Comic Book Trade Paperbacks I Loved in 2025

Trades

Some of these might be too late (or early) for 2025, but that's when I read them. My list, my rules, kids.

Fun, Loud Big-Ass Reboots

Absolute Batman (DC)

Scott Snyder (writer), Nick Dragotta (artist)

Writer Scott Snyder, a known and revered writer for his tenure on the monthly Batman title, strips Bruce Wayne down to the studs of the nearly the poverty line to ask, "What makes him Batman?" Not the wealth, gadgetry or privilege, but the singleminded focus. And, of course, Bruce is massively ripped. Absolute Bats is big, loud and crazy, with a sort of young version of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, which makes for big, loud, size-queen fun. Imagine if a Texan wrote Batman, reintroducing the garish rogues' gallery., some of whom Bruce plays cards with each week. Nothing under-sized in this iteration, pardner.

Absolute Wonder Woman (DC)

Kelly Thompson (writer), Hayden Sherman (artist)

Thompson, a terrific ensemble and character writer, as evidenced by her fantastic work on the current Birds of Prey floppy, has a flair for a punchy, punchy-punchy, in fact, script. Circe raises Diana in Hades, not Paradise Island, imbuing her with Underworldly powers which WW readily employs against a Kaiju—er, Medusa the Gorgon, all raucously penciled by Hayden Sherman. Steve Trevor, oddly, resembles a little boy. Still, it's a blast.

Wrap-Up of a Run With a Beloved Character by a Fine Writer

Daredevil & Elektra: The Red Fist Saga Part Three (Marvel)

Chip Zdarsky (writer), Rafael De Latorre and Marco Checchetto (artists)

Zdarsky sticks the landing, as Yankee podcasters would say, wrapping up his epic time on the monthly DD title with a script that veers well off-trail, particularly the destination, stunningly depicted by fan-favourite Marco Checchetto who draws everyone beautiful. Feel sorry for follow-up writer, Saladin Ahmed, who had to pick up the pieces to make the whole thing go again. At least John Romita Jr. was the new penciler. But, great work from Zdarsky, who is offensively talented, also penning the monthly Batman title simultaneously. (Editor's note: What? No cross-over?)

Refreshing Take on a Very Established Team with a Magical Writer-Artist Team

Justice League Unlimited

Mark Waid (writer), Dan Mora (artist)

Masterful classical character writer Mark Waid takes his partner-in-crime, prolific artist Dan Mora from the new Shazam! monthly now focusing on Billy Batson's found orphanage family (I prefer Billy, Mary and Freddy) and givies the Justice League a hard restart in the spirit of the influential, well-executed Justice League Unlimited animated series, a gateway medium for younger-generation superhero fans. This translates into pulling on B-C-and-D-list characters instead of only focusing on the mainstays. The chess-pieces are in place. Let's see how Waid and Mora do.

Same Team, Some of the Same Characters (Bruce and Clark)

Batman/Superman: World's Finest Volume 6: IMPossible

Mark Waid (writer), Dan Mora (artist)

Waid and Mora play with Big Blue and the Dark Knight, having much fun, more or less making this unofficially a mainstay JLA title, involving Mxyzptlk, Bat-Mite, the dorky Metalmen, Zatanna and others. It's a technicolour hoot. The real hidden plot gem in all this, though, is the uneasy rapport between Robin (aka Dick Grayson) and Supergirl (aka Kara Zor-El), who had a famously unsuccessful date and as a result fight like cats and dogs whenever in the same panel. With apologies to Shakesepeare's shrew, methinks the Boy Wonder and the Woman of Tomorrow doth protest too much.

Most Illuminating Yet Dense Read

Legalization Nation (Rosie the Elephant)

Brian Box Brown (writer, artist, letterer, colourist)

Want to know why it's hard to find reasonably priced weed, on a state-by-state basis? Brown lays it all out in excruciating detail. The same old story (spoiler alert) is that whether you're in New England or Maine, it's big business and Big Pharma getting infrastructure and shoes on the ground with pot dispensaries, then leaving state law to establish Labryinthine red tape and barriers that pot-shop owners must somehow scramble over like a Marine boot camp obstacle course, from the cost of the business application, upfront money to set up shop, permits for the retail space, outrageous state-controlled costs of marijuana and the unreasonable wait-time business owners must somehow endure before evening opening their grassroots business. Opened my eyes.

Most Unsettling Horror Treatment of a Fun, Goofy Character

Plastic Man: No More! (DC)

Christopher Cantwell (writer), Alex Lins, Jacob Edgar (artists)

Cantwell can do no wrong in terms of dark, surprising-at-turns character journeys, as he proves with Plastic Man: No More! and his creator- owned stuff such as the deconstructionist superhero series The Blue Flame, an Alan

Moore tribute that is a close cousin to Watchmen and Miracle Man. The arrogant Justice League members roundly ignore, laugh at or talk down to quintessential comic relief source Eel O'Brian even as his body dematerializes. Plastic Man cracks a plan for a desperate heist, harkening back to his criminal roots born of abject poverty, in a classic film noir plot, to save his similarly diagnosed and estranged son. Alex Lins and Jacob Edgar graphically depict the horror-show of Eel's physical deterioration. Terrific body horror.

Best Follow-up to a Fine Meta-Mash of an Indie Mini-Series or To Sir Comic Aficionado With Love

Public Doman Volume Two: Building Something New (Image Comics)

Chip Zdarsky (writer, artist, letterer, colourist)

Toronto comic creator Zdarsky (spoiler alert: it's his nom de plume) not only write ol' hornhead and the Dark Knight concurrently, and well, took on the Captain America monthly in 2025, but he also managed to shine in his creator-owned books. His follow-up arc to Public Domain, about a father and son wresting the rights back of an iconic comic character, reads like one imagines Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster clawing back the rights for Superman from DC. This is insider-insider baseball trading, kiddies,. Zdarsky delivers with his appealing, quirky art, plenty of heart, and ever-reliable editor Alliaon O'Toole in the room, a frequent collaboraor (the excelkent one-off Afterlift being an example). It's a comic he made for comic lovers with, you guessed it, love. Much love.

Best Universal Monster Treatment I didn't Know I Needed

Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives! (Image Comics)

Dan Watters and Ram V (writers), Matthew Roberts (artist)

The capable and cerebral writer Ram V, who killed it on Swamp Thing, as the parlance goes, and fellow brilliant comic creator Dan Watters of Lucifer breathe fresh air (or water?) into the classical creature feature. The resilt's astonishing and compelling. They modernize and somehow eroticize the story with Matthew Roberts' jaw-dropping and cinematic panels and outré artwork and a compelling story. It's better than going to the movies, as director/man-fanboy said of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's 

raucous n' randy Preacher series.

A Heartfelt Cosmic Adventure I didn't Know I Needed

Space Ghost (Dynamite)

David Pepose (writer), Jonathan Lau (artist)

Somehow, Pepose makes me feel for characters I have not had any stake in before, being unfamiliar with the TV show. The titular driven Space Ghost character adopts two young teens, Jan and Jace and their pet monkey Blip,  who saw invading aliens murder their parents. Lau's wonderfully adventuresome pencils and the splashy colour array suit this cosmic odyssey. There's something very compelling 

about original characters who are not established flagship ones that raises the stakes. They have no plot armour. The kids are not immune to pain and trauma. And, at the heart, this thing's got heart. Remarkable, particularly for a writer who just came off the oft-hard-to-write Punisher monthly book. Also, I usually hate stuff with monkeys. Now that's a testament to cosmic storytelling 

Best New Mini-Series from a Contemporary Favourite Comic Writer

Traveling to Mars (Ablaze)

Mark Russell (writer), Robert Meli (artist)

My favourite satirist Mark Russell continues his blue streak. In this series, a corporation sends Roy Livingston, a terminally ill former pet store manager with few prospects on a one-way spaceship trip to Mars. The goal? To stake the claim for the company. Russell's clever sci-fi ideas, such as androids gaining sentience and adding a spin to how to launch a rocket from Earth, have game even as he pokes fun at the big business of it all. There's at least one sly wink to sci-fi master Ray Bradbury, Mr. Mars himself.

Reversal (Dark Horse Comics)

Alex de Campi (writer), Skylar Partridge (artist) 

Genre-hopping de Campi can do no wrong, in my book. She writes it all well, whether lit', horror, or sci-fi/fantasy, in this case. Reversal's more of a YA-targeted effort, with magical creatures in longstanding conflict with humans, and a contentious magical forest where the usually quite scared or hungry dragons and what-not get to the nearby city. But still,i de Campi, like Russell, puts her own indelible imprint on the genre. Looking forward to her stuff, as always, in the New Year.

Just Plain Breathtaking

Helen of Wyndhorn

Tom King (writer), Bilquis Evely (artist)

Tom King does it again  He pairs with artist Bilquis Evely to make a beautiful thing. Last outing, they concocted Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, currently in production as a film adaptation. Wyndhorn King describes as Conan the Barbarian meets Nancy Drew, and he's accurate. Helen, the daughter of a famous and prolific pulp author, goes home after her father’s death and discovers that the fantasy world he wrote about actually exists in the wood surrounding his house. Evely, who went all cosmic in Supergirl, here goes total fantasy and sword-and-sandal pulp. Monsters, action, family drama unfold. It's gorgeous. The script is intergenerational high adventure. Hands down, arguably the year's best.

Honourable Mentions

Most Bizarre Horror Mash-up with Misleading Covers that Don't Match the Interiors

DC Horror Presents.... 

Four-issue limited series.

Various writers and artists

Best Meditation on Death

Euthanauts (Black Crown)

Tini Howard (writer), Nick Robles (artist)

Comic Books I Loved in 2025

Since absolutely nobody demanded it, but I wanted to produce it, here's my list of my favourite monthly comics or floppies, as the iindustry once called them, from 2025.

Disclaimer: my list is purely subjective, subject to my tastes and reading habits. And, of course, I didn't read every comic published last year. Walk into any specialty/direct-market/comic-book store and you'll see why. Hundreds of monthly compete for your attention on the racks.

All of my picks I felt so strongly about that I purchased them.

Mini-Series

Late out of the Gate Debut 

Batman/Green Arrow/The Question: Arcadia (DC Comics)

Gabriel Hardman (writer/artist), Romulo Fajardo Jr. (artist)

A four-issue mini-series which debuted late November.

This noir comic showcases Hardman's gritty enjoyable style and pulpy but modern script, inspired by Mike Grell and Denny O’Neill from the 1970's and 1980's. The three loners (including my fave The Question) unite, in refreshing portrayals (such as disillusioned, single Oliver Queen picking up at a bar) to solve a corporate mystery.

Favourite Treatment of an Established Beloved B-character

Black Canary: Best of the Best (DC)

Tom King (writer), Ryan Sook (artist)

A six-issue mini-series.

King's heartful script toggles between Dinah Lance's past, enduring grueling training at her mother's hands that would shame Bruce Wayne, and now, in here highly publicized bout with Lady Shiva. Sook's kinetic, compelling, immersive art foot-sweeps readers. 

Well, that was a Weird-Ass Comic but Very Smart 

Godzilla: Monsterpiece Theatre 

Tom Scioli (writer/artist)

Three-issue IDW series.

Comics ingenue Scioli disarms with a rudimentary style while peppering and layering his absurd story with literary references and historical figures.

Favourite Reunion of Beloved Writer and Artist 

Batman & Robin: Year One (DC)

Mark Waid (writer), Chris Samnee (artist)

Twelve-issue mini-series.

Masterful neoclassical character writer Mark Waid, teaming with neoclassical artist Chris Samnee once again after their clever, sunny Daredevil tenure, answer the year-one foster care questions that fans didn't know needed answering. A triumph of storytelling, showing what comics are meant to be, and defiantly sunny, once again.

And That was a Weird-Ass Comic Too, but So Much Fun

Moonshine Bigfoot (Image Comics)

Four issues.

Mike Marlowe (writer), Zach Howard (writer, inker), Steve Ellis (penciler)

Ostensibly the tale of a Bigfoot and his hippie girlfriend getting into shenanigans, resplendent with pop-culture cameos in a zany action-filled script with much heart and ... muscle cars? It's a vastly overlooked book in terms of year's best list mentions, in my opinion.

New Ongoing Seriesa

One featuring one of my fave Contemporary Artists

Absolute Martian Manhunter (DC)

Denis Camp (writer), Zavier Rodriguez (artist)

It's the Martian Manhunter, but with a story that sees the protagonist able to see everyone's human condition. Rodriguez's next-level trippy art has pulled in a new generation of readers, according to the owner of my local, The Comic Book Shoppe. Panels warp, explode, pop. Pedestrian's anxieties and fears are laid visually bare. Ever since Rodriguez tripped me out with his two Defenders mini-series, about a motley crue of B-and-C-list antiheroes navigating cosmic conflict, and Time itself, penned by Al Ewing, I have been a devotee.

Assorted Crisis Events (Image Comics)

Denis Camp (writer) and Eric Zawadzki (artist)

In the year of Denis Camp, the writer takes the premise of worlds ending and focuses right down to the individual level. It's Ray Bradbury with harsh nihilism or Crisis on Infinite Earths for the everyperson. Zawadzki messes with panels, with splash pages, with, well, the whole medium. Sci-fi at a criminally cerebral and humanistic level.

9

FML (Dark Horse Comics)

Kelly Sue DeConnick (writer), David Lopez (artist)

DeConnick's thinly veiled self-portrayal, intergenerational Stranger Thingsesque drama, and 'zine culture promulgation in the back matter is well matched by Lopez's at-once realistic and then bombastically expressive and cartoony pencils. This one speaks to me personally like no other comic has about parental angst, being young, getting into trouble, and yearning for supernatural shenanigans.

One Shots of Note
Batman Deadpool (DC)

Grant Morrison (writer) et al.

A mixed antho, as one expects, but Morrison's titular match-up is intertextual, metatextual and metafictional and really quite fun, trumpeting their return to comics.

DC's Zatannic Panic! 

(A Halloween Special that arrived a few weeks late, really)

Various contributors

It's another mixed antho, but wondrously populated with DC's macabre characters. Batman is the sole A-lister. Ambush Bug, Raven, The Demon, Plastic Man, Swamp Thing, and Zatanna tussle with supernatural beasties. 

Andrew MacLean had the audacity to write, draw and letter the stand-out spooky tale, "What A Horrible Night to Have A Curse", a clever yarn featuring my faves John Constantine and Swamp Thing. A werewolf maims the shifty bi street mage. MacLean's opener swept me away, yet drew me in. So stylized. Got some serious Samurai Jack vibes. Will look for more of MacLean's work now. Lee Bermejo's drop-dead outré and gorgeous cover features an unusually chaste Zatanna.

Stranger Things season 5: Further Spoilery Thoughts 5

Episodes five to seven

There are a lot of suspicious nail-biting  scenes due to misleading red herrings. 

There's the plaster of Paris goop; Max & the little girl repeatedly running to the cave where we known damn well Vekna can't get them; the wormhole sucking everyone in and ... stopping? 

And Topper and Elle getting dragged in and then ... magically returning from the Upside-Down? 

I found/find the whole eleven-kids-in-Vekna's-fantasy-house stuff tedious; that and seeing Max and Holly Look at The Horrifying Landscape Yet Again. I got very impatient with the repetition.

Don't get me wrong; loving this season. But they keep dangling that proverbial baby over lava, and then suddenly there's no threat. It's an old movie-serial (and 1980's TV) trick.

I find the Holly and Max under the thrall of Vekna stuff stuff a wee bit tedious.

Points, though, for some serious kick-ass scenes:  Robyn's revelatory monster scene with her gal Vickie; Lucas heroically kicking a demigorgon to save him and Max; hot mom with bad hair Karen Wheeler blowing up three demigorgons; Dustin telling the Steve The Hair that that the ladder won't work and he can't lose him like Eddie; Nancy and Joathan finally hashing things out because they don't want to die with regrets.

Spoilery thoughts on Stranger Things season five so far

Spoilery thoughts on the pop-culural  phenomenom of Stranger Things season five

The Janice Byers character finally gets to step up and do something. Oh, thamk gods...she's not just worrying anymore, but fighting!

The requisite ginger character, fan-favourite Max (Sadie Sink) gets to go full wild Irish, grow her hair out and talk with more of an Irish lilt. Big fan. Only so much Kate Bush we can hear as a refrain, though.

Turns out Will Byers' constant weeping in often-flabby season four is actually purposeful, as his role is clarified and developed beyond simple abductee. 

Supersweet dork Maya Hawke's character Robin gets to show her brainy superpower and have a Big Gay Team-up with Will Byers!  

Maya is a fascinating hybrid of her folks, Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman (just learned this). Quirky, awkward, she acts more like a teenager than the whole lot.

The main kids get to all hero up, as mentors, and even all the parents get a moment to show their courage. 

Many heroic moments, even for fat bully kids and newer characters. 

Full-tilt boogie horror at one plot point. Yowzer! 

The antagonist even gets fleshed out. Looks a little like an Alan Moore Swamp Thing, though.

Enjoyable! Bad hair, great action and fine character development. Expected blend of action, mystery, humour, horror. Tighter by far than season four. How about them suburban moms and dads staring down danger?  Features adults obviously too big to play kids, but hey—call it the Harry Potter Franchise Effect and move on? Still, quite dug it.

I have always had a complicated  relationship with this show, as it occurs in the early eighties and my first horror novel Town & Train is set in summer 1990 but has few nostalgic trappings, being at the end of that decade. 

I wrote (and rewrote) my novel long before Stranger Things became the reason to get a new entertainment platform called Netflix. 

There are similarities, for sure. Small-town horror. Kids researching microfiche at the library, and also a library with bannisters out front and old staircase leading to the entrance. A teenager lying to the parent of a kid they know won't be coming back. Bullies tormenting high-high school kids (although my bully Christian "Cutter" Hartley is a metalhead. The use of pop music to describe a character's state of mind. 

I am fairly certain that unless the Duff brothers read Town & Train, and found inspirations there, that they also grew up in the suburbs, gobbled up Stephen King at formative slage, are about my age, and wanted to make some great horror about small-town life. 

What the show lacks that my novel does not lack is including Indigenous characters. My guys, Tommy Two Rivers and Bruck Naticoke, hail  from Akwesasne Reserve. As welll my minor players include Francophone characters such as Sergeant Leroux. I infuse the tale with characteristic Canadian feel in terms of the idioms my characters use, and some of their prevailing attitudes refflect living im a down-on-its-luck Canadian town.

Notes on the doc, A Flash of Beauty: Bigfoot Revealed

Almost embarrassingly enjoyable, the doc, A Flash of Beauty: Bigfoot Revealed. 

Interesting seemingly heartfelt accounts of sightings. Requisite expert talking-heads. Sweeping landscale cinemtography. Great use and mining of established Sasquatch lore.  Almost ... spiritual, really. In short—great fun.

Can-Con 2025 notes

In Mid-October, we tabled at Can-Con, Ottawa's Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Convention at the Brook Street Hotel in Kanata with fab co-pilot AJ Dolman and fab Christian Baines, writer of urban queer paranormal novels, down from Toronto. Attending, tabling and sometimes paneling this con has been our little tradition for several years. We compare notes afterwards ovet supper, perhaps commiserating over a drink. Or four, depending on how things went.

I was selling my novel Town & Train and collection Fear Itself. Or, rather, trying to. Read on.

On the upside, we had some great chats. Looking atchoo', Christopher Shorewick, K. M. Greyburn, Derek Newman-Stille, Dwayne MacKinnon, of the Out Of The Basement Podcast, and the other James by our booth. Our table also talked to other writers and vendors and attended some interesting panels. Heck, I even chatted with a friendly spectacled attendee with the elfin ears at the giveaway table. She read an entire chapbook by Renaissance author R. Haven instead of taking it because it was the last copy. 

However, on the downside, book sales hit a record low, perhaps because of the con's move to Kanata, in Ottawa's far-flung west end.  Also, a noticeable absence was staple Can-Con shutterbug James Coughlan, a professional who volunteers his time each fall. 

As someone who pens hotror, fantasy, sci fi, lit, poetry and book reviews,  I find that the SFF set doesn't quite know how to handle talking with me beyond the niceties of attending a conference or quite what panels to invite me on, save the usual horror-themed and writers''group-themed ones. 

My usual trusty tactic, to redeem myself of the oil-and-water mix vibe of the con, is to pitch a particular publisher a project idea. Three times in a row (and two years running), I have successfully pitched projects. Not so, this time out. The publisher I usually talk to canceled its pitch sessions without explanation, save for a note on the sign-up sheet. I tried to sign up at the last minute with another publisher. However, the list was full. Although I added my name to the sign-up sheet in case of a cancellation, nobody cancelled. 

So, with my mood thus affected, the abysmal sales didn't help.  The lack of takers crushed the morale at the table, and our spirits. The lengthy daily commute was often over 30 minutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 417.

If the con returns to downtown, as has been the case for over a decade, we might reconsider attending. For now, though, our trio made the tough call afterwards. We will not be returning next fall. The cost of the booth, registering for the con (about $90 each for the weekend; panelists must, in fact, register), as well as gas and food expenses, all mean that attending this con, at least for us, has cons that far outweigh the pros. 

Hallowe'en 2025: Assorted Random Shots

Alas, last Friday night we saw the worst All Hallows' Eve turnout in years last Friday night, due to a combination of rainy and clammy weather for the trick-or-treaters and the Blue Jays' World Series game six airing at eight. Only 19 kids rang our gnarly-eyeball doorbell. 

Alleyway, downtown Ottawa. Approx. 5:10pm, Hallowe'en, 2025.

Last year, we had about 80 kids, finally recovering from the pandemic and the early canceled lockdown Halloween and seeing an upswing of young families on our block. 

I like a cteepy face in the tree of of our frontyard to greet trick-or treaters. We coninue, though, to be one of only a handful of houses that observes with a lit jack-o'-lantern.

The Tubular Bells vinyl I just scored from a goodhearted DJ colleague.

Some of my handiwork.

What I viddied later after some episodes of Mike Flanagan's The Haunting of Bly Manor.

Fab seasonal pic of Ottawa writer AJ Dolman.

That's our 17 year old carving his first pumpkin. It's the jack-o'-lantern on the right. Tradition passed along! Pretty proud of him.

Captain James, or...Captain Moran.