Comicon’s Best Single Issues Of 2024
by Erik Amaya
Welcome to Comicon.com’s Best of the Year Awards, gathering the best comics and comics talent of the strange year that was 2021. This year we will be awarding in the following categories: Best Comic Series, Best Original Graphic Novels and Collected Editions, Best Single Comic Issues, Best Writers, Best Artists, Best Cover Artists, Best Colorists, Best Letterers, Best Digital/Webcomics, and Most Progressive Comics.
Contributors to Comicon’s Best of the Year Awards this year include: Rachel Bellwoar, Richard Bruton, Scott Redmond, Tito James, Tom Smithyman, and Tony Thornley.
The following are Comicon’s Best Single Comic Issues of 2024.
5. The Ultimates #4, published by Marvel Comics; written by Deniz Camp, drawn and colored by Phil Noto, and lettered by Travis Lanham
I’m a very picky reviewer. You really have to win me over to give a book a perfect 10/10. The tragic origin of the new Ultimate Universe’s Fantastic Four was dark, and twisted the knife. As we meet Earth-6160’s Reed Richards, Camp and Noto weave a story that combines the familiar origin of Marvel’s First Family with unexpected time travel horror. It also includes an incredibly unique structure that would only be possible in comics, making for an incredible and damn perfect read.
— Tony Thornley
4. The Cursed Library: Alpha, published by Archie Comics; written by Eliot Rahal and Magdalene Visaggio, drawn by Craig Cermak, colored by Matt Herms, and lettered by Jack Morelli
— Rachel Bellwoar
3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1, published by IDW; written by Jason Aaron, drawn by Joelle Jones, colored by Ronda Pattison, and lettered by Shawn Lee
Relaunching a series — especially one connected to a storied franchise — isn’t easy. There are so many things to juggle, both in execution and the insurmountable expectations that the reading population is sure to have. Naturally, one cannot actually really worry about or hit those expectations because they cannot ever be fully achieved with such wide varying audiences. Yet, this issue manages to do all of that so well. Kicking the TMNT clan into a whole new era while keeping things that resonated from the last era as well as mixing in an old school feeling. A comforting blanket of a first issue that showcases what was to come, and still to come, with this new era of the series. Relaunching series is hard, but this one makes it seem really easy.
— Scott Redmond
2. FML #1, published by Dark Horse Comics; written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, drawn by David López, colored by Cris Peter, and lettered by Jacob Phillips
Capturing the attention of an audience and getting them to come back is the goal of any first issue of a series. This is easier for decades-old franchises with baked in fans, not as easy for creator owned or new concept books. FML #1, though, makes it feel pretty damn easy, as the first issue of this series nails everything. Characters are vibrant, fleshed out, and the setting they call home becomes truly tangible with depth. Artwork that easily slides between the more grounded and the more fantastical, hitting all the right notes of whimsy and heaviness. So much is learned about everything here but enough is left unanswered that it’s an easy call to want to dive back in for the second issue and the rest to come. One of the mightiest series debuts for the year, hands down.
— Scott Redmond
1. Absolute Batman #1, published by DC Comics; written by Scott Snyder, drawn by Nick Dragotta, colored by Frank Martin, and lettered by Clayton Cowles
It takes a lot – a lot – to reinvent a character with as much history and fan devotion as Batman. And yet, in a single issue, writer Scott Snyder and artist Nick Dragotta managed to do exactly that. With a backstory that is familiar, but still distinct, and a costume that includes a battle axe made from the Bat-symbol on the hero’s chest, the creative team breathed life into DC’s Absolute Universe. This is more than another Elseworlds story. It’s a Batman for the 2020s. And fans have responded by making it the best-selling comic of the year, with more reprints that you can count.
— Tom Smithyman
