This list doesn’t necessarily mean these are all the Great Comics of 2022. Of the comics I read that came out in 2022, these are the ones I really want to rave about, and yes, I know it’s early March 2023. I had to cheat and catch up on a couple that I bought in 2022 but hadn’t finished reading when Old Man 2022 crumbled to dust. And… time keeps on slipping. It’s MARCH????
In a slight change from last year, I tried to avoid books that only got their first issue out before year end, because though I think they may turn out to be great or cool, it’s too soon to tell. So though I enjoyed those first issues, Dead Seas and Know Your Station will have to wait until January 2024 for official mention. Again, because this is not a ranking, I’m listing these recommendations in alphabetical order. Relax, comics, you’re all pretty.
Alice Ever After: Sometimes a creator has lurked around the industry for years before people stand up and take notice. With Alice Ever After, Dan Panosian confirms that we have to notice him. Collaborating with artists Giorgio Spalletta and Fabiana Mascolo, Panosian takes the Lewis Carroll classic mad tale and asks, “what if madness really were involved?” Some of the denizens of Wonderland pull double duty as residents of an asylum where the adult Alice has been sent. She still has dreams of the fantasy realm, drawn by Panosian. Spalletta tackles the “real” world. The difference between the two may be exactly what Grace Slick and the Dormouse said. Alice has to feed her head before someone does something to it.
Yes, the basic premise may seem familiar, but Panosian and Spalletta make it fresh. At the same time, the dueling artists (in the best way) give Alice a patina of classic horror comics. Some shots feel like Jack Davis or Frank Robbins came back from the dead to give us an extra chill, thrill, and for gosh sakes, don’t take that pill.
You might also want to go back and visit Panosian’s earlier horror book for the same pubisher, BOOM! Studios. I missed An Unkindness of Ravens in the shops, but it’s currently available in a trade paperback. Panosian’s writing on Alice Ever After is so nimble, amusing, and appropriately disturbing that I have to check out the Ravens.
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands: With the title and subtitle, you might consider this to be about cleaning ducks after an environmental disaster. After all, Dawn dishwashing liquid has tugged at heartstrings by running ads about how well the product cleans up waterfowl who have run afoul of oil. But in Kate Beaton’s graphic memoir, ducks make only a brief appearance, serving as a metaphor for herself and the other people who work in the oil sands of northwest Canada. They’re not chasing riches; they’re just trying to get by. In the process, they may be losing themselves.
Beaton hails from a tiny sea-side community called Mabou, one of those places people like to say they’re from but you notice they’re not actually there. Except those that remain are kind, hard-working families with a deep sense of tradition. There’s not much money in that. So Beaton herself went to work in Alberta to pay off her student loans. With simple honesty, she portrays people who betray their sense of self, toxic masculinity reinforced before such a concept was bandied about. It’s almost shocking to reflect on how quickly things have changed — at least, we can hope they have.
Though her brilliant “Hark! A Vagrant” webcomic starts during these years, Beaton herself keeps losing faith. Almost everything you might imagine would happen in this environment does — and did. Because while names might be changed, these really were the cartoonist’s experiences. Reading Ducks offers an opportunity for us all to reflect on the unthinking damage we do to the world in the name of keeping it running. We may not be smarter than the ducks.
Eight Billion Genies: If you had one wish, what would it be? What if someone else gets a wish, and it conflicts with yours? What if all eight billion humans on Earth get a wish? Being careful what you wish for isn’t the half of it.
Charles Soule and Ryan Browne reunite after their ridiculously fun series Curse Words. Almost immediately optioned by Amazon for series development, Eight Billion Genies gets its central question out of the way immediately. Genies appear — the reason will be revealed — and everyone above a certain age has one. At least some higher power has thought through enough to acknowledge that babies probably can’t make responsible wishes. Not that responsible people make wishes, either.
A canny bartender wishes that wishes would not work within the confines of the bar, even if the wisher is outside. Everyone stuck inside will be grateful for that, as they have to think through the consequences of what’s happening in the world outside. There’s the bar band that wants to be better so has to actually practice. A Japanese couple expecting a child wandered in to the wrong bar by mistake, but for now, it was the right one. A father and son mourn. And outside, the world goes mad fairly quickly.
Once the premise gets rolling, it’s both fun and terrifying. And though yes, it will make a great TV series, it’s too good a comic to pass up. The collected edition won’t be out for a while, but Image Comics has been good about reprinting individual issues, so you can still find it (or have it ordered) at your local comics shop.
The Human Target: If your life has been threatened, Christopher Chance will stand in for you and take the hit. At least, he’ll draw the killer out while disguised as his client. Usually a Human Target story ends with exposing the real villain, or the real reason why someone would be threatened. But when Tom King and Greg Smallwood began this series with Chance standing in for billionaire Lex Luthor, you’d think you’d know who the real villain is right from the beginning. Even Chance knows it, but just as in real life, it’s hard to prove that sort of thing when a billionaire is involved.
Except… someone does try to kill Luthor, via poison. Chance drinks it unwittingly, and now has 12 days to live. Holy Shades of D.O.A., Batman! As this series wraps up, one issue for each day, it looks like King and Smallwood will be sticking to that promise. In the meantime, they’ve given modern-day depth to an early 70s concept. While both writer and artist have reputations for bringing humanity to superhumans, The Human Target flips the script a bit. Christopher Chance has never had powers far beyond ordinary men, and rarely interacted with the superhuman community. But this series brings him face to face with the 1980s version of the Justice League, each issue shining light on a different member, one of whom may have been the one to kill him. Though definitely not Batman.
This series proves an unofficial theory that the best DC stories these days are the ones that don’t tie into continuity. Like King’s recent Adam Strange and Mister Miracle series, The Human Target teaches you everything you need to know to enjoy this story. And it’s doubtful that there will be repercussions in any other books. This stands alone, but gives you a taste of the DC Universe and two creators continuing to work at the top of their game.
Killadelphia: It’s the start of many detective stories. An estranged son comes home to bury his father who died under mysterious circumstances. Both are in law enforcement, with the son struggling to find his own identity apart from the shadow — and sins — of the father. The thing with Killadelphia is, it’s clear the murders are darker and stranger than James Sangster, Jr. can handle. And since (no spoiler) it’s a vampire coven, the only logical thing is to team up with his now undead father. It’s a race against time to keep vampire detective dad lucid and on the side of justice before they can break the coven.
Writer Rodney Barnes and artist Jason Shawn Alexander have created a gripping supernatural tale (and for 2023, have also added a great continuation of Blacula to their collaboration through Zombie Love Studios). Though Barnes doesn’t tease the identity of the vampire lord for too long, when it comes it’s a shock. Let it remind you that those dark stains of blood in this story aren’t fictional; they’re deeply ingrained in our nation’s history.
As the tale progresses the creators expand their universe, with Barnes making connections to one of his Substack creations, Elysium Gardens. At the moment I’m a little behind as I had to get this in its Deluxe Edition collecting the first 12 issues; the completist in me now only wants this work in that format. It’s worth the expense.
Of course with a concept this good, television had to come knocking. Alexander’s art begs for translation — and he clearly has a couple of actors in mind for major roles. That lends weight to Barnes’ dialogue, because I can hear those voices as I read and they’re perfect.
Rogues: You might have missed this one because it wasn’t overt from the cover that Joshua Williamson and Leomacs meant the Flash’s Rogues. And the Flash doesn’t really matter in this book. It’s some ten years in the future. Most of the Rogues have been in and out of prison, and those who are free spend their remaining days on probation, not able to use the skills that made them interesting, if not great, criminals.
But Len Snart, once known as Captain Cold, has a plan for one last job. It’s so big that if he pulls it off, he can go into hiding so perfect that his last days will be just fine. To do it, he needs to get the gang back together. That includes the usual suspects in a Flash story, though Len doesn’t want to involve his sister Lisa. Williamson throws in Bronze Tiger as well, perhaps connected through days on one iteration of the Suicide Squad or another. The heist? Take on the (literal) biggest Rogue of them all, and rob… Gorilla City.
Leomacs portrays these broken men (and one woman) with pathos and fragility, with some visibly regaining confidence and vigor as the pages turn. They don’t live in a terribly futuristic Central City, but the artist pulls out all the stops on Gorilla City. More impressively, the denizens there all have unique looks and emotional life. Plus Williamson adds in a character who simply doesn’t get enough love in current continuity. If you’ve never met Sam Simeon, the private detective who would rather be a comic book artist, the taste here will send you scouring back issues for Angel and the Ape.
Rogues was the biggest surprise for me in 2022. Bought on a whim, but instantly loved.
Secret Identity: It’s not cheating to include a novel here that’s both about comics and intersperses prose chapters with excerpts from a non-existent 1970s comic book. Mining comics history for his latest murder mystery, Anthony Award-winning writer Alex Segura put together an intriguing look at those rough days when men — mostly white men — dominated the comics industry, and the comics industry did not dominate the box office.
Carmen Valdez grew up loving comics, and sees her entry into Triumph Comics as a doorway to a dream. Of course it’s quickly stifled, but when she gets the opportunity to create The Lethal Lynx, it’s the dream come true. Except she’s uncredited. A male staffer at Triumph will get the credit, though the artist recognizes that the kid is a hack. Soon enough, the kid gets hacked — rather, shot — and Carmen has to unravel a murder mystery, attempt to evade her past, and build a career in comics.
Hopefully Marvel, DC, and upstart Atlas Comics weren’t as cutthroat as Triumph, but the sense of an industry teetering infuses Segura’s story. The Lynx might parallel Marvel’s The Cat, but Carmen (and Segura) created something original, and the occasional nods back to how groundbreaking it would have been as a comic add an extra layer of depth.
Segura is in the process of writing a full-blown comic of The Lynx, which will do the concept of it more justice. The comic book pages “excerpted” in Secret Identity seem more 21st Century in execution than 1970s, but that’s a minor quibble when the mystery moves along at such a great clip.
Starhenge: The past few years have been good for Liam Sharp. Perhaps ahead of his time when he broke onto the scene in the 90s with his work for Marvel UK and one truly trippy run on Man-Thing, Sharp has finally gotten the regard he always deserved. His storytelling skills as writer and artist push the edges of where comics should go, so Starhenge may be as good as it gets right now, but it won’t be as good as Sharp gets.
It’s a trippy voyage combining Arthurian legend with quantum physics, with a dash of influence from Sharp’s Green Lantern collaborator, Grant Morrison. That’s a compliment to its complexity, not a claim that Morrison touched this book. It’s all Liam. Starting in future — and nodding to T.H. White — the book posits Merlin as a time-traveler, sent back in time to prevent a galactic disaster. Many familiar figures from legend wear a few different faces, and Starhenge demands careful reading, one of those books I’m buying as an ongoing but know I have to get a collected volume so I can fully appreciate it in bigger doses of story.
Or you could just look at the art — gorgeously painted, varying in style with influences from Frank Frazetta, John Bolton, and Simon Bisley. Saying that is almost reductive, because Sharp’s renderings are still clearly his own vision. The first volume, The Dragon and the Boar, gets collected in April, and if you haven’t already, you’ll want to get in on this epic. It’s sure to stand as a classic in years to come.
Savage Avengers: It’s to be expected that a Marvel book would show up on this list, but choosing Savage Avengers might be a surprise. I know it sort of surprised me. While I’ve been a supporter and fan of writer David Pepose from his earliest days with Spencer & Locke, the concept of this book was going to be a hard sell to me. Somewhat of a fan service title, Savage Avengers initially started as a way for Marvel to capitalize on having Conan the Barbarian back in their stable. When they brought Pepose in to write the book, it had already been announced that the rights to Conan were headed elsewhere.
Giving this indie writer a book whose reason for existence was ending? It seemed a bit unfair. Instead, with artist Carlos Magno, Pepose did the one thing I should have anticipated: made it fun. The first run of this title featured a lot of popular characters started in the 1970s, to match Conan. This 10-issue run (just ended this week as I write this) moved the timeline forward. All the way to 2099 in fact.
So here’s where it gets tricky for me — the only character out of this line-up that I ever really liked before was Deathlok, and for the first arc, at least, he seems to be the villain. But it’s not the Deathlok I expected, either, teaming with Weapon H, Antivenom, Cloak and Dagger, the new Daredevil (who is Elektra), and… am I missing anyone? True to the title, they’re savage, but not necessarily my cup of tea. But Pepose and Magno made me enjoy them. Because every comic book is somebody’s first comic book, and it should be fun.
I’m still not rushing back to read any of the 2099 books, but Savage Avengers made me curious. It’s a romp. And sometimes it seems like Marvel forgets that. Pepose remembers that it’s okay to just have fun.
World’s Finest: …Which brings me to this book. Like with Savage Avengers, I picked this up for the creative team rather than any excitement for Superman and Batman. They’re characters I like, but sometimes I’m a grumpy old fanboy who likes the versions he grew up with.
That’s what Mark Waid and Dan Mora gave me. Mostly.
It’s obvious now that this book lightly launched the big Lazarus Planet event at DC, but don’t take that as a compulsion to wade through continuity and new character launches. Instead, focus on this book that remembers that the World’s Finest Super-team sprung from a simpler time, and they clearly actually like each other. Along the way, Waid and Mora bring in some guest stars they clearly have affection for. That includes the “strangest super-team of them all,” the Doom Patrol, but from an era when they didn’t know how strange it was going to get. There’s also a stealth connection to Chinese legend that gets a focus in Gene Luen Yang’s Monkey Prince, but again, you don’t need to read that book (though I recommend it, too).
Mostly self-contained, World’s Finest offers a case for why people care about Superman and Batman (and Robin). There’s a sampling of the bigger DC Universe, but everything used here is meant to make sense for this story and not as only a small sliver of a grander epic. That it does this and starts a grander epic without being obvious? That’s the kind of comics I want to read.
Special Mention: Gender Queer: A Memoir
This book didn’t come out in 2022, but a Deluxe Edition did. That’s not why you may have heard of it. Gender Queer has been in the news a lot in 2022 (and still in 2023), as a graphic novel that has shot to the top of the list of books being banned from school libraries.
In a strange way, I’m grateful for the controversy because otherwise I might never have encountered Maia Kobabe’s graphic memoir about growing up queer and finding the concepts to match the feelings. It clearly made an impact upon its initial release, and has clearly been willfully misinterpreted by people who have never read it. They just don’t like its subject matter.
But the honesty and humor with which Kobabe tells eir story (yes, I learned a pronoun I didn’t know before) won’t corrupt any children. It will offer to some hope that maybe the way they feel isn’t strange, and it will offer to others a way into empathy. (Though I’d guess that many would be empathetic anyway. Left to their own devices, children are pretty good like that.)
If you haven’t read Gender Queer, let me offer that of all these books, it’s the one I consider a must, if only to annoy certain conservative politicians. But really because it’s good. It’s sensitive. And I wish I’d read it when it first came out.
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