NOTE: Today I am re-posting “best of 2015” posts from my old site, without revision. Posted for posterity.
Continuing our look at the best of the year….
40. X-MEN #23-26 by G. Willow Wilson, Roland Boschi, and Javi Fernandez (Marvel)
The author of Ms. Marvel wrote a nearly all-female story arc for X-Men that concluded in 2015 and it was masterful. I found her run to be one of the most “human” runs on X-Men I’ve read in a very long time. Just check out the closing sequence, above, which both reminisces about Wolverine and creates a truly emotional moment between a person and a living piece of Earth. Wilson is clearly one of the best writers working today.
39. THORS by Jason Aaron and Chris Sprouse (Marvel)
What if Thor was Detective Munch? A murder mystery, with Thors as the homicide squad! Aaron tried this last year when he killed Uatu the Watcher, which was just kinda meh—but he’s perfected his idea here. This series couldn’t have happened without Secret Wars, but it’s one of the few tie-ins that could have been a stand-alone book—like an ongoing series.
38. STARVE by Brian Wood and Danijel Zezelj (Image)
Starve is two things: It’s a cooking comic with combat. That’s the “comic book” line, the action story, the hook, the thing that separates it from other media.
But it’s also, and mainly at its core, a story about a father and a daughter and the damage divorce and alcoholism can do to families. This is not your typical comic—it’s very different from what we’ve seen from Wood in the past, and even more different from anything else on the market. Which is part of what makes it so great to read.
37. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN by Dan Slott and Guiseppe Camuncoli (Marvel)
Peter Parker becomes a nice Tony Stark. It’s a high concept, but Dan Slott gets this character all the way to the marrow. He switched bodies with Otto Octavius and made it work. So while I am very skeptical of a SpIder-Man who has tons of tech, I trust Dan enough to stay with it. And Camuncoli’s art? Extraordinary.
36. DARK CORRIDOR by Rich Tomasso (Image)
A bunch of gritty crime stories that take place in a fictional town called “Red Circle,” the tales feel separate enough that I thought at first this was a single-creator anthology of short stories. But they all weave together in a vision of a new world. Not since Astro City have I seen a new universe materialize so completely from panel one. Such a great book!
Hit next for more great comics!