same spirit and mission statement for the Ultimatification of DC Comics. Much like Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta on Absolute Batman (and now Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez on Absolute Martian Manhunter), Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman are fully committed to the idea of a lightly remixed Diana via prestige production. While the formation of the Ultimate 2niverse is clearly articulated, Absolute DC is much vaguer. This is the universe founded on “Darkseid Energy,” which is a little bit like trying to convince my wife my boys need to play basketball with me so they can “Be Like Mike.” In the wrong hands, this could be yet another attempt to toughen up and militarize Diana (what’s up Tom King’s Wonder Woman!). Thompson is too smart for that, and instead, the inverse of a girl raised in Paradise, is a girl raised by Circe in Hell. Here she comes, with all the best gear from Elden Ring soaring on the wings of a skeleton horse, ready to fight similarly engorged monsters threatening humankind.
Of course the real spirit of Absolute DC is emphasizing the artists involved, and Hayden Sherman is quickly on their way to superstardom (just wait until next month’s round ups when I get to wax poetic about Batman Dark Patterns!). In two years of interiors across DC Comics and Into the Unbeing, Sherman is already doing more with non-traditional layouts than most artists publish in a lifetime. It’s like Sherman grew up on Moore/Totleben/Bissette Swamp Thing and internalized that snaking, vine-like panel borders are simply how things are done. On top of that, Sherman channels Moebius’ soft touch, and an innate brilliance for monster design. It *should* be without question that Dragotta’s Batman is the unrivaled visual redesign of the year; it’s not because of Sherman.
So is it the best of the Absolute Universe? I still don’t know. But I know that it *could be*. And oh to have the debate!
Spectrum
The winner of the 2025 award for “Comic I’d most like to reread next to a series of annotations” goes to Spectrum by Rick Quinn and Dave Chisholm, via Mad Cave Studios! It’s not often that I immediately want to reread a new comic, and it’s even less so to want to do it with homework! Spectrum invites chaotic mystery worth cracking, with alt universe Radiohead (my cipher throughout this journey) leading a host of music history references in a world where music has the power to alter reality. And boy is this reality altered; over the course of six issues Quinn and Chisholm soar through sci-fi space butterflies and all manner of supernatural page-exploding possibility. It’s not just that I *want* to reread Spectrum, it’s that I’d *have to* to even begin to give you a coherent understanding of plot!
If you told me Rick Quinn was an alias used by a time-traveling Grant Morrison from 1993, I’d have no choice but to believe you. Morrison is the ultimate “Come with me if you want to live” and then sprinting ahead writer, and Quinn follows in those “I ain’t holdin’ no hands” footsteps. This means there are times when the frenzied pacing falls right off the tracks, but the energy and enthusiasm are so high that I’m kind of willing to pull my ripcord and enjoy the rush. Personally, I think Spectrum would benefit from a little more breath-catching, a little more central Melody Parker narrative grounding the fever dream. Then again, grounding is for cowards.
I was already in the bag for Chisholm, whose incredible graphic novels Chasin’ the Bird and Miles Davis and the Search for the Sound have frankly redefined the potential for post-Phonogram reflections of music in comics. It’s genuinely thrilling to see Chisholm working on this level, taking those biopic bonafides and merging them with big Doom Patrol energy. Chisholm is a STAR on this book, a story that if told plainly would instantly fall to the $1 bins of shops around the country. If nothing else, you have to read Spectrum to see if you catch the Kid A references, and to see what Chisholm can do with sci-fi. This guy should be on the same hype train as Daniel Warren Johnson; Robert Kirkman, pick up the phone.
I stop short of hailing Spectrum as a lock for one of 2025’s best comics because, well, I was confused as hell. But again, that’s what a second read and annotations are for.
Absolute Batman Vol. 1: The Zoo
I will admit to real trepidation with Absolute Batman, almost entirely centered around the fact that Scott Snyder already had his successful run on the character. The history of superhero comics is not exactly littered with examples of creators coming around for second and third at-bats after first-time-up home runs. The most notable exception is Frank Miller on Daredevil Born Again, but the most notable cautionary tale is Frank Miller on Batman. So it would seem the bar is one of the best Marvel Comics of all time, or “I’m the Goddamn Batman.” High risk, high reward!
The problem isn’t really that Snyder already had a five year run on the Bat with Greg Capullo, it’s that he so fully and thoroughly seemed to exhaust his DC Universe mastery through his run on Justice League, DC Metal, and Death Metal. This is a writer who spent the 2010’s going from Court of Owls to Jim Gordon in a BatBunny RoboCop Mech to The Batman Who Laughs. What more does he have to bring to Gotham?
The answer, somewhat surprisingly, is some really cool friends. It’s not like Snyder didn’t know how to collaborate with the likes of Capullo of Rafeal Albuquerque on American Vampire, but Absolute Batman is so decidedly committed to honing the artistic storytelling vision of Nick Dragotta, you’d be mistaken for tuning out and wondering if you’d accidentally slipped into East of West of Ghost Cage somewhere along the road to Gotham. As if that wasn’t thrilling enough, when Dragotta needs the kind of break the American Comics Industrial complex demands, Snyder is there alongside Gabriel Walta and Marcos Motherflippin’ Martin for three of the book’s first 8 issues. That’s like getting to sub in Luka Doncic when Lebron gets hurt (what’s up Nico!).
Having ceded control in all the right ways, Snyder’s “hook ’em horns” metal-dad moments, falling so aggressively short in the pages of Death Metal, all hits with exactly the desired impact. With the exception of one big TBD reveal (Absolute Joker is an absolute wild card!), when Snyder and Dragotta pace a “moment” it thumps into your chest like a teammate screaming “LET’S GOOOOOO!”. Dragotta’s Bat is CHONKY, the kind of gym-bro who can’t lift his arms above his head but hasn’t missed a day in 14 years. He’s less tactical brilliance and more brute force, less Midnighter and more Big Barda, less batarang and more a Bat-Axe that shoots MORE LIL BAT AXES. And Snyder’s absolute inversion of Bruce’s origin hits; he loses his father to gun violence at the zoo during a class field trip. The point here isn’t to be subtle; Absolute Batman is about as subtle as a hammer to the chest. The point is to resonate, and right now, here in this moment, this is the Batman Gotham needs.
Basket
One of my greatest cases of FOMO in comics came this year when my favorite indie comics reviewer, Arpad Okay, highly recommended the recently kickstarted Basket from Lucky Pocket Press. As this recommendation came after the Kickstarter had completed, and before I entered my “I’m going to spend all my discretionary income on Kickstarter Comics before I don’t have any” era, I saw no path to my own copy of Basket. This may sound dramatic, but we’re talking about a highly recommended indie comic about BASKETBALL. It’s a wonder I didn’t die right there on the spot.
Good things come to those who can’t wait, and I found a physical copy of Basket at Chicago’s CAKE. Marie Derambure and Paco Moccand’s ~200 page look into a plucky junior high girls basketball club is pure bliss. On a narrative level, Basket is tremendously simple, a classic scrappy underdog story not that far removed from the Matt Christopher novels that introduced me to reading, or even the classic sports movie template of The Mighty Ducks. The star player, Ines, only has eyes on advancing her hoops career and living up to the dream of her Short King idol Spud Webb (shouts to Mugsy Bogues for not getting enough love in this book, but then again I guess he got his turn in Space Jam and NBA Jam!). The team’s Coach betrays her own team in an effort to move up to the area’s wealthier competitive team. And yet the group of girls band together and baby they are born to run!
Much like Sloane Leong’s excellent A Map to the Sun, though, Basket is far more interested in atmosphere, environment, character, and using the medium of comics in exciting, unconventional ways. Derambure’s loose pencils are the revelation here, alternating masterfully between sketch, manga-esque emotive shorthand (for example, character’s faces growing to 10x their traditional proportion to show THEY ARE SHOUTING), and some truly stunning panel-less explosions of kinetic hoops action colliding on the page. I particularly appreciate the characterization of Ines’ pigtails, approximately 12 feet in length each, roping around the court like Omega Red’s tentacles. I talk a lot these days about my love of comics that inspire the urge to make comics, and Basket is one of the year’s leading examples of the kind of emotion and craft you can transport across space and time if you just take the time to put that pen to paper. The clarity, or linear progression of events doesn’t always make sense, but it’s always fueled by the energy of conveying a unique moment in these girls’ lives. Type that in a prompt and smoke it.
Catch up on all CBH’s favorite graphic novels of 2025 right here!