Flash Gordon
Written and Drawn by Dan Schkade
Published by King Features
https://comicskingdom.com/flash-gordon
If his long-running webtoon Lavender Jack proved anything, it was that Dan Schkade knows how golden-age comics work, and how to take everything that’s great about them and present them for a modern audience. Long-since relegated to reruns, Schkade brings us into his new take on the classic hero in medias res, as we follow the Earthman on an exciting attack on Ming the Merciless that is equal parts rescue and climactic final battle. But when the smoke clears and Ming is seemingly defeated, what happens next? Following a classic newspaper serial format of six short comics and one full page a week, Schkade’s writing is thrilling without getting bogged down or getting confusing by the format, and his art is kinetic and clear in an incredibly tight space. The launch is only a couple of months old, so if you’ve ever been curious about this classic character but hesitant to pick up the originals, this is a fantastic place to start.
Birds of Prey
Written by Kelly Thompson
Drawn by Leonardo Romero
Colored by Jordie Bellaire
Lettered by Clayton Cowles
Published by DC Comics
Comics are all about reinvention, and this classic team on DC’s super-heroines is getting the band back together in the wake of 2020’s Birds of Prey feature film. Reinventing the team as less of a group of superheroes and more of a heist is always a compelling choice for me, and it puts classic leader Black Canary in an interesting and fun position. The dynamic for the team is fun and explosive, and the requisite inclusion of DC’s breakout star Harley Quinn is well-handled and feels natural. The rest of the team is made up of fun fan-favorites who rarely get their on spotlights like Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) and Big Barda, which is icing on a cool superhero cake.
Hawkgirl
Written by Jadzia Axelrod
Drawn by Amancay Nahuelpan
Colored by Adriano Lucas
Lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Published by DC Comics
This one is a gimme for my list. Hawkgirl isn’t a character I’m very familiar with, aside from a similar character from the early-00’s Justice League cartoon. Rising star Jadzia Axelrod clearly knows her stuff, though, and tells a compelling and satisfying story in six short issues. Accompanied by her own hit creation Galaxy, who debuted in a graphic novel in 2022, this is a showcase of cool high concepts and character-defining moments, delivered with the force of a superhero diving through a skylight. This is how you do legacy right, stitching character around (and sometimes through) established history while making something new and exciting. This was a six-issue mini, but I hope we see more of these characters (and this creative team) in the future. I could’ve read thirty issues, easy!
Fantastic Four
Written by Ryan North
Drawn by Iban Coello
Colored by Jesus Aburtov
Lettered by Joe Caramagna
Published by Marvel Comics
I will admit that of all of the various Marvel characters and teams, The Fantastic Four has always ranked near the bottom, personally. They have a fun cohesive design, and smarter writers than I have written about how cleanly their debut marks the end of the Golden Age and the rise of the Silver Age. But aside from The Thing, I’ve never really cared much for them. They feel a bit too rooted in their time and place of creation, products of the Cold War, a nuclear family for the nuclear age. They’ve never really caught with me, and Mr. Fantastic in particular has always struck me as being a cliched relic, a Man of Science accompanied by his literally invisible housewife. But Ryan North has managed to find the great in these characters by driving them out of their secure and comfortable Manhattan skyscraper and sending them out on a trip across the country. As an X-Men fan, making your heroes pariahs is always going to be a step in the right direction for me, and giving them some meaty super-science problems to tackle outside of the mad scientist of the week has done wonders. This is going to be a run for the ages, and it’s (hopefully) just getting started. This is North’s Squirrel Girl writing all grown up.
X-Men Red
Written by Al Ewing
Drawn by Stefano Caselli, Jacopo Camagni, and Yildiray Cinar
Colored by Federico Blee
Lettered by Ariana Maher
It was difficult to choose just one X-book to put on this list, but X-Men Red takes the edge in terms of drama, scope, and shout out loud superhero moments. X-Men books are all about being outsiders, but what could be more outsider than an ancient civilization of super-powered beings finally trying to learn how to be at peace after milllenia of war? Marvel has a collection of these types of hidden civilizations, most of which came from the Fantastic Four’s rogues gallery, in fact. But the Araki have something a bit extra that groups like the Atlanteans and the Inhumans just don’t have going for them. Ewing knows his stuff and brings it to the table. It helps that we aren’t really supposed to be sure where we stand with the Araki, with their strange powers and alien morality. But where Blackbolt and his kin feel like plantation owners, perpetually ruling over an underclass they don’t view as human, the Araki are Klingons, strange and difficult, but with a refined sense of honor that can be tested. Having characters like Storm and Sunspot to bounce against them, forming rivalries and friendships, helps. That the strange warlords, who felt like they might invade Earth at any moment felt like they were also on their own back foot, from antagonists like Uranos and Genesis helped immensely as well.
Hugh J. O'Donnell 