Top Comics of August 2018

By Zack Quaintance — August 2018 was the month of Jeff Lemire, who wrapped up the 14th and final issue of Royal City, the first arc of creator-owned hit Gideon Falls, a multi-year run on Valiant’s Bloodshot, and a big reveal in mysterious superhero nostalgia trip Black Hammer (which, by the way, he’s using to build a generational superhero universe from scratch). Oh, and Lemire did all this while also writing Sentry, The Terrifics, and probably more books I’m forgetting.

That’s not all. Just when Lemire was cresting on the strength multiple impressive and prolific comics runs, he used the platform his profile affords him to castigate a rage movement that bullies and harrasses creators from marginalized groups, an action for which he’s surely gotten blowback. Still, that kind of speaking out sparked the most wide-spanning conversation yet about why it’s important to denounce such tactics and such groups.

So yeah, item of business no. 1: hats off to Lemire. Item no. 2? A look at this month’s top comics, which, unsurprisingly, will also merit further discussion of Lemire. Now that I’ve set a new record for mentions of one creator during my intro...let’s do this!

Shout Outs

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Shanghai Red #3 continues Christopher Sebela and Josh Hixson’s searing pioneer revenge epic. The colors in Hixson’s artwork are especially revelatory.

The penultimate issue of Steve Orlando and Garry Brown’s six-part father-son Russian revenge epic Crude took the book to new heights in both physical and emotional stakes.

Michael Moreci and Hayden Sherman’s Wasted Space is now ongoing, which is very cool because every issue has been stellar, including this month’s Wasted Space #4.

Action Comics #1002 was the most complete Bendis Superman issue since Man of Steel #1. Bendis is slowly building his Superman status quo, pulling in vital elements and reconstructing Clark’s life with updates for 2018. Plus, art by Pat Gleason!

Meanwhile in Supergirl #21, Bendis passes a cosmic story thread left dangling in Man of Steel to the creative team of Marc Andreyko and Kevin Maguire. Excited to see where in the galaxy it goes.

I liked The Euthanuats #1, with its poeticism and blurry line between life and death, but I loved The Euthanauts #2, which declared that this comic is primed and ready for a lengthy run.

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Batgirl has a new creative team: writer Mairghread Scott and artists Elena Casagrande and Paul Pelletier. So far I’ve liked all of their work, which this month alone included half of Batgirl #25, all of Batgirl #26, and Batgirl Annual #2.

Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman are doing fantastic things in Venom, expanding their vision for a character that previously seemed outdated. Hell of a run taking shape here.

Another issue of Mister Miracle by Tom King and Mitch Gerads, another spot on our monthly best of list. This book is just so good.

Finally, we got a two-issue Wonder Woman arc from Steve Orlando and Aco, high adventure that teamed Diana with Artemis and the new Aztek for mythology-meets-multiverse fun.

Top 5 Comics of August 2018

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5. The Wild Storm #16 by Warren Ellis, Jon Davis-Hunt, & Brian Buccellato

The Wild Storm continues to be a wonderfully-complex slow burn of a comic, one with much to say about power structures, corporations, government, and the role of individuals within it all. Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt (with excellent Brian Buccellato colors) are really taking their time here, giving this comic a more weighty and realistic feel than past iterations of this universe.

It won’t be entirely clear until we get the final eight issues of this story, but I’m starting to suspect this book will land among Warren Ellis’ best work. In many ways, it’s the final form of so many ideas that he’s played with throughout his career, ideas that he’s able to explain through familiar character in a totally new universe that’s unburdened by past or present continuity. DC essentially told Ellis, You know those characters you’ve written on and off throughout your career...would you like to start from scratch and do whatever you want with them? He (obviously) said yes, and the end result is awesome comics.

4. Amazing Spider-Man #4 by Nick Spencer, Ryan Ottley, Cliff Rathburn, Laura Martin & Joe Caramagna

Cards on the table: Along with Uncanny X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man is the first comic I subscribed to as a kid. I’ll always and forever have it on a pull list. That is to say, I was always giving Nick Spencer and Ryan Ottley’s run on this book a shot, and, through the first three issues, I thought it was amusing, a light romp through all the qualities that make Spider-Man a beloved character, albeit a bit light on his central conflict: his guilt over passively enabling the death of his uncle.

Amazing Spider-Man #4, however, was the first issue to break through the shiny veneer of Ottley art and Spencer quips, showing that this creative team is interested in the core of the character and determined to get it right. This book broached Peter Parker’s central conflict and guiding philosophy in intriguing ways, while also continuing to double down on the strengths of earlier issues. As a result, I am one supremely satisfied long-time reader.

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3. Batman #52 and #53 by Tom King, Lee Weeks, & Elizabeth Breitwesier

Batman #52 and #53 were part of the recently-concluded Cold Days arc, which is my favorite multi-part story that Tom King has told with Batman (I still like Batman Annual #2, Batman/Elmer Fudd, and Batman #37’s double date better as single issues, but I digress). The arc was drawn by Lee Weeks, who has emerged as maybe Tom King’s best collaborator on this run as well.

What makes the story work so well is how it speaks to comics collective obsession with Batman. In Cold Days, Bruce Wayne manipulates his way onto a jury of a Mr. Freeze murder trial because he worries he made a mistake as Batman, so shook was he after being left at the altar by Catwoman. He gives a 12 Angry Bat-Men kind of speech, wherein he questions the fallibility of his alter ego. Intentional or not, that speech had a meta context, raising questions about the way fandom venerates the character. Fantastic stuff.

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2. Ice Cream Man #6 by W. Maxwell Prince, Martin Morazzo, Chris O’Halloran, & Good Old Neon

This comic somehow tells three self-contained stories in a single issue, doing so with little to no dialogue in a way that not only makes sense but will almost certainly haunt the vast majority of readers for weeks (at least, that’s been my experience). Really, if it wasn’t for the monster month of the creator who took the no. 1 spot, Ice Cream Man #6 would have been an easy choice for August’s best.

This comic is one of my favorite single issues of 2018 so far. The craft here is so impressive that I don’t want to think about it too hard, lest I lose motivation to ever attempt anything creative of my own again. Moreover, I have a pretty strong predisposition against stories steeped in cynicism or bleakness—and this issue is most certainly that—yet this book is so well-done I was able to overlook all that. Ice Cream Man holistically is one of the best horror books today, as well as one of the best explorations of what’s possible with the medium, in terms of form and structure. I can’t recommend it enough.  

1. Jeff Lemire

Jeff Lemire landed in the top spot for a few different reasons, many of which we touched on earlier: the conclusion of his Bloodshot epic, the quiet way Royal City’s ending issue made my eyes well, the outstanding reveal on the last panel of Black Hammer: Age of Doom #4, and, of course, the way he stood up to Comicsgate, contributing in no small part to a roiling wave of similarly-prominent creators who did the same.

We should also note that Gideon Falls first arc ended in August (in excellent fashion), and that that book’s entire first storyline has been extremely well-done. So yeah, most months are solid for Lemire output, but August felt like a statement on his part about who he is and what he wants his impact on the industry to be: a disciplined and prolific creator with no tolerance for harassment, rage, bullying, bigotry, or dumbassitude of all kinds. Not bad...not bad in the slightest.

Check out our Best New #1 Comics of August 2018 here plus more of our monthly lists here .

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, CA.

Top 5 Comics of November 2017

How about November? It was a great month for comics, so good I could probably get away with saying that this post is tardy because I spent weeks debating the order. And yes, while I did grapple with that, truth is my rankings are always late and I’ve just been busy. But, again, the idea behind this monthly piece is to maybe help with pull list decisions, rather than single issue purchases.

Anyway, without further adieu (wait, there was adieu?! Did I miss the adieu??!!), here is November’s list:

Honorable Mention: The Batman Who Laughs #1

The Batman Who Laughs is one of the year’s best Batman stories, and it isn't even the best Batman book this month (more on that later). This one spun out of DC's Metal event, which has been grandiose yet laden with sheer comic book goofiness, all transposed against a terrifying threat of alternate Bruce Waynes. This story lacks the goofiness (like in Metal how the Justice League piloted robots that unified to form a Voltron — I know!). This story is all darkness.

And it’s a story that expands a bit on an idea in The Killing Joke regarding the commonality between Batman and Joker, minus the one bad day idea (which, c’mon). It takes us to a dark Earth where *SPOILER* Batman kills Joker and is transformed by gas released upon his death into a hybrid of their two personas. There have been many stories about how Batman and Joker are similar, or different, or parts of the same coin, but this one shows us Joker’s volatility complimenting Batman’s capability and drive, creating something else that's utterly terrifying. Also, how about that title?

5. Mister Miracle #4

That Mister Miracle has appeared here twice and I’ve only been writing this for three months says a good deal about how much I like this comic. As I noted when it landed on my Top 5 Comics of September 2017, writer Tom King is inclined to play with form. This book does that by putting Mister Miracle (aka Scott Free) on trial in the living room of his schlubby apartment, then using spurious logic and rapid questioning to give us a window into the titular character’s mental state, which is tinged with depression and PTSD.

Free is tried by Orion, who took his place when the benevolent High Father swapped Scott with the malevolent Darkseid, hoping it would put their worlds at peace (Narrator: it didn’t). The tension, resentment, and differences between the characters is on full display as Orion grills Free within Mitch Gerads’ intricate nine-panel pages. I’m not the first to call this 12-issue series a modern classic in the making and certainly won’t be the last. In fact, I do it again in two months at this rate.

4. The Wild Storm #9

I’ve been a little baffled at the seemingly low profile writer Warren Ellis and artist Jon Davis-Hunt’s The Wild Storm has had during its excellent run. I’m either missing the buzz about this book, or too many people are disregarding it as a ‘90s throwback relaunch that relies purely on nostalgia. This is, however, far from being that. The Wild Storm stands easily on its own as a rich and compelling story.

What landed it on my list this month was Davis-Hunt’s artwork, particularly during the incredible feudal Japan fight sequence, among the best action storytelling I’ve seen in the medium all year. It was actually one of two fantastic action sequences this month, with David Marquez’s Elektra and Iron Fist battle in Defenders being the other. This one gets the nod because The Wild Storm has been stronger for longer, and I also feel like Davis-Hunt didn’t get enough credit for his fantastic pencils in Gail Simone’s highly-underrated Clean Room series, which recently concluded but is very much worth reading in trade.

3. Descender #26

There’s a tendency in shops and online to take Image’s many long-running super strong books for granted, books like Wicked + Divine, Saga, Sex Criminals, and even The Walking Dead. Descender is a prime example. The story has slowed a bit after its breakneck early issues to log a few backstory installments, but it’s really picked up in The Rise of The Robots arch, which concludes here.

Jeff Lemire’s books often make this list, in part because his work has so much nuance. There’s a literary quality to Lemire’s comic writing, in that characters and stories are layered with meaning (at least as I read them) and tend to land places that are unpredictable and so organic that truth rings through. This is even true of work he's done for the Big 2. Descender is no exception. It’s a slow-burn, and whatever the payoff ends up being, Lemire is doing the important work to earn it.

2. Doomsday Clock #1

Geoff Johns's comic work is rare these days, now that he’s guiding DC's larger direction across various media. Johns, however, is among the best superhero writers of all time, and he follows up here on his industry-shaking DC Rebirth one shot from last May. This is a huge deal, as it has promised to incorporate Watchmen characters into the DC universe proper. I think it's telling that a friend of mine who posts online maybe once a year about comics went out to check it.

And I was thoroughly satisfied by the story. There’s a significant percentage of fans who are super weary of messing with anything Watchmen, creating scrutiny for this book, but I’m all in. Johns and artist Gary Frank have earned trust. On another Johns note, I think it’s folly that his role in the DC movie universe is rumored to be changing because Justice League bombed. I mean, Johns came on board for Wonder Woman, which was the best superhero movie in years, and by that time, Justice League’s trajectory already seemed firmly in place. Hell, director Zack Snyder seemed to have had it planned before Batman V. Superman even opened. Not much Johns, or anyone else, could have done to make the wholesale changes needed. I know someone had to fall on their sword for Justice League bombing, but Johns is the WRONG answer.

1. Batman Annual #2

Okay, so more praise for Tom King: his work is so good it helped draw me back into being a Wednesday Warrior with my comic reading. I’d been following via trades at the library for a few years when Marvel announced its All New, All Different relaunch. I went back to shops, feeling that as an adult with steady income, I should directly support the industry. However, minus a few exceptions, I was disappointed with the storytelling. One of those exceptions was Tom King’s incredible Vision series with Gabriel Walta. From there, I read Omega Men and Sheriff of Babylon. It was all so good, so willing to take chances to make the text more beautiful and the story human. I was, of course, upset when Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo ended their all-time great run on Batman, but King taking over cushioned that blow. Issues like Batman Annual #2 are the reason why.

This is a fairly straightforward love story between Batman and Catwoman, one that transcends costumed ridiculousness and speaks to the beauty and tragedy inherent to romantic love. Drawn by Lee Weeks, King's collaborator from Batman Elmer Fudd (another improbably great work from Tom King), this is a heart-rending love story that is easily among the best comics of the year.