Comicon Takes Free Comic Book Day 2025!

Free Comic Book Day is the ultimate geek holiday, and everyone had a lot of fun. Your intrepid Comicon.com reviewers decided to get together and review the FCBD 2025 titles, and give our takes on as many of them as possible. So sit back and enjoy our thoughts!

Power Rangers Prime/VR Troopers (BOOM! Studios) By Melissa Flores, Trish Forstner, Joana Lafuente, Ed Dukeshire, Mairghread Scott, Sebastían Priiz, JP Jordan, and Taylor Esposito

What makes a hero? Such a loaded question that could be taken any direction. Doesn’t matter though, cause we know that the Corgi Doobie is not only a good doggo but a brave hero doggo. Using the Free Comic Book Day offering to give a genuinely cute, heartbreaking, and illuminating origin tale for the Power Rangers Prime series dog star was inspired. Every bit of it hits with whimsical joy, wearing the proverbial heart on its sleeve. Book gets a ten out of ten just because it’s a dog story. 

Sorry not sorry, those are the rules. 

Secondly, there is a very short intro sequence with the VR Troopers, ahead of their June launching series. It’s an expansion of a sequence we saw a bit of on TV screens earlier in an early Power Rangers Prime issue. Good interplay between the characters, as well as setting up a solid dynamic of how Scott plans to write them regularly. Light, roughly textured, dynamically colored artwork sells the story. Just enough to whet the appetite, which is the point.

Rating: 10/10

–Scott Redmond

BOOM! Studios 20th Anniversary Special (BOOM! Studios) By Keanu Reeves, Matt Kindt, Ron Garney, Bill Crabtree, Clem Robins, Mark Waid, Peter Krause, Andrew Dalhouse, Ed Dukeshire, David Petersen, Ram V, Filipe Andrade, Inês Amaro, Andworld Design, Tini Howard, Chloe Brailsford, and Jodie Troutman

In the 20 years they’ve been in the publishing game, BOOM! Studios have released a lot of great comics. While focusing on new and upcoming series is par for the course for Free Comic Book Day issues, I was hoping the emphasis on the anniversary for the cover might mean this issue would be more of a showcase of that span of time instead of still primarily featuring previews from series that started in 2021 or later. The two exceptions are Irredeemable and Mouse Guard, but Mouse Guard wasn’t even originally published by BOOM! but was acquired when Archaia became one of BOOM!’s imprints in 2013. The quality of the previews differ as well. Knowing nothing about Brzrkr (except that Keanu Reeves was one of the co-writers), for example, the preview doesn’t do much to fill in the blanks. Action series about a dude who has problems with authority doesn’t exactly spell groundbreaking. The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, on the other hand, feels extremely fresh, starting with the color palette by artist Filipe Andrade and Inês Amaro (who provided color assists), and continuing with writer Ram V’s twist on the newcomer character who needs to be brought up to speed (except in this case that character’s a talking crow).

The solicitation text mentioned a preview from Something is Killing the Children, but that was absent from the advanced pdf BOOM! sent. There’s also a new story by Tini Howard and Chloe Brailsford that answers the question, do people really enjoy hearing about their friends’ dreams? I wish the issue did a better job explaining what Hello Darkness is, though (a horror anthology and not a continuing story), because that’s something you don’t see enough (at least not on a monthly basis).

Rating: 6/10

–Rachel Bellwoar

Amazing Spider-Man/Ultimate Universe (Marvel Comics) by Joe Kelly, John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna, Marte Gracia, Cody Ziglar, Deniz Camp, Jonas Scharf, Bryan Valenza, Cafu, Frank D’Armata, Joe Caramagna and Clayton Cowles

Too many FCBD stories are just teasers for larger stories, and the publishers most guilty of that are the big two. Thankfully, the Amazing Spider-Man short here by Kelly, Romita and team bucks that trend. The short tale is a brief complete story, putting Peter face to face with an assassin. Kelly teases Peter’s current status quo- in a still-new relationship with Shay, friends and allies with Norman Osborn- and some ongoing threads with the series at large (which is impressive considering it’s only two issues in). However, it’s short, sweet, and complete.

The Ultimate Universe short, on the other hand, is actually a Miles Morales short. It’s interesting- recapping the current volume of Miles’s adventures, then ending with a tease of Ultimate Spider-Man: Incursion. The issue ends with four pin-ups with narration that teases an upcoming, unannounced crossover between Amazing, All-New Venom, and Eddie Brock: Carnage that is little more than a trailer, but it does have me interested.

Rating: Have to take it in its individual parts. Amazing- 8/10; Ultimate Unvierse- 6/10; Spider-Universe 6.5/10

-Tony Thornley

Fantastic Four/ Giant-Size X-Men (Marvel Comics) by Ryan North, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado, Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Iban Coello, Brian Reber, Chip Zdarsky, Clayton Cowles, and Joe Caramagna

I kind of forgot how much I like North’s Fantastic Four. This short offers a short science challenge- the team getting drawn to an alien world through accidental invention- a brief fight and a sweet ending. It’s cute, does a good job at giving each character a solid moment, and very fun. The art by Ramos is such a good fit that I’m surprised he really hasn’t done the Four before.

GIant-Size X-Men is really just a teaser for the upcoming Ms. Marvel centered event. However, Lanzing and Kelly capture Cyclops at that exact moment really well, and show the team we’d come to love before they’re the X-Men- about “ten minutes” before the All-New, All-Different X-Men invade Krakoa to save the O5. Coello does some great work as well, actually getting me excited for the event.

And the issue closes with a goofy Zdarsky short. It’s silly fun, with lots of winks at Marvel multiverse shenanigans. Zdarsky really needs to do more tongue in cheek stories at Marvel, and more art.

Rating: 8/10 across the board

-Tony Thornley

Monsters (Keenspot) by Mark Spears and Micah Myers

I did not expect one of my favorite issues of the day to be an IT inspired horror comic from a publisher that I know best for weird parody comics, but here we are.

Monsters seems to be a Monster Squad inspired universe from writer/artist Spears. The creeping dread that Spears puts in this story is fantastic. And though I say it’s inspired by IT, really it’s only inspiration. Mr. Fun E. Bones, the demonic clown at its center, is just a vehicle to open new readers up to the universe and draw us in the story. There’s a fascinating hook here, and it’s paired with some of the best photoreal art since Alex Ross’s in Marvels and Kingdom Come. It’s a genuinely scary story that acts well as both a complete tale and as a teaser to Spears’ regular title.

Rating: 9/10

-Tony Thornley

Energon Universe (Image/Skybound) by Joshua Williamson, Andrea Milana, Lee Loughridge, Daniel Warren Johnson, Mike Spicer, Robert Kirkman, Conor Hughes, Patricio Delpeche and Rus Wooton

Once again Skybound gives us three short stories that are all satisfying stories and teases for the main titles.

In GI Joe, Clutch bonds with his new Autobot friend Hound. In Transformers, Jazz learns about Earth’s version of his namesake. And in Void Rivals, the terror that the Universe is about to go through is teased.

The best of the three is easily GI Joe, which doesn’t just show an Autobot in their midst but also introduces another important factor to the universe- M.A.S.K leader Matt Trakker. Clutch has been a standout of the GI Joe side of the Energon Universe to date, so I’m glad to see him get focus here, and the story ends on one hell of a last page. Transformers is a great vignette for a beloved character, and not much more. But really, that’s all we need. And I’m excited by the revelations in Void Rivals, as well as the name that the Quintessons refused to say.

It’s obviously Unicron, right?

Rating: 7.5/10

-Tony Thornley

Mega Man (Udon Entertainment) by Travis Maiden, Andrew Dickman, Kenny Ruiz, Edwin Huang, Jeffrey “Chamba” Cruz, and Marshall Dillon

I didn’t know anyone still had the Mega Man license out there. This was a pleasant surprise to see. Three different bots tell tales of how Mega Man helped them turn their lives around and become food truck owners. It’s a silly hook that’s told well. Mega himself is barely a character but that’s not the point. The story is one of how he’s influenced their world for the better.

The art is heavily manga inspired. Each vignette is from a different artist, but all of them have complimentary high energy styles. Definitely worth the read.

Rating: 9.5/10

-Tony Thornley

Best of 2000AD (Rebellion) by John Wagner, Jock, Chris Blythe, Tom Frame, Peter Milligan, Jose Ortiz, Tony Jacob, Ian Edginton, D’Israeli, Annie Parkhouse, Alex de Campi, Silvia Califano, Matt Soffe, and Rob Steen

I’m really pretty impressed that this regular length issue fit in four generally satisfying stories. 

The weakest was Scarlet Traces, because it was so brief and didn’t give a great feel for the world or story. Rogue Trooper was fine, but I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more if I was more familiar with it.

Dredd was a fun little action story that had a great joke twist. It was great to see Jock art on the short too. De Campi and Califano’s Judge Anderson story was a good little piece of sci-fi horror that got me interested in de Campi’s upcoming Anderson stories.

Rating: 8/10

-Tony Thornley

I Hate Fairyland (Image Comics) By Skottie Young, Jean-Francois Beaulieu, Nate Piekos, and Derek Laufman.

Free Comic Book Day means that publishers can do anything they want. Reprint some old stories, offer up some anthologies, or tease their big events or newly launching books. Per usual, I Hate Fairyland’s creative team found a way to split the difference. Thus was born a new story that is a retrospective wrapped in a preview of the new (old) era to come. 

Young takes back the artistry reins (alongside old friends Beaulieu and Piekos) for this special issue. Letting Gertrude take us down memory lane about the first volume of the series, and a tiny bit of the second. Thankfully, Gert tires of this “mental health journaling” and gives us the good stuff. New series artist Laufman drawing a montage preview for the new issues beginning in June, which also sees the series delving into legacy numbering.

That’s right, twenty issues of both volumes one and two means we’re getting I Hate Fairyland #41. It’s gonna be Fluffing awesome.

Rating: 9.5/10

–Scott Redmond