WWAC’s Favorite Big Press Comics of 2022

2022 Favorite Big Press banner designed by Nola Pfau

2022 was a wild ride for comic book fans, taking readers from the center of the Earth to mutant cities on Mars. Narrowing down our favorite big press comics of the year was a monumental task, but with help from Laila Starr and Nubia, Queen of the Amazons, we were up to the challenge. Just as the WWAC crew chronicled our favorite manga of 2022, here are some of our favorite big press comics of 2022.

A.X.E.: Judgment Day

VC’s Clayton Cowles (letterer), Ivan Fiorelli (artist), Kieron Gillen (writer), Marte Gracia (colorist), Valerio Schiti (artist)
Marvel Comics

AXE: Judgment Day cover by Mark Brooks

The obligatory summer superhero event was transformed into an ornate and dazzling morality play in Kieron Gillen and Valerio Schiti’s monumental Judgment Day. The first inter-company crossover for the X-Men in the Krakoa era and the rousing conclusion to Gillen’s now-essential Eternals run, Judgment Day had a lot to prove, to the reader as well as the Progenitor—a god Frankenstein’d out of a Celestial corpse by Mr. Sinister and Iron Man, now determined to judge every being on Earth for their sins. But if you’re reading the WWAC favorite big press comics list, it’s not a spoiler to say I give it a colossal thumb’s up.

Stunningly drawn with apocalyptic fervor by Schiti, Judgment Day is a surprisingly intimate spectacle. When all is said and done, it’s not the punches I remember or the shocking deaths and resurrections – it’s a quiet moment between Captain America and a woman named Jada, sitting together, drinking coffee.

Oh, and Syne the Memotaur, the million-year-old Eternal death machine who just wants to write a poetry zine? Theeeeee new character of 2022.

—Kayleigh Hearn

It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth

Zoe Thorogood (writer and artist)
Image Comics

It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth

What does it mean to be called “the future of comics” when you can’t even imagine your own future? Writer-artist Zoe Thorogood’s “auto-bio-graphic-novel” is a fractured, kaleidoscopic manifestation of her thoughts and anxieties as her life unravels over six tumultuous months.

Simultaneously navigating a blossoming comics career, a long-distance relationship with an older man, and her suicidal depression—all amid the COVID-19 pandemic—Thorogood is unsentimental and unsparing, but inescapably brilliant. Who else would put their publisher’s pull quote (“Poignant and thought-provoking”) over a full-page spread of themselves taking a leak while their half-naked friend (who also has the head of a pigeon, by the way) lies passed out on the bathroom floor? An uneasy marriage of mood and style, It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth is unlike any autobiographical comic you’ve ever read before.

—Kayleigh Hearn

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr

Filipe Andrade (artist), AndWorld Design (letterer), Inês Amaro (color assists), Ram V. (writer)
BOOM! Studios

Many Deaths of Laila Starr

Whenever something is really hyped up, I tend to become wary—so rarely does the thing live up to the hype for me. That is absolutely not the case with The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, and this book, which I tried to come to with as few expectations as possible, blew me away. This is a stunningly gorgeous exploration of life itself as the creative team weaves together a story about Death, who has been freshly retired from Godhood with the impending world-altering discovery of immortality. In her new mortal body, Death tries to stop the mortal who will make the discovery, only to meet her demise many times along the way.

It’s hard to add more to this without giving too much away and I truly feel like this story needs to be experienced. Give yourself time to really take in the beautiful pages with the intricate line art, lush colours, and top-notch character and world designs. To me, The Many Deaths of Laila Starr is on par with Daytripper by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá and would make an excellent reading double-feature together.

—Stephanie Cooke

Mamo Vol. 1

Sas Milledge (writer and artist)
BOOM! Studios

Mamo cover

I hadn’t heard anything about Mamo before borrowing it from hoopla, but the art spoke to me. Likewise, with the book itself, I wasn’t familiar with Sas Milledge’s work but was immediately sold as soon as I turned to the first page. Mamo is the story of a young hedge witch who returns to her hometown to face her past and winds up embroiled in the town’s woes as magic and the Fae have begun causing mass amounts of chaos. When Jo Manalo pleads with the witch for her help, she begrudgingly agrees as they work to find out the root of what’s going on.

One line from Mamo stuck with me and encapsulates (in a nutshell) one of the big themes of the story: ‪“Family isn’t about being the same. It’s about looking after one another.” And I’d say that if you want it condensed further, the book is a mix of Bloom by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau, Witchlight by Jessi Zabarsky, with a dash of Studio Ghibli’s (and/or Diana Wynne Jones) Howl’s Moving Castle. Mamo is beautiful in every way and well-worth reading.

—Stephanie Cooke

Marvel Meow

Nao Fuji (writer and artist)
Marvel Unlimited

marvel meow

Take the time to sift through the digital Infinity Comics on Marvel Unlimited, and you’ll find enough gems – from the mischievous adventures of Jeff the Shark to a Patsy Walker romcom written by the legendary Trina Robbins – to bedazzle your own Infinity Gauntlet. My favorite Infinity Comic of 2022 was Marvel Meow, the continuation of Nao Fuji’s cat-centric comic compendium from 2021. This all-ages series begins with Captain Marvel’s pet cat (well, flerken), Chewie, and her playdate with Winter Soldier’s cat Alpine and Black Widow’s cat Liho, which quickly devolves into apartment-destroying chaos worthy of Marvel’s worst supervillains.

Further adventures see superheroes like Spider-Man and Wolverine becoming unlikely cat-sitters, and cameos abound from super-pets in all corners of the Marvel Universe. Marvel Meow bursts with visual gags like Chewie chasing Cyclops’ optic blasts like he’s a mutant laser-pointer (no flerkens were harmed in the making of this comic) or the cats shredding Mr. Sinister’s massive cape. Nao Fuji’s skillful combination of action and humor and her swift-moving set pieces are ideal for the scrolling Infinity Comics format — though I would absolutely love a physical copy to read as I curl up on the couch with my own, non-superpowered cats.

—Kayleigh Hearn

Nubia: Queen of the Amazons

Vita Ayala (writer), Becca Carey (letterer), Daryl Banks (artist), Colleen Doran (artist), Alex Guimarães (colorist), John Livesay and Mark Morales (inkers), Alitha Martinez (artist), Marguerite Sauvage (artist), Jill Thompson (artist), Stephanie Williams (writer)
DC Comics

Nubia Queen of the Amazons

Let me shout: Queen Nubia Supremacy! I fell in love with Nubia’s second miniseries by a creative team that includes faves like writer Stephanie Williams and artist Alitha Martinez. Nubia, a beloved figure in comics, has not always had the spotlight, but here she’s an ever-evolving character. It has been a joy seeing her grow into a capable leader, an honored comrade, and the head of the next chapter of Themyscira’s future.

Seeing Nubia with a fuller Amazonian family is so glorious. My only criticism is that I just wanted more than a miniseries. I really, really fell in love with her past lives, like her queer adventures in 1970s America and her incarnation as a princess. Strong continuity, smart writing, and amazing artwork featuring a diverse bunch of Amazons made Nubia: Queen of the Amazons a must-read.

—Carrie McClain

Squire

Sara Alfageeh (artist), Nadia Shammas (writer)
HarperCollins Publishers

Cover of Squire by artist Sara Alfageeh and writer Nadia Shammas depicting protagonist Aiza.
Cover of Squire by artist Sara Alfageeh and writer Nadia Shammas depicting protagonist Aiza.

Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas’s graphic novel Squire is a low fantasy coming-of-age story about teenage recruits to an imperial army supposedly intent on “preserving the peace” of an arid land inhabited by different ethnic groups. We see this world through the eyes of Aiza, a fourteen-year-old from a minority ethnicity who intends to become a knight in order to gain citizenship and thereby ameliorate the poverty of her marginalized community.

Aiza’s fellow knights-in-training are fascinating characters, especially her friend Husni, who would much prefer to be a historian than a soldier and occasionally threatens to steal the show with his witty sense of humor and expressive body language. When Aiza begins training with the grizzled retired knight Doruk, the delicate layers of the story start to unpeel as Aiza’s dream of assimilation is shattered by the realities of a collapsing empire.

Nadia Shammas’s writing is powerful and nuanced, and Sara Alfageeh’s art builds a world beautifully inspired by our own. Adrienne Resha’s review of Squire here on WWAC unpacks the historical and contemporary cultural references behind the Middle Eastern and Arab-American inspirations of the graphic novel, and you can check out a few preview pages on the artist’s website.

—Kathryn Hemmann

X-Men Red

Al Ewing (writer), Stefano Caselli (art), Frederico Blee (colors), VC’s Ariana Maher (letterer/production)
Marvel Comics

Al Ewing and Stefano Caselli, along with colorist Frederico Blee and letterer VC’s Ariana Maher and the rest of the guest creatives, have created a tremendous run in just ten issues of X-Men Red. Ewing is a master of finding dangling plot threads and lost characters weaving them into galactic storylines that manage to fit into the wider Marvel universe. What’s more, he does it with deft aplomb even with interruption from the A.X.E. event.

The highlight of Red is of course Storm; she’s regal, commanding, and finally something other than untouchable and stagnant. Just as she’s not content to rest on her laurels, Ewing and Caselli waste no time in building up the world of Arakko and its inhabitants. Caselli’s art is dramatic and the costumes pull, like Ewing’s story does, from bits of the past while pointing toward the future. It’s that forward motion for Storm that makes Red feel so fresh; she’s a beloved and revered character but that reverence can lock her in place. A book full of beautiful motion and beginnings and endings, X-Men Red was able to combine new characters and old ones into something fresh for the age beyond Krakoa.

—Kat Overland

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Kayleigh Hearn

Kayleigh Hearn

Still waiting for her Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters acceptance letter. Bylines also at Deadshirt, Ms-En-Scene, The MNT, PanelxPanel, and Talk Film Society.

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