WGTC’s Top 10 Comic Books Of 2016

2016 proved to be a great year for comic book-based entertainment. From February to November, superhero movies dominated the big screen and broke records at the global box office. While it may have been one of the most divisive years for comic book cinema for both critics and fans alike, audiences still showed up to theaters in droves. Our favorite characters fared just as well if not better on the small screen. Daredevil had a successful sophomore season as it introduced an almost universally praised Punisher to the MCU; Luke Cage had a debut so strong it broke Netflix; Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. won back audiences with the inclusion of Ghost Rider and Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow all did their thing and did it well, culminating in a historic four-way crossover between the separate series. At the end of the day, though, it always comes back to the source material. While comic-based properties may be taking over the world, the comics themselves haven’t always had as easy a time staying afloat. That's because there are more ways to make a comic and find a readership than ever before. All you really need to make it work is some degree of talent and an Internet connection. There are so many platforms on which to read the medium now that a good portion of content just gets buried. It’s a changing industry and there’s still no real certainty of what it’s changing into. Comic books, in general, have always been a niche medium and even now that they’re taking over the world in some ways, not much has changed significantly. Yes, there are more people getting curious about the stories after seeing the movies, but sadly that doesn’t mean they’re all going down to the local comic shop to start making discoveries. Some titles have done very well for themselves, but then again, some always do. But this year saw many, many books end up being canceled, even from the Big Two. Some series that got off to a great start and showed massive potential didn’t get the room to develop further. It’s not because the industry’s failing, far from it. There are so many great comics out there right now, but only so much room on the stands. It’s not a gloomy situation, though. It's just evidence that a medium that’s been around for nearly a century is still continuing to expand and evolve on a day-to-day basis. If anything, that’s promising. With that in mind, here are 10 books that really stuck out, gained some new fans and most importantly, made an impact in 2016. 10) Moon Knight I loved the episodic, almost anthology take on Moon Knight provided by Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey. When that run ended, I was skeptical of whatever came next, just because I felt that the bar for the character had been raised in a significant way. Luckily, Jeff Lemire and Greg Smallwood did not disappoint. This is definitely a different take on the character, but I think Moon Knight opens himself up to many different interpretations. In fact, it’s almost a necessity. Many characters in the Marvel Universe reinvent themselves when a new creative team takes over. For Moon Knight, it’s an integral part of who he is. I also love that this gets back to digging deep into Marc Spector’s psyche. We’d seen some great groundwork in this area in both the Brian Michael Bendis and Charlie Huston runs, but Ellis took a much more “show, don’t tell” approach. It was the right time to start digging into the many, many layers of Moon Knight’s complicated psyche and the book actually managed to depict a serious portrayal of mental illness at the same time. 9) Darth Vader I expected nothing from this title when Marvel announced that it would be publishing books based on the Star Wars universe, but one day I happened to catch a glimpse of a page from Darth Vader #4 and it blew me away. The emotional impact of this comic, of all comics, honestly stunned me. I went back and picked up the first issue and from there devoured it all the way to the bittersweet end. This is a deeply emotional book, which is surprising because Vader is not an overly emotional guy. At least not on the surface. But this story digs as deep into the character as anyone could ever go. Kieron Gillen’s writing is astounding and Salvador Larroca’s art is expectedly stunning. It even manages to take moments from the prequels and re-use them as flashbacks in a way that’s emotionally satisfying. That, above all, is a sign of true talent. 8) The Legend Of Wonder Woman Cancelled before its time, The Legend of Wonder Woman is the best take on the character since the beginning of Brian Azzarello’s New 52 run. It seemed to be doing alright in terms of sales and was one of DC’s most critically acclaimed titles, all of which make its cancellation that much more puzzling. We’re still left with nine great issues though collected in a single trade that—on paper—give us yet another retelling of Wonder Woman’s origin. In fact, it’s one of at least four series to do that in 2016 alone. Legend of Wonder Woman, however, has a very specific focus on the Amazons and life on Themyscira that help the book to stand out on its own. If anything this is really the story of what life was like for Diana before Steve Trevor unexpectedly showed up on her doorstep. Even now, that’s fairly undiscovered territory and a story worth re-interpreting at the very least. 7) Doctor Strange Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo’s take on the Sorcerer Supreme made its debut last year, but has come to be an imaginative and even seminal run in the character’s long history. At the start, there was a great deal of attention paid to getting Strange back into the public consciousness before his film debut. Aaron and Bachalo’s run has not only helped Strange feel relevant and necessary to the Marvel Universe as a whole, but it’s gone deep into the character’s mythos (and headspace) in a way that makes this longstanding character feel totally fresh. The greatest strength of this series is its voice, which allows the reader to explore Strange’s rogues gallery and classic staples of the lore like the Sanctum Sanctorum in a way that feels new and original. Furthermore, Bachalo’s art fits perfectly with the surreal qualities of the character and bizarre world - or worlds - he inhabits. 6) The Wicked + The Divine Not only is this one of the best books of the year, but it has consistently been one of the most stunning, most original series on the market since its debut in 2014. It deals heavily with mythical deities and cultural relationships while also tackling themes of gender roles and identity, sexuality, and much more all while wearing its musical influences on its sleeve. It’s fantastical, psychosexual, bitingly witty and often horrific. It might even be the best book of its type since Sandman. But even though it bears some similarities with the now-classic Neil Gaiman series, The Wicked + The Divine is entirely its own beast. There’s nothing really like it out there right now, even in a marketplace that includes things like Saga and Fables. No matter where it’s placed, it stands out. 5) Superman: American Alien At first glance, this is the latest in a sea of Superman origin stories. The character’s beginnings have been explored more times than any other hero in comics. But I promise this is unlike any Superman origin that’s ever been told before. Max Landis is a terrific writer, but all too often when screenwriters take on comics, they wind up writing what feels like a comic adaptation of a movie nobody gets to see. Landis understands the differences between the mediums. He writes a comic book, and it’s a great one. Each issue feels complete but fits perfectly into a larger whole. Most importantly, his undying passion for the character is clear on every single page. That, above all, is what makes American Alien great. This is not yet another story about updating Superman to make him accessible to younger audiences, this is about getting at the core of what already makes him a great character and explaining it in a way we haven’t seen before. 4) The Vision With Vision making his big-screen debut with Avengers: Age of Ultron and returning almost immediately for Captain America: Civil War, it seemed like the right time to give the character his own ongoing title. It also just seemed like a logical business move. As it turns out, it actually wound up being one of Marvel’s best comics of the year. This is a series about Vision attempting to live a normal, quaint suburban life. He's settled in Virginia with a wife and two children. It’s all very picturesque and Norman Rockwell-ish, except of course that Vision and his family are all synthetic. There’s a consistently balanced lightness and darkness to Vision that makes it such a standout book, and I’m not sure anyone was really expecting this series to be as great as it turned out to be. It's got a retro feel but expresses ‘50s-era tropes and themes in a way that is exceptionally current, and the story moves at a surprisingly fast pace, dropping some shocking revelations as to what role Vision and his family could potentially play in the future. 3) Dark Night: A True Batman Story I cannot commend Paul Dini enough for what he did with this book. This is not a traditional Batman story in the way we’re used to seeing one, but at the same time, it almost is. As biographical as this graphic novel is, all of the major themes of Batman are there, even if most of them are contorted and often inverted. The classic villains make appearances and remain true to themselves, but they’re being used in a very different way here. These are representations of Dini’s psyche as he attempts to recover from an incredibly traumatic experience. It’s a dark book, as the title suggests, but it’s also a hopeful one. That’s evidenced enough by the fact that Dini got through this dark time and managed to rediscover his creative strength and passion. While it’s not a situation we’ve all been in, there’s something in the raw honesty of it that I think any artist can relate to. 2) Harrow County Cullen Bunn is a writer I’ve grown to like more and more recently and Harrow County is his best work to date. There’s a great southern gothic atmosphere to the book. It’s not afraid to go for pure horror but at the same time it’s peppered with jet black humor. Based on Bunn’s own serialized short fiction, Harrow County makes an extremely impressive leap to the comic book page. The artwork is absolutely stunning and creates such a powerful mood and atmosphere. It’s a deep south, grim fairy tale, which is something we haven’t seen much of since the days of Stan Winston’s Pumpkinhead. There’s a whole town full of strange characters to be explored, but the book manages to avoid being Twin Peaks 2.0 and instead carves out its own corner of the current indie comic landscape. In fact, it’s slated to be adapted into a TV series for the SyFy network, although there hasn’t been much news in the year since the announcement was made. Even if it doesn’t come to pass, the comic is more than fulfilling enough on its own. 1) Paper Girls Brian K. Vaughan has been a fan-favorite writer for a long time. He’s not only worked on major Marvel and DC books like X-Men, Runaways, Swamp Thing and more, but he’s also created creator-owned books like Y: The Last Man and Saga that have become essential reading in their own right. For years he’s been one of the most important voices in comics, always staying one step ahead of the curve. And with Paper Girls, he’s done it again. The is the comic world’s answer to Stranger Things. It’s chock-full of 1980s nostalgia while at the same time telling a sincere, sweet story about adolescence. It doesn’t have the budgetary limitations of a TV series, but that’s a major part of the appeal. It gets stranger than Stranger Things. It’s a classic ‘80s story about suburban kids stumbling across something very bizarre and getting involved in cosmic weirdness, but the specific brand of weirdness they find is of an epic scale that only Vaughan and Cliff Chiang could provide. It’s funny, dark, sincere, weird and literally timeless. A must read if we've ever seen one.