The 10 Best Comics of 2025*

Listen up, Comics People. Here’s a fact:

*Awards shows are nonsense. There is no such thing as a ‘Best Picture’ and there is no such thing as ‘the 10 best comics of 2025’. Moods and sensibilities change. Recency bias is unavoidable. Pitting a tale that made you laugh against a tale that made you cry is a silly game. Different strokes. ‘One guy’s opinion’ and all that…

And yet…

We love lists and winners. Don’t we? December rolls around every year, and every year I scroll through these ‘best of’ lists, even if just to vehemently disagree with whoever wrote ‘em.

I don’t think I’m alone in this habit. So, just for the fun of it, I’ve compiled some of my personal favorite comics from 2025 so that each and every one of ya can vehemently disagree with me!

But I’ve stopped short of ranking them. Instead, I’ve given each of these 10 books their respective flowers by way of categories. Because they’re all fantastic, each deserving of their flowers for their own merits. And in this Comics Person’s opinion, you’ll snag a W too by giving any one of them a read.

Let’s roll…

The Best Superhero book award goes to…

Absolute Wonder Woman

It’s often been said that American superhero comics have produced our culture’s pantheons. These supes serve not as literally worshiped gods, but as godlike storytelling vehicles, vehicles for enduring mythologies that have, in less than a century’s time, already been told (and retold, and retold…) by countless storytellers. They’ve been explored from just about every angle.

There’s also the creepy and otherwise odd fact that, in our culture’s case, these pantheons are owned and exploited by mega corporations… But this post is gonna be free from cynicism from here on out. Go read or watch ‘The Boys’ if you want to feel gross about that angle (and support the mega corporation that produces that show while watching. It’s an odd circle, ain’t it?). Anyways, the great news is that Absolute Wonder Woman is pure super heroic whimsy worthy of the gods (and demi-gods!).

Our most well known superheroes are heightened-in-scale fables about quests and the nature of heroism, just as were the tales of Hercules or Gilgamesh. But one upping the game is the fact that our culture’s pantheon have been communicated visually, the incography of these superheroes has been communicated via the expressive, near-elastic visuals afforded by the comic book page, which helped this iconography spread the world over (even well before the filmed adaptations provided that much more of a signal boost), greatly reinforcing the staying power of these modern legends.

Indeed, the world knows the broad strokes of Superman, Batman and such on a much more pervasive scale than the wide world ever knew of the polytheistic pantheons of antiquity. In part because one simple image (like Superman’s crest or the Bat Symbol) can conjure such associations instantly. It’s a hell of a trick.

Of the most famous superheroes from American comics, Wonder Woman has always played with these comparisons to ancient demi-gods and pantheons. Because she’s always existed somewhere in the middle of Greek Mythology and American superhero fables. Existing as this bridge is baked into her origins. But speaking personally, I gotta admit that I hadn’t read many Wonder Woman comics as I was coming up. Likewise with Thor on the Marvel side, the lack of a firm origin centered around the modern ‘real’ world dissuaded my attention. But a dude can grow. Case in point, I picked up Absolute Wonder Woman by writer Kelly Thompson and artist Hayden Sherman, and by golly, you should too.

The character may never have been more vividly realized than as experienced in this book. Kelly Thompson has pulled off a reinvention, really. But this reimagining only serves to strengthen all that is classic about the character at the same time… but I’ll get to that later. What catches attention first is the iconic, itched-in-stone worthy visuals from the pen of main series artist Hayden Sherman, who has imbued this warrior princess with a properly ethereal and godlike visage.

Sherman’s consistency and cumulative characterization has helped ensure that this run has already cemented its status as a new ‘go to’ volume to hand those interested in the character. Sherman’s realization of Wonder Woman is going to be burned into many memories, and aped and homaged by series artists for decades to come. But, at the end of the day, it’s the storytelling of Kelly Thompson that hammers this one home. Her tale is the perfect mix of modern, worldly superhero fare spliced into any number of tales pulled directly from greek mythology, with clever spins atop clever spins. Oh, and it’s epic fist-pumping stuff all the while.

The premise: Absolute Wonder Woman meets us in in a alternate DC comics universe, an entire universe that has been designed via villainous energy from stem to stern. Yeah, this entire ‘Absolute’ universe is a place in which evil is meant to reign supreme. So in this rotten universe, Wonder Woman was not raised on the hidden island of Themyscira by the Amazons (as she was in the ‘standard’ DC lore). Nope. This evil universe has designs to ensure that this version of Wonder Woman would never rise to super heroine status. How so? In this universe, she was confined from birth to the island of Hel.

But did even all that stifle out the flame that makes Wonder Woman Wonder Woman?

I mean, I told you this was fist pumping stuff, right? Unsurmountable odds? Shoooooot…

The conceit of this series touches a bit on the nature vs. nurture debate. But more than anything else it’s simply the topmost shelf of superhero storytelling, with more than a touch of ancient mythos burning bright at its center.

Runner Up capes book:

The Ultimates

A lesser writer of a Marvel or DC comic lends one interesting idea to a storyline and lets the standard character and plot beats expected from the established character (or team) to carry things through. But then there’s Deniz Camp, who throws a thousand sci-fi concepts at the wall and doesn’t circle around any one of them for a panel longer than necessary. More on his work later in this list…

The Chris Samnee Award goes to…

Chris Samnee!

This one was a nail biter, but Samnee squeaked by on the shoulders of his exceptional work on Batman & Robin: Year One.

The original Robin (Dick Grayson) was a circus performer. Keep that in mind, and note how well Samnee captured that fact with that performer’s every showboating’ acrobatic movement. Meanwhile, Batman’s eyes-forward and locked in on his mission. It’s all communicated in Samnee’s body language, through which Robin is moving to be seen, and Batman (in his ‘dark’ knight duds) hunts through the shadows… One of a million small details that could carry your interest through the entire book. You’ll catch more on your own, and boy do they all add up.

I could talk about this book a lot… and I did, right here!

Samnee’s coattail Riding Runner Up:

Mark Waid snagged this one, for being a very wise writer and choosing to work with artist Chris Samnee (and hopefully feeding Mr. Samnee grapes while he works!). But credit where credit is due. Mr. Waid scripted dozens of excellent comics in 2025, and has scripted thousands of good to great comics over five decades now. There’s no writer who was active in the 80s who is still producing such quantity and quality. I’ve said it before, and I’ve yet to hear a compelling argument: Mark Waid has written more good comic books than any other comics writer. Hats off, folks.

And how ironic that Mr. Waid said the following about Batman books back in 2023…

I call the statement above ‘ironic’ because I believe that he proved himself wrong by way of Batman & Robin: Year One this year. Because the book proves that most great Batman stories are ‘team books’. Stories like this can be groundbreaking in their own right if a character from Batman’s immediate orbit gets explored and highlighted to become more intriguing than ever, as is the case with the original Robin, Dick Grayson, in this origin retelling. It’s a self contained volume, and it has already cemented itself as an evergreen Batman story, a tale that brightens Batman’s world by showing us how a young circus performer adds a specific element of color TO IT.

The collected edition / hardcover just dropped…

The Sword and Sorcery award goes to…

Helen of Wyndhorn!

Bilquis Lively might be my new favorite artist. She’s unreal…

Her OTHER work with writer Tom King (Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow) is getting major flowers this year, as its the basis for the new Supergirl movie, and the book is even featured at the end of the trailer (an ACTUAL COMIC being shown in a trailer for one of these film adaptations? A shockingly rare and endearing sight). In any event, as good as that Supergirl story was, and it IS a great sci-fi fantasy adventure… Helen of Wyndhorn was their follow-up effort and it’s even better.

I talked about it at length here, if you want to know what’s up and see more examples from the book!

Return of the genre’s King & Runner up:

The king of the genre is back in a big way these days, the Conan line of comics Titan has been releasing are all great (more on the rest directly below), but the peak was in Liam Sharp’s short story, Tattered Wings, in Savage Sword of Conan #11.

I was reading a lot of Conan this year and calling it ‘research’ for a comics project I’ve been working on, and it’s all been enjoyable, but outside of the original Robert E. Howard short stories, this 48 page self-contained story written and illustrated by Liam Sharp was the best of the best.

First of all, LOOK at Sharp’s linework:

And the story told here?

Trippy. Epic. Conan.

2nd Runner up:

Conan the Barbarian, the ongoing series by Jim Zub and co… This ongoing series has been a great read. It’s structured so that new readers could jump in at just about any issue, many of them are self-contained one-offs and a few are directly based off of Robert E. Howard’s original short stories, making for great adaptations.

But the most interesting of these stories are Battle of The Black Stone and Scourge of The Serpent, in which timelines weave together and paranormal investigators from 1920s Chicago interact with Conan, Kull, Dark Agnes de Chastillon, Kull from Atlantis, Solomon Kain and various characters from Howard short stories, thus creating an interconnected ‘Howardverse’ timeline. And you know what? It works far better than I would have thought if pitched the concept… probably because, in practice, it’s easy to buy that these masculine archetypes share a timeline. Yep. The machismo travels time and space in these tales, and it’s damn fun.

Best of Ghost Machine goes to…

Redcoat!!

Enjoyable from jump. But the adventures of Simon Pure (who is anything but) compound, getting better and better as it goes. Writer Geoff Johns is clearly having a ball paying with American history and American folk lore. From Benedict Arnold to Johnny Appleseed, there’s a lot of American mythos for a Redcoat to stomp through.

I wrote about the Ghost Machine (line of) books here, find my flowers for ‘em within.

Ghost Machine Runner Up:

Hyde Street.

But I gotta say… Geiger is also a fantastic page turner.

And Fabok’s work on Rook Exodus is top shelf rad comics…

Best OGN…

Drome. It’s Drome. It could only be Drome.

Detail here.

Runner Up:

The Knives (A Criminal Book). Director Shane Black said it best on his pull quote (image below). You should read every volume of Criminal. But you can’t start with any volume that catches your fancy, just make sure you DO start.

I spoke about this book in this 5 minute review.

I wrote a whole lot more about this creative duo here.

The book that is too good…

Assorted Crisis Events.

Discussed this book lot more here.

And here.

I really dig this book.

Runner Up:

Absolute Martian Manhunter. Another book written by Deniz Camp… With art by Javier Rodríguez, who also colors his work on this book. I began this list by stating that I wouldn’t be calling anything the ‘best’, but as with Mark Waid’s Batman proclamation, I’m proving myself wrong just this once… Because Mr. Rodríguez’s coloring work on this book was the year’s finest. Full stop. The colors here are more than an orchestral layer, it’s a main feature of this tale’s storytelling.

I wish I could just list all the great comics. I wish I had read more comics in 2025. But that’s what 2026 is for!

For right now though, let me know, what were YOUR favorite comics in 2025? What did I miss???

In any event, I expect each and every one of ya to have a holly jolly time till we meet back on the other side in 2026. ‘Till then, keep on reading ‘em, and if getting more hands-on with the the funny books enriches your soul, then I hope to see ya out there…