- January 6, 2024
Top Ten Comics of 2023
It’s that time of year again. Comic book movies are playing, TV shows are capping off their season finales, and video games are getting their award ceremonies, but do you know what never stops? Comic books. And we’ve read a lot of comic books, which means it’s time to talk about the best comics we’ve read in 2023.
From start to end, we get comic books all throughout the year, which makes getting a relevant video out on time while trying to account for comics I may still read a pain in the butt. But guess what? We did, we’re here, and rating the top ten comics I read this year.
Though I will admit, it has become more of a yearly blog where I talk about how much more I can branch out of my comfort zone. It also lets me talk about comic books I have enjoyed that may not have done well if I talked about them in a video. Here are series that may not have started this year, or even ended this year, but during 2023, they really gave me something to enjoy.
#10. Queen of Swords
Alright, you may notice very quickly with this list that I love stories about violent women with swords. Here’s a short, funny, to-the-point fantasy adventure about three women killing orcs, hunting down wizards, and slaying all manner of monsters.
It’s classic swords and sorcery that knows how to juggle the kind of swashbuckling adventure we don’t get in many fantasy epics, with some darker themes. The biggest weakness is that it’s so short and ends just as we really get to know the characters, but that was the point since that’s all I wanted to do.
The art in this series is amazing as well. Artist, Corin Howell makes even the simplest of swordfights leap off the page with every swing. The characters are expressive, their personality is seen in the way they move and carry themselves. While the book doesn’t lack dialogue, the characters don’t become machines once the fighting starts. Who they are is built into their very core, and each hero has something to like and enjoy about them.
#9. Red Sonja
Hey… hey… remember what I said about women with swords?
This new Red Sonja series by Torunn Grønbekk brings back my favorite artist for the character, Walter Geovani, in a series that really harkens back to my favorite era of the character. She’s a ferocious warrior with a dark sense of humor, but you never have to question that she’s a hero.
She doesn’t expect everyone to be good, being imperfect and even a little corrupt seems fun in a way that other fantasy heroes wouldn’t associate with. At the same time, there’s something gripping about a warrior who is cold, conniving, and vicious one moment, taking the time to tell two boys that they are not men, that they are not warriors, and it’s better that way, without sounding anything less than caring.
This new creative team truly gets that Sonja never wants to condescend to people who are innocent simply because they are foolish. It’s almost as if there’s this sense beneath her enjoyment of violence, that she knows that the world is far from what it should be, and she wants it to be different even though it’s where she belongs.
Also, her expressions when people annoy her are really funny and worth the price of admission alone.
#8. Action Comics
2023 has been very kind to Superman. He finally has a new cartoon, he’s getting a new movie, and- oh yeah, his comics are great!
After last year’s Warworld Saga which was multiple volumes of Action Comics, we finally get Superman back home with a storyline about revitalizing the Super-Family. They have a lot of members, including two new children Superman has adopted. They should work as a team as well as the Bat Family, you know when DC feels like making Batman a good dad.
Turns out though, the Super-Family is just as interesting as the Bat-Family, they have their own interesting dynamics and issues. Superman hasn’t always been the best allegory for immigrants and their struggles, but with the rising tensions between humans and alien refugees, the story feels timely and well thought out. It harkens back to Superman’s roots in a way that keeps the character grounded after the epic fantasy of the Warworld Saga.
This is the most comfort food of comfort comics, and it makes me sad to know that its writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson, will soon be ending his time with the series next year. It’s been an awesome run that captures the best of Superman.
#7. Superman
Oh, we’re still talking about Superman? Why not talk about the best there is for two entries in a row? You might wonder, why not group them into one entry? Well, Superman and Action Comics do different things. Action Comics focuses on the Super-Family and the immigrant allegory. Superman is still the main character, but it doesn’t always focus on him.
Superman by Joshua Williamson and an assortment of artists, is a story that focuses on the Man of Steel being forced out of his comfort zone. Sure, his comfort zone is always being pushed, but now he has to work with Lex Luthor and utilize all the resources the billionaire has to… entertaining effect. While Batman has lost all of his money, Superman has it, and it makes him feel uncomfortable. Lex Luthor is trying to say he understands Superman better, but at the same time tries to remove the Clark Kent from him.
At the same time, this book isn’t afraid to just be straight fun, with character drama and low stakes that feel more important than saving the world. You know what’s fun? Superman trying to fight Silver Banshee, only for best friend Jimmy Olsen to jump in the middle and claim that she’s his girlfriend? Can Superman give his long-time villain another chance?
It’s the stuff of soap operas, but it’s done so well with art from Jamal Campbell that it’s fun in a way comics aren’t as much anymore. When everything else is more serious, Superman can just be fun… and then serious later.
#6. Batman
Yeah, no I’m sorry, but one alright crossover event doesn’t suddenly mean that this comic isn’t still a great Batman run that’s diving into Batman’s psyche in a new way that feels fresh.
In the story before the Gotham War crossover, the Bat-Man of Gotham, Batman was sent to an alternate universe. Most trips to alternate dimensions feel like they don’t have real consequences. Since nothing is happening in our main world, anything that happens in the other world doesn’t matter. And it’s not a new trope for the main character to go to one where they don’t exist or didn’t grow up or something.
Despite being an old trope, Chip Zdarsky truly makes the most of it. Batman learns and proves to be capable without his money or gadgets; his villains — while not the same as they were in his world — are just as evil without him in it; and the people who are more or less the same as they were in his world, tell him things he needed to hear, that he would never learn. It’s far more emotionally cathartic than you would expect, and Batman always seems on the edge of an emotional break as he learns things he wished he knew so long ago.
Then, to cap off his adventure with a montage trip through the multiverse, meeting alternate universes we care about is more than fan service. Most of them have something to say that furthers their own stories but foreshadows the future of this series. It’s the best example of an alternate universe story that you shouldn’t skip and is one of the best Batman story arcs you can read. Though I will admit, Batman is not lacking in new great stories.
#5. The Sins of Sinister
You might be wondering, where are the X-Men? There are actually fewer than usual this year, mostly because it’s the end of the Krakoa era, and I am a big fan of Krakoa. The stories aren’t bad, but I’m not going to vibe with tales about minorities being genocided and persecuted and to be honest, I’ll never understand the people who do.
That being said, the Sins of Sinister feels like an incredible consequence of Krakoa without burning Krakoa to the ground. This alternate future is horrifying in a way that’s very different from alternate futures like Days of Future’s Past or the Age of Apocalypse. In this one, the mutants are on top but have become their worst selves. With our heroes still around we get to be entertained by these delectably evil alternate egos, while also seeing just how important it is that mutants do not become like humans. No one is inherently good, and compromising with evil like humans do, will lead to mutants developing into the same horror show as humans have.
The Sins of Sinster shows this off incredibly well through several event books, many different characters, and a fun adventure against evil that caps off with twists that only leave room for more interesting things. The worst thing about the Sins of Sinister is what follows isn’t utilized more.
X-Men events have been hit after hit for the past few years, and this one is no exception.
#4. The Hellfire Gala
The Hellfire Gala and the Sins of Sinister are kind of funny. They’re both two awesome X-Men events whose biggest weakness is that they’re so close together. We don’t get to see the consequences of the Sins of Sinister for very long before the Hellfire Gala explodes everything. That being said, both are incredibly entertaining and kept my eyes glued to the page.
But the Hellfire Gala isn’t great simply because people died, and things will never be the same. It’s amazing because it’s the ultimate consequence of Professor Xavier’s dream. Xavier wanted so badly to be loved by humans, to serve humans, and for mutants to assimilate into human culture… that to protect humans he had to sacrifice mutants.
With Krakoa, we thought that this was over, that he was not going to protect humans at the cost of mutant peace. We thought he knew that you never negotiate with the terrorists trying to threaten mutantdom.
But we were wrong. Xavier would sacrifice mutants for the sake of humans, and now the mutant race has lost everything because of it. When Xavier looks out over his fallen kingdom and sees how everything he has built was destroyed by his own hands, he knows now and forever… no more.
Humans are not worth protecting anymore.
#3. Nights
I love problematic faves. This isn’t to say that the book is problematic, so much so that it touches on problematic subject matter, and so far, is doing a mature job of it. Vampires have been staples of fantasy fiction for a long time. They are my favorite monsters in fiction, something I’ve talked about before at length.
There aren’t as many comic book stories that I know of that treat them as something more than action fodder. It’s always nice to find one that tackles the different aspects of vampires that make them complex creatures. Nights so far, seems to be doing that, while also establishing a bunch of other monster creatures in an urban fantasy world that’s just different enough from our world to seem utterly fascinating.
Even beyond the monsters, Nights is playing with some spicy and problematic character drama that’s hard to look away from.
The part that always seems problematic about vampires is how it’s always a vampire who looks like a teenage boy with a high school girl, and it makes the monster seem scary in a way that’s less horrific and more gross. Nights reverses this trope, and so far paints it as a relationship full of danger, even as they’re just friends. It’s using the monster to serve as a metaphor for situations people will actually find themselves in and is doing it well in its first few issues, enough so that I’m completely enthralled and eagerly waiting for the next issue.
#2. Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman: Historia was a landmark comic series last year, but it’s about time for the main Wonder Woman series to get as much love and respect. One of my favorite writers, Tom King, is at the helm of this new ongoing that feels like it’s pushing the envelope in a way Wonder Woman should be. She’s not like other heroes in the DC Universe.
Other heroes operate – and sometimes even thrive – within the confines of the patriarchy that oversees our society. Wonder Woman was created to actively challenge and threaten it. That is what she and her story is all about. This run’s Wonder Woman doesn’t use a sword and shield, and she isn’t afraid to call little men out on their bullshit.
While this first arc spends a lot of time establishing the new status quo for Wonder Woman and the Amazons, it does the important thing of reestablishing what kind of character Wonder Woman is supposed to be, and this series does this well.
It captures Wonder Woman’s character and paints a clear picture of just how massive an uphill battle she has. It’s not simply Wonder Woman versus some new villain, but Wonder Woman versus the world. Through the jaw-dropping art that can swing between subdued and visceral at a moment to the sharp narration and dialogue, Wonder Woman is getting the series she deserves.
She’s not just a superhero for the status quo, she tells the status quo to go to hell.
Of course, since the first few issues have been set up for how and why Wonder Woman is going to take on the world, I can only be excited about how she’s going to do it. But when the why and who are written and planned as well as this, I can’t imagine the how being any less stellar.
#1. Saga
Last year’s champ returns in the same spot. Many things that I like about series such as Wonder Woman and Red Sonja, are already being done here, in a story that’s knee-deep into breaking my heart again and again. The themes of growth and forgiveness for characters feel ripped from the ideology of Wonder Woman. The fantasy action and originality that fuels Red Sonja and Queen of Swords can be found on every page. A lived-in, breathing fantasy world with tropes and monsters like in Nights, continues to be on display in Saga.
Saga continues to be a piece of art that could truly only work as a comic as it takes advantage of the medium’s best features and strengths. The artist — Fiona Staples — captures expression and emotion in a way that a photo couldn’t. Emotions like hate and love are illustrated in people who aren’t human but feel more human than people you know. At the same time, space battles, magic spells, and spaceships feel more magical than anything you’ve seen on the big screen.
And it’s all wrapped around a story about a newly single mom struggling to raise her two kids. Saga does what no other comic book series comes close to doing, and it meshes humanity and the terribly mundane with a world that never feels less than downright magical. Now, if only it would stop making me cry every other issue.
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