It’s been a wild year for the long boxes. Seriously, if you had told us at the start of January that we’d be seeing this much genuine experimentation, we probably wouldn’t have believed you. It feels like 2025 was the year the “Big Two” finally drank their morning coffee, shook off the status quo, and decided to actually take some risks. At KPB Comics, our Wednesday mornings usually involve us huddled over a stack of fresh comics, musing about whether a specific splash page was cinematic or just a cluttered mess.
But this year, the energy shifted. Between the “Absolute” experiment and the indie scene going full-on weird, this year, the industry snapped the speedometer right off the dashboard, and we were all here for it. Now, is this every single good comic from 2025? Not even close. But if you’re looking for the stuff we personally obsessed over and actually had fun reading, these are the 10 that nailed it.
KPB Comics Presents: The 10 Best Comics of 2025
10. New Gods (Ram V & Evan Cagle)
Most of the time, when a writer tackles Jack Kirby’s New Gods, they get bogged down in the “cosmic punch-up” of it all; big gods hitting each other with big hammers in space. But Ram V is basically the industry’s resident poet, and he took a much smarter route.
He dug into the generational trauma of the Fourth World. Instead of just being action figures, Orion and Mister Miracle are written as grieving, ancient beings who are still dealing with the fact that they were basically traded like poker chips for a peace treaty that was never going to last. Evan Cagle’s art is literal museum-quality stuff. He takes those bombastic Kirby designs and makes them feel heavy, haunting, and beautiful. It’s a book that stays with you long after you put it down.
Recommended if you like: Immortal Hulk, House of X, Hindu mythology, or the heavy vibes of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing.
9. The Power Fantasy (Kieron Gillen & Caspar Wijngaard)
This one is scary because of how grounded it feels. The premise is simple: What if only a tiny handful of people had superpowers, but their power was equal to a nuclear arsenal?
In most superhero books, you want the hero to fight the villain. In The Power Fantasy, the characters are absolutely terrified to throw a punch because if they do, a whole continent might just vanish. It’s a superhero story that’s actually a high-stakes political thriller about nuclear deterrence. Gillen brings his usual intellectual depth, while Wijngaard delivers some of the brightest, slickest character designs we’ve seen all year. It’s visually stunning and mentally exhausting in the best way possible.
Recommended if you like: Watchmen, The Boys, or Succession (but with nukes).
8. X-Men (Jed MacKay & Ryan Stegman)
After the mutant island era of Krakoa ended, the X-Men really needed a win to find their identity again. Jed MacKay and Ryan Stegman stripped away the high-concept sci-fi and brought them back to basics: a tactical unit of badasses operating out of a base in Alaska.
This book has that classic Saturday Morning Cartoon energy but is written with a modern, sophisticated edge. It puts Cyclops back in the driver’s seat as a master strategist but gives the whole team a rugged, “us against the world” feel. Ryan Stegman’s pencils are so kinetic, you can almost feel the wind coming off the pages during the fight scenes. It’s just pure, unadulterated fun.
Recommended if you like: X-Men ’97, tactical sci-fi, or the high-octane energy of Annihilation.
7. One World Under Doom (Ryan North & R.B. Silva)
We’ve seen Doctor Doom try to take over the world a thousand times, but we’ve never seen him do it with this much populist charisma.
Throughout its 2025 run, Ryan North wrote a version of Doom who actually “fixes” the world—ending hunger, stopping wars, and solving the climate crisis —making the Avengers and the Fantastic Four look like they were the ones holding humanity back. The secret sauce here is the personal stakes, specifically Doom’s relationship with Valeria Richards. It gives the story a heart that most massive event comics lack. Seeing the Latverian flag over the White House felt like a status quo change that actually mattered. With the Armageddon event just around the corner, 2026 will reveal the full extent of the fallout.
Recommended if you like: Political thrillers, villain-as-protagonist stories, or North’s current Fantastic Four run.
6. Hobtown Mystery Stories Vol. 3: The Secret of the Saucer (Kris Bertin & Alexander Forbes)
Indie comics are the heartbeat of this industry, and the Hobtown series is the weirdest, most fascinating beat out there. Think Twin Peaks meets The Hardy Boys, set in a damp, mysterious Canadian town.
This is slow-burn storytelling at its absolute peak. The grainy, hyper-detailed art makes the world feel lived-in and deeply unsettling. It’s the kind of mystery where you read it once to find out what happened, and then three more times just to spot the hidden clues tucked away in the background of the panels. It’s moody, atmospheric, and uniquely Canadian.
Recommended if you like: Stranger Things, Nancy Drew, David Lynch movies, or Ed Brubaker’s Friday.
5. Uncanny X-Men (Gail Simone & David Marquez)
Gail Simone is the undisputed master of writing the found family dynamic, and she found the heart of the X-Men in the bayous of New Orleans.
Instead of focusing on the big icons, this series looks at the “Outliers”; these are the mutants who don’t even fit in with other mutants. It gives the book a Southern Gothic soul that feels completely different from any other X-book on the stands. David Marquez’s art is arguably the best in the business right now; he can draw a massive action scene, but he’s even better at the small, emotional facial expressions that make you care about these characters. It’s a reminder that we don’t love the X-Men for their powers; we love them because they’re a family of misfits.
Recommended if you like: Secret Six, Southern Gothic aesthetics, and character-driven dramas.
4. Batman & Robin: Year One (Mark Waid & Chris Samnee)
You’d think after 80 years, we wouldn’t need another origin story, but Mark Waid proved us wrong. Batman & Robin: Year One is the new quintessential noir father-and-son drama for the Dynamic Duo.
It explores the fragile, often awkward dynamic of a man (Bruce Wayne) who doesn’t know how to be a father and a boy (Dick Grayson) who is trying to find his way after a tragedy. It’s poignant, sweet, and occasionally heartbreaking. Chris Samnee’s Gotham looks like a classic 1940s film set, making the city itself feel like a living character. This is the definitive early days story for a new generation of readers.
Recommended if you like: Batman: The Animated Series, the Waid/Samnee Daredevil run, or classic noir cinema.
3. Absolute Batman (Scott Snyder & Nick Dragotta)
For 80 years, we’ve known Bruce Wayne as the billionaire with the fancy cars and the loyal butler. But what if we tossed that trust-fund lifestyle in the trash? That’s exactly what Snyder and Dragotta have done in the new DC Absolute Universe. Here, Bruce Wayne is no longer a playboy socialite: he’s just a normal civil engineer, or is he?
The Absolute Batman is a massive, raw “brick” of a man who grew up without money, but with a massive chip on his shoulder. This Batman doesn’t have a high-tech cave; he has a Bat-Axe and a DIY attitude. He’s fighting a system that is fundamentally rigged against the working class. It’s visceral, it’s angry, and Nick Dragotta’s art is so high-energy that every punch feels like it’s actually breaking through the paper. This is the Batman for the “little guy.” A Batman for this generation, and it’s fantastic.
Recommended if you like: Batman: Year One, Sin City, or the gritty vibe of Matt Reeves’ The Batman (2022).
2. Absolute Wonder Woman (Kelly Thompson & Hayden Sherman)
Kelly Thompson completely reinvented Diana by stripping away the Princess title and turning her into a hardened survivor from “Hell.”
In this universe, there was no Paradise Island to protect her. Absolute Diana is a warrior who has had to scrap and claw for everything she has in a world that’s terrified of her power, while still somehow being the loving, caring Diana we love. Hayden Sherman’s art is jagged, high-energy, and unlike anything else DC is publishing. This version of Diana feels elemental; she’s a symbol of raw, desperate grace. She’s no longer a diplomat, but still a force of nature. It’s the most essential the character has felt in over a decade, and we can’t get enough of it.
Recommended if you like: The Witcher, survivalist fantasy, or Conan the Barbarian.
1. Absolute Martian Manhunter (Deniz Camp & Javier Rodriguez)
Let’s be real for a second: for decades, Martian Manhunter has just been ‘Green Superman.’ When he shows up, he usually just punches things and uses heat vision—maybe some telepathy if the writer is feeling inspired. Thankfully, Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez finally killed that trope, leaning into how truly alien he actually is, and we are eternally grateful for it.
Absolute Martian Manhunter is a masterpiece of creative audacity. Rodriguez uses the comic book medium to its full potential, experimenting with layouts that mimic the feeling of telepathy and the shifting of physical forms. While Camp pretty much covers every social and political problem out there right now. Immigration, the homeless crisis, mass shootings… it’s all in there. It’s this crazy mashup of the new world, the old world, and the alien. It’s psychedelic, haunting, and visually breathtaking. It turned a 70-year-old character into the most exciting thing in the industry. It’s weird, it’s bold, and it is the undisputed king of 2025.
Recommended if you like: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Grant Morrison’s Animal Man, or The Many Deaths of Laila Starr.
