We look ahead and find a landscape of incredible comics. Phew. We're going to need them desperately.
Ah. This feels good. The Most Anticipated Comics of 2025 are here. Few other Comic Book Couples Counseling assignments are as rejuvenating as this one.
Have you listened to our latest episode yet? We're not playing when we say this year's mantra will be "Comics Will Mend Your Heart." This riff on the famous Jack Kirby quote is anything but cheeky. It's a desperate action to attain sustenance and positivity during a moment when our anxiety and stress are at an all-time high. Comics are our door. We will find you on one side and ourselves on the other.
Gratefully, we're coming off a year jammed with quality, life-affirming stories. Putting together The Stampies: Best Comics of 2024 Parts One and Two was a breeze. The only difficulty was narrowing the best books down to sixteen categories. Ah, but we're cheaters, and our big 50 Best Comics of 2024 is still yet to come. Look for that next week, as we're not done celebrating the year that was.
And we're just getting started celebrating our present and future with The Most Anticipated Comics of 2025. Below, you'll find the comics we are most anxious to devour, or at least the ones we know about. If you compare last year's The Most Anticipated Comics of 2024 with The Stampies, you'll find several correlating titles. Still, the best comics are usually the ones we don't even know about yet. Within the mysterious void lurks 2025's true excitement.
Absolute Martian Manhunter
Yesterday, we spent our morning listening to the latest Off Panel podcast, a chat between host David Harper and Challengers Comics + Conversation co-owner Patrick Brower. It's an exceptional exploration of comics retail in 2024, and one of the highlights was Brower detailing how DC's Absolute books practically saved their year. Obviously, the excitement around Absolute Batman, Absolute Wonder Woman, and Absolute Superman is high, but the joyous surprise was how they brought in new customers and lapsed customers. And yeah, we're hearing the same thing from the retailers around us. Even better, the Absolute books have been phenomenal, and we're excited for the line to expand in March with Absolute Martian Manhunter, Absoute Flash, and Absolute Green Lantern. Will the fever be as high? Odds say no, but come on, Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez on Absolute Martian Manhunter? Their Ultimates and Zatanna: Bring Down the House were two of last year's best comics, and we expect that energetic creativity to continue with this title. (Release Date: 3/26)
Battle Beast
Not sure we should have been all that surprised to see Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley return to the Invincible universe after the tremendous success of the animated series, but we were still shocked to see this news. Battle Beast is a prequel series set between Invincible issues 19 and 55, starring the titular brute on his quest to find a champion worthy of his own might. Very curious to see how Kirkman and Ottley can expand on that concept. (Release Date: 4/16)
Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: Rite of Spring
Speaking of the best books of 2024 - Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath. One sit with that comic would not do. We consumed it at least three times last year and will probably return to it perennially. One, the comic is gorgeous, an endless visual feast. Two, the story takes its readers through the entire spectrum of human/animal experience. It's scary, it's sad, it's profoundly disturbing, it's funny, and it carries more joy and warmth than you may have thought on your first pass. Now, IDW Publishing is gifting us a sequel? Life is good for the Wednesday Warrior. Special bonus: Oni Press will also publish Patrick Horvath's wicked "Eat the Rich" satire, Free For All, too. (Release Date: TBA)
Bowling with Corpses
Bowling with Corpses is the first big event of 2025. Mike Mignola is back at the drawing board, seemingly re-energized after years of creating the wildest character and creature designs for charities. The 114-page graphic novel, like his iconic Hellboy comics, is deeply inspired by various folklore but is not connected to the universe and rules of those Hellboy comics. Sorcerers, pirates, and devils, oh my! And it's all colored boldly by his longtime collaborator Dave Stewart. (Release Date: 1/21)
Bug Wars
Honey, I shrunk Conan the Barbarian. What else do you need to know? Jason Aaron and Mahmud Asrar unite for a violent epic raging in Slade Slaymaker's Alabama backyard. Bug Wars gets small but, in doing so, it delivers big, big action. We caught an advanced look at this first issue, and it's powerfully fun, trapping us in a prolonged joyful state long after we put the book down. Add this to the hot streak Jason Aaron has been on these last few years, and Asrar remains one of those artists who can seemingly do anything with any genre. (Release Date: 2/12)
The Cartoonists Club
When two comic book titans collide, you better take notice. Raina Telgemeier and Scott McCloud revolutionized the medium with Smile and Understanding Comics. Now, they're uniting to tell an all-ages adventure designed to celebrate and uplift the comics artform. The Cartoonists Club assembles a group of quirky creative children who embolden themselves through collaboration, making their own damn comics. Too often, we waste air debating the vitality of comic books. Walk into any Barnes and Noble children's section or local library, and you'll discover it's doing just fine. And we're betting The Cartoonists Club will continue to inspire many more generations to keep going. Rad. (Release Date: 4/1)
Drome
We've been waiting years for Jesse Lonergan's Drome to get a proper release - ever since he sold us a Hedra-like newspaper version of just a portion of the story at SPX. Perhaps most exciting, Drome will help First Second Books launch their new adult and young readers imprint, 23rd St. Books. The comic is a science fiction fantasy reveling in the Big Ideas - war, love, death - but told in a way that only the cartoonist behind Man's Best, Faster, and Miss Truesdale and the Fall of Hyperborea could tell it. And while you're waiting for its August release, go ahead and pick up Jesse Lonergan's The Unveiled Tarot 80-card deck, which drops next week. (Release Date: 8/19)
El Fuego
Our favorite comics are the ones that haunt us. Several years ago, we read The Hero by David RubÃn, and we have not been able to shake it from the forefront of our thoughts. Since then, we've read every RubÃn comic, and he's yet to let us down, and frequently, his comics become our favorite comics of whatever year they fall within. So, yeah, of course, we'll pick up his new original graphic novel from Oni Press. El Fuego is "a psychological, philosophical, and geographical odyssey through the last remaining days of planet Earth." We're unsure how this comic will leave us feeling, but we're excited to discover. (Release Date: 2/25)
Hobtown Mystery Stories Vol. 3: The Secret of the Saucer
Another one of last year's great surprises was the Hobtown Mystery Stories color reprints from Oni Press. These whacky Hardy Boys meets David Lynch comics from Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes looked killer in the original black and white, but colorist Jason Fischer-Kouhi injected another layer of POP into them. However, as much as we loved these new editions of The Case of the Missing Men and The Cursed Hermit, we'd already read those tales and are aching for new Hobtown Mystery Stories. Well, we may not have a release date, but previous press releases report that The Secret of the Saucer should arrive in 2025. UFO hijinks! Yes! (Release Date: TBA)
Monkey Meat: Summer Batch
Juni Ba is another cartoonist you don't skip. No matter the publisher, no matter the plot, you know you'll get a quality comic from Ba. The original Monkey Meat anthology from Image Comics was a vicious satire about this horrible planet we populate, confined to, and amplified by Monkey Meat Island. We're getting another five issues, and they're guaranteed to boil your blood while forcing tears from your eyes and laughter from your gut. This comic can hurt, but a mountain of thought comes with that pain. (Release Date: 3/5)
Out of Alcatraz
Over on our Patreon, we recently spoke with Tyler Crook about one of his favorite single issues, Mage: The Hero Discovered #6. Toward the end of that conversation, he teased an upcoming project that he couldn't spoil at the time but was clearly exciting to him. Well, the cat's out of the bag now. He's partnering with kick-ass writer Christopher Cantwell (The Blue Flame, She Could Fly) for Out of Alcatraz, a pulp adventure following two convicts on the run for their lives. The set-up is one of those irresistible narratives, but we're most curious about the mysterious handler who helps our heroes flee the infamous prison. There may be more to this genre than expected. (Release Date: 3/19)
Peacemaker Presents: The Vigilante/Eagly Double Feature
With Superman arriving in theaters on July 11, we think the cinematic DCU will very much be at the forefront of everyone's imagination. We're (pardon the pub) super happy with The Suicide Squad and the Peacemaker series now seeming to be the unofficial start of this movie universe since we were such massive fans of both. We're equally excited to see those stories continue in comic book form. Peacemaker Presents: The Vigilante/Eagly Double Feature contains two stories with filmmaker James Gunn acting as consultant. The first one, centered on Vigilante, is written by Tim Seeley and illustrated by Mitch Gerads. What little we've seen of that one already has us salivating. The second Eagly tale has Rex Ogle scripting and Matteo Lolli illustrating. We're expecting some seriously savage humor. (Release Date: 3/26)
Plague House
While he's slaying over at Mad Cave Studios with Spectrum (our current CBCC Book Club selection), Dave Chisholm is also gearing up to release a new collaboration, this time with Michael W. Conrad over at Oni Press. Plague House follows three ghost hunters as they investigate the notorious McCabe House, the site of a gnarly quadruple homicide. The hunters make contact with something on the other side and consider their pleas while the supposed mass murderer comfortably sits in his prison cell. If you've read Miles Davis and the Search for the Sound, Spectrum, or Enter the Blue, you know Chisholm makes magic on the page with soundless music. Can you imagine what that wizardry can do with the spooky supernatural? We sure can and cannot wait to see him lay it down in Plague House. (Release Date: April)
Pots and Panels: A Comic Cook Book Anthology
Okay, so this one is a little self-serving, but it's our first published comics work! Can you blame us? Pots and Panels: A Comic Cook Book is an anthology of food-related stories paired with legit recipes. Our story is called "The Vegetable." It's illustrated by Gerald von Stoddard, colored by Lovern Kindzierski, and lettered by Chuck Maly. The story covers sixteen years of our relationship, beginning with Lisa's panic attacks before exposing Brad's weird Vegetable-related phobia. We hope it's odd, compelling, and a little romantic. Gerald von Stoddard's art undeniably accentuates the horrific aspects of our fears and phobias. Of course, if that doesn't interest you, the smorgasbord of other tales from creators like Steve Niles, Phil Hester, Ande Parks, Hilary Barta, Ron Marz, Andy Kuhn, and dozens of others should. Kickstarter backers will receive Pots and Panels first, but hopefully, you'll see it in shops before the year ends. We also wrote a one-page story for Scott Morse's This Ink Runs Cold, which will have tales by Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Wagner, Stan Sakai, and other legends, but we're less sure that it will arrive in 2025. (Release Date: TBA)
Search and Destroy Volume 2
The second volume of Atsushi Kaneko's Search and Destroy continues reinventing Osamu Tezuka's iconic Dororo, trading feudal Japan for a science fiction dystopia. Published by Fantagraphics in partnership with our podcast pals at Mangasplaining, Search and Destroy easily stands out on the shelf. Kaneko's illustration and paneling scream from the page, proclaiming themselves as a bold new vision as anyone drawing inspiration from the "God of Manga" should. The comic contains tremendous, relevant, and attractive anger and thematically pushes into realms absent from Dororo. (Release Date: 3/25)
The Spectacular Spider-Man
So, typically, we wouldn't include a retrospective release in something like The Most Anticipated Comics of 2025. However, J.M. DeMatteis and Sal Buscema's The Spectacular Spider-Man finally getting an omnibus is a wrong becoming a right. For too damn long, these brilliant Spider-Man comics have been kept from our hands, and we're thrilled to imagine fresh 2025 eyes finding their way upon them. When folks think 90s Spidey, they're quick to flash upon Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, and Mark Bagley. And with good reason. BUT! For our money, Sal Buscema's Spectacular Spider-Man is the Superior 90s Spider-Man. Tombstone! Vermin! The Child Within Green Goblin! It's heartbreaking, as all the best Spidey stories should be, and when we think of Peter Parker and Mary Jane, we think of them from these comics. (Release Date: 7/29)
10,000 Ink Stains: A Memoir
Books about comics? That's our catnip! Jeff Lemire invites us into his comics-making process while offering glimpses into his life while making those comics. His illustrated memoir, 10,000 Ink Stains, will feature his classics (Essex County, Underwater Welder, Sweet Tooth, etc.) as well as unpublished material. If you're already a Lemire maniac, it's an obvious must-read, but we're guessing if you have any interest at all in what goes into putting your creativity on the page, 10,000 Ink Stains will demand your attention. (Release Date: 7/15)
Ultimate Wolverine
Wolverine as Winter Soldier is a pretty good selling point. Wolverine as Winter Soldier, written by That Texas Blood's Chris Condon and illustrated by Moon Knight's Alessandro Cappuccio? That's impossible to pass up. Marvel's Ultimate Universe is fun again, nearly twenty-five years after its creation. We love to see it. What we love to see even more is Marvel handing it off to creators with fire in their bellies and righteous ideas erupting from their imaginations. (Release Date: 1/15)
P.S. We would also include on this list whatever That Texas Blood's Jacob Phillips and Chris Condon are teasing on their Patreon, but with so little information, we're forced to leave it a warm placeholder.
Usagi Yojimbo: Ten Thousand Plums
For the character's 40th anniversary last year, Stan Sakai gave us one of the best Usagi Yojimbo arcs of the previous fifteen years, The Crow. That arc left us satisfied and grateful but not full. We're hungry for more and eager for the follow-up story, Ten Thousand Plums. The new five-issue run will actually cover two tales. One involving Usagi, his cousin Yukichi, and the bounty hunter Gen stumbling into the Shogun's prized plum trees and fending off the Shogun's troublesome strongman. The second tale, called "Taboo," is a tribute to Sakai's recently departed brother, Kenneth. In it, Usagi and Yukichi travel with a group of pilgrims searching for the goddess, "The Mother." Every new issue of Usagi is a chance for someone to start reading one of the GREAT comic book series. (Release Date: 3/5)
Welcome to Twilight: From the World of Minor Threats
Jordan Blum, Patton Oswalt, and Scott Hampton's Minor Threats Universe has quickly become the most exciting new superhero universe in comics, and it's lured many cool creators to its playground. Please tell us you read last year's Barfly entry from Kyle Starks and Ryan Browne. Then, tell us you listened to our episode with Blum, Oswalt, and Starks all about it. Okay, good. Back to Welcome to Twilight. This new anthology series features several writers and artists getting to party in the Minor Threats realm, with the first issue written by Matt Fraction and illustrated by Michael Allred. Following them, you'll see Brian Michael Bendis, Soo Lee, Gail Simone, Gene Ha, Gerry Duggan, and Mark Torres follow. (Release Date: 3/12)
There you have it. So, what did we miss? Let us know. Email: cbccpodcast@gmail.com
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