Another year has come and gone, and as the holiday dust settles we’ve turned our gaze back to count our highlights of the completed year—like our favourite comics of 2024.
Between the pillars of the industry, Marvel and DC, and an ever-growing market of smaller presses, there was always something new and exciting to read flowing into local comic shops every Wednesday. Even for those experiencing superhero fatigue at the cinemas, the good old comic book is still a great medium to explore for a quick break from reality; arguably, the industry has never had this many great voices drawing tales to life across so many different genres.
There’s something for everyone, but for my money, here are the five comics that I was most excited by in 2024—and five terrific series to jump into in 2025:
5) Monstress (Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda, Image Comics)
Written by Marjorie Liu; illustrated by Sana Takeda; published by Image Comics
Since its debut in 2015, Monstress‘ incredibly lush art has drawn me in. Takeda’s unique art style, inspired by manga, blends art deco with cosmic horror, and the visceral with the vulnerable—unfathomable eldritch monsters, anthropomorphic animal people, and a wide variety of grimly opulent settings are all rendered with immaculate detail. Each page is simply a feast for the eyes.
But its the richness of the story unfolding across those pages that has kept the series on my list of favourite comics. There’s a depth of worldbuilding that is rarely achieved in this medium, the sort of vast lore and conceptualization that you would normally find in the heftiest of fantasy novels.
2024 saw the series’ landmark fiftieth issue in March and its ninth trade paperback volume, where protagonist Maika Halfwolf and her closest allies find the worst has happened in their absence. Separated from her Monstrum, she must confront and resolve the legacies inherited from both her parents. Now with a new story arc set to kick off in issue #55 this February, now is a perfect time to catch up on the saga so far.
4) Ultimate X-Men (Peach Momoko, Marvel Comics)
Written and illustrated by Peach Momoko; published by Marvel Comics
Twenty-five years ago, Marvel launched their Ultimate Marvel line, a fresh new timeline where they could recreate the origins for their stables of iconic characters in a modern, contemporary setting. It was a successful and fairly long-running initiative, with Ultimate X-Men being one of its biggest successes. Ultimately (pun intended), the line trickled out many years later, culminating in 2015’s Secret Wars mega-event.
Flashforward to 2023, and Marvel embarked on a similar mission, but with even greater stakes. In this new iteration (dubbed the Ultimate Universe, as opposed to the original Ultimate Marvel) the Maker, a villainous version of Reed “Mr. Fantastic” Richards from the original Ultimates universe, oversees a timeline of his very own, where he has ensured that superpowered individuals either never manifest their powers, or use them in service to his own shadow government.
This sets the stage for the 2024 version of Ultimate X-Men, written and illustrated by rising star Peach Momoko. Having already provided her own reimagining of the Marvel Universe in the critically acclaimed Demon Days saga, Momoko establishes the X-Men in this timeline’s version of Japan, called Hi No Kuni.
From the first issue, I knew this would be one of my favourite comics of 2024. Far from the usual paradigm of Charles Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters, the new Ultimate X-Men starts out insular and grounded in Japanese folklore. The first few installments were almost a supernatural horror story instead of a superhero comic. The initial focus rested on Hisako Ichiki (or Armor, as she’s known in other continuities), who discovers she possesses the ability to project a psionic exoskeleton.
As the year went on, however, Momoko has gradually pulled the scope back, introducing more iterations of familiar X-Men powers to Hisako’s world. The new take on Cyclops’ power, for example, recently received a haunting introduction. Meanwhile, Nico Minoru of the Runaways is in the mix as well, helping shed light on a mysterious cult called the Children of the Atom.
It’s a clever and brave reimagining of the X-Men mythos, with an equally distinct presentation, and I’m eager to see where this breakout title of 2024 goes in the coming year.
3) Ultimate Spider-Man
Written by Johnathan Hickman; illustrated by Marco Checchetto; published by Marvel Comics
On the other side of the new Ultimate Universe perches Ultimate Spider-Man, and it was hard to decide which of these two titles ranked higher on the list of my favourite comics of 2024.
The truly brightest star in the original Ultimate Marvel line was Ultimate Spider-Man (originally led by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley). This take on Peter Parker remains one of the best to this day, reimagining Spider-Man’s origin in the early 2000s instead of the mid-1960s and weaved in many of the formative figures of the “Spider-Verse” in ingenious ways. It was remarkable to read as a teenager around the same age.
For the Ultimate Universe, Spider-Man once again led the charge in 2024 as one of the first ongoing books from the imprint, and perhaps its most influential. This time, however, Hickman and Checchetto have gone even further in redefining the mythos, almost as far as Momoko with the X-Men. As part of the Maker’s machinations, this Peter Parker never became Spider-Man. He grew up, married Mary Jane Watson, and had two kids, but still feels like something’s missing… until this iteration of Tony Stark drops the secret to his stolen superpowers into his lap.
Just like the original Ultimate Spider-Man, seeing an original take on Peter Parker at approximately the same point of his life made this one of my favourite comics of the year. The paradigm is completely different in a fresh, revitalized way: Aunt May recently died in a public disaster which also claimed the life of Norman Osborn; Uncle Ben is a successful journalist, striking out on his own with J. Jonah Jameson; Harry Osborn eventually comes into the picture as the Green Goblin; and a new Sinister Six have reared their ugly heads.
But perhaps the most meaningful part is seeing a bearded, matured Peter come home from his secret vigilante work and have to juggle family life as well. It’s a side of the character we’ve rarely seen, outside of side stories like Renew Your Vows, and it immediately taps the series into a fresh well of story ideas.
2) Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Return
Written by Amy Jo Johnson and Matt Hotson; illustrated by Nico Leon and Francesco Mortarino; published by BOOM! Comics
Like any North American kid in the 90s, I went through a Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers phase for about a year or so, shouting “it’s morphin’ time” on the playground and fighting over who got to play which Ranger. It’s slipped into the position of “one of those series you reminisce about with friends once every couple of years” for me, even if the franchise was still chugging along in the background (at least until 2024, when it seems its corporate overseer is content to let it slide into oblivion).
In the meantime, though, the Power Rangers have been thriving in comic book form under the stewardship of BOOM! Comics, and one particular story immediately caught my attention. The Return, co-written by original cast member Amy Jo Johnson, tugged that little thread of nineties nostalgia deep in my heart, and once I snapped up the trade paperback it immediately became one of my favourite comics of 2024.
In this alternate universe version (now a common theme on this list, it seems), the original team didn’t go their separate ways—or at least not in the way that behind-the-scenes drama made the TV show portray it. A different resolution came for the conflict between the teenagers with attitude, and the combined forces of Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd, leaving the team scattered.
The Return is both a compelling new adventure for people who grew up on the show, and a sort of therapy via revisionist history. I went in expecting the same kind of fluff that the original show offered, but Johnson and Hotson have created a new version of the mythos that I am dying to see more of now. Homage is paid to both Thuy Trang and Jason David Frank, who have tragically died in the years since the show began, but also to the real-world troubles that the whole cast went through on the show’s roller coaster production.
Yet it’s not simply homage, either. The Return cemented its place as one of 2024’s best comics by being a truly self-sufficient and captivating journey in its own right, as well as a touching epilogue and the potential start of something brand new, should the miniseries get an extension.
1) Witchblade
Written by Marguerite Bennett; illustrated by Giuseppe Cafaro and Arif Prianto; published by Image Comics/Top Cow Productions
Top Cow’s Witchblade reboot, in a way, encapsulates everything that made the rest of these titles great. It’s a new take on a character that lapsed from the public eye for a while, and a sort of alternate history iteration from the previous continuity. But perhaps more than any of my favourite comics of 2024, this series presents a truly thrilling opportunity.
Witchblade, the brain child of Top Cow’s founder Marc Silvestri and Michael Turner, ran from 1995 to 2015, following Sara Pezzini—a NYPD detective who obtains the Witchblade, an ancient relic passed from host to host across the ages. It was the figurative cornerstone of the company’s whole publishing line, and then the literal cornerstone in its later years, the Sun that the rest of its series revolved around. Then it petered away, aside from a (sadly) short-lived revival between 2017-2020.
The Witchblade of 2024, however, starts over from square one with a bold new creative team. Marguerite Bennett has immediately established a new, refined version of Sara for our contemporary world. Many of the same ideas and philosophies still power the new series, and it doesn’t shirk away from mature content—but it has also wisely pulled back from some of the 90s/00s cliches that now make the original series a smidge dated.
Sara is every bit the badass she’s always been, just not saddled by the same continuity baggage, and grounded in a new, fitting perspective. A veteran turned detective, she’s investigating the death of her father and the corruption in his former precinct when her path crosses the Witchblade, and she takes up its mantle in similar fashion to her original 1995 debut. From there she struggles to keep up her investigation and her regular life while coming to terms with the artifact—and naturally, Ian Nottingham shows up to make everything more complicated.
Despite spawning a live-action TV series and an anime reimagining, the original comic run always seemed just underappreciated enough to keep it out of the spotlight. I was sad to see it fade away to begin with, despite the headaches that any 20-year-old comic series eventually runs into. But seeing Witchblade not only return in 2024, but thriving with an incredible new take on the IP and apparently introducing other properties like The Darkness, is like watching nature healing.
