My favorite comics of 2016
Reading is great. But reading things that also have pictures? That’s divine. I read a lot of comics this year -- as I tend to do every year -- but this one feels particularly special. Maybe that’s how it feels every year you write a best of list. The human mind is a weird thing.
Notable mentions: Southern Bastards, The Fix, Rick and Morty, All-Star Batman, Hellboy in Hell, B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth, The Mighty Thor.
Now the actual meat and potatoes.
10. Power-Man and Iron Fist - David F. Walker and Sanford Greene
This was a great year for funny comics. Kyle Starks’ run on Rick and Morty has captured the bleak hilarity of the show and the Fix is Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber’s extended, more adult take on Superior Foes of Spider-Man, but it is the hilarious buddy cop comedy of Power-Man and Iron Fist that most stood out.
Take the most recent Christmas special: It featured Christmas, friendship, evil Pokemon Go avatars, the Son of Satan, Krampus and, yes, Santa Claus. It’s ground-level action sitcom that is, strangely enough, actually funny.
9. Harrow County - Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook
While it’s dropped a few places on this list over the last few months as this Southern small town tale of ghosts, witches and “haints” has pulled back the veil on (and, in my opinion, over explain) a number of mysteries, this is still a deliciously creepy comic month after month. Really, Tyler Crook could draw anything and it would look creepy.
8. Lazarus - Greg Rucka and Michael Lark
Post-apocalyptic world? Check.
The country is divided up and owned by the wealthy elite? Check.
These ‘countries’ are now in a war with each other? Check.
So, political intrigue, dark future, conspiracies on conspiracies and, oh yeah, a nearly unkillable hitman at the center of it? God willing, this is not not actually humanity’s future.
7. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Robert Hack
After taking Archie and incorporating zombies, the Archie team has somehow topped that by creating a truly disturbing and creepy book with that TGIF lineup mainstay Sabrina.
You still get the sense of what it’s like for a witch to be in high school (and in love), but you get the added benefit of Satan, old crones who eat human flesh and, yes, plenty of blood. Rather than the grindhouse-like terror of most horror books, this is the Rosemary’s Baby of comics.
6. Dark and Bloody - Shawn Aldridge and Scott Godlewski
It’s not easy to make a unique twist on the shapeshifting monster story, but this one pulled it off. Rather than a mere werewolf, Dark and Bloody uses a different monster to tell the tale of a former soldier’s grief from the atrocities he committed in uniform and the generations-spanning sorrow and horror that comes from cultures that our military is supposedly “helping.”
5. American Alien - Max Landis and a whole host of artists
I admit it: I often don’t read Superman. While I like the idea of an overpowered alien whose love for Midwestern values and humanity is so strong that he becomes are chief protector, his stories are often either preachy or simply boring and punchy. I also reacted with skepticism when Landis’ project was announced -- expecting it to be another cynical take on the character that owed far too much to the Batman V Superman-type movies.
Instead, this was an intriguing look at Superman’s growth from out-of-control child, idealistic (but still out of control) teenager, all the way until he became mankind’s greatest hope in his adult years. The art, from a rotating cast of superstars, was pretty nice, too.
4. Ghosts - Raina Telgemeier
Yes, spooky-yet-cute ghosts are directly in my wheelhouse, but this is one of those all-ages comics that are enjoyable by adults, but also have important themes for young readers: Namely, death comes for us all. Following two sisters, one who is stricken with an incurable, debilitating disease that will soon rob her of life, this is an amazing story that deserves to be read by far more people than just those at Scholastic Book Fairs.
3. Paper Girls - Brian K Vaughn and Cliff Chiang
It’s a good year for throwback 1980sstories. While Stranger Things dipped into horror, this story features bizarre futuristic Apple products, time travel and, yes, a band of badass girls delivering newspapers. Cliff Chiang’s character work is superb and no one knows how to finish an issue on a cliffhanger better than Vaughn. This may not have the kind of epic scope of Saga (which still deserves a place on this list), but it’s another massive hit from a comic book legend.
2. The Flintstones - Mark Russell and Steve Pugh
Yes, the smartest, funniest and most biting satire of all media in 2016 is... a licensed comic based on a television cartoon property from a generation before. I don’t know what to tell you, but this is a masterwork and we should praise the editorial gods that keep allowing this comic to come out. I assume Hanna Barbera has no idea.
1. The Vision - by Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta
How better to look at the meaninglessness of human life, dreams and anxieties than through the eyes of a robot that so badly wishes to be like the meat sacks around him that he creates his own family?
That this strange, sad and darkly comic tale is a Marvel comic starring an honest-to-god Avenger -- well, how is that not the best comic of the year?
While Tom King has received plenty of accolades for his writing, this is a perfect example of a writer and artist in perfect lockstep.
GO READ ALL OF THESE NOW.
