The Best Artist of 2025: HAYDEN SHERMAN "BATMAN: DARK PATTERNS" "ABSOLUTE WONDER-WOMAN"

 

DC's Absolute line was the hottest thing in comics this year, but it wouldn't have worked if the artwork in the books was lousy. While I wasn't the biggest fan of Absolute Wonder Woman, the artwork by Hayden Sherman was fantastic and fit the mythic world perfectly. Sherman also finished drawing the twelve issue Batman: Dark Patterns, a book that was much better thanks to great artwork. Sherman's art is cartoony in a sense but vibrant. It jumps off the page. He plays with panel sizes and different viewpoints which always makes reading the books he works on unique and intriguing. I had no idea who this artist was a year ago, and now he's a fucking star. 

The Best Writer of 2025: MATTHEW ROSENBERG "WHAT'S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE?" "WE'RE TAKING EVERYONE DOWN WITH US"

 

    I've been a fan of writer Matthew Rosenberg since he wrote the comic book We Can Never Go Home. His mini-series 4 Kids Walk into a Bank was a hell of a lot of fun and What's the Furthest Place From Here? has been one of my favorite comic books since it premiered in 2021. The only reason I never named him the best writer of the year before was because he always ended up writing forgettable, pretty much by-the-numbers books for Marvel and DC that never interested me. How can such a great writer keep knocking it out of the park for Image and Black Mask but write average stuff for the Big Two? I guess he's just better when he gets to do what he wants, and in 2025 he definitely got to do what he was best at. He wrote two issues of What's the Furthest Place From Here? that were just as entertaining, weird, and engrossing as all of the others. His six issue mini-series, We're Taking Everyone Down With Us, was 2025's book of the year. It was hilarious and wild and a so much fun. Both of these books are so creative and so absorbing. The dialogue, the action, the characters, and the worlds brought to life are such a breath of fresh air. I do hope someday he can finally do what he's been doing on the indies and finally get free reign to make a Spider-Man or Superman book his own and, you know, actually make it awesome.

The Best Comic Book of 2025: WE'RE TAKING EVERYONE DOWN WITH US

 

    It's not a surprise that the best comic book of 2025 was written by Matthew Rosenberg. His book What's the Furthest Place From Here? was the best comic book of 2024 and 2022. His book 4 Kids Walk into a Bank was the best comic book of 2017. I guess I can say I'm a big fan. We're Taking Everyone Down With Us was a six issue mini-series that's a bit hard to describe. It's sci-fi, yes, but also about spies, about a family, specifically a father/daughter relationship, and it's both violent and hilarious. It's basically similar to The Island of Dr. Moreau in that a brilliant and villainous doctor has an island with a bunch of weird creations. His island mostly has robots, though, and he ends up uploading his consciousness into a robot when a group of evil spies attacks the compound. He escapes as a robot along with his daughter, who has been scientifically modified to become superior. It's a lot. All of the spy stuff feels like it's from the classic James Bond era. And there's also the daughter's mother, who is akin to a Dr. Doom like villain that controls a country. The book is fucking nuts but also totally compelling and super entertaining. It's also a total blast. I always know when a comic is great when I can't wait for the next issue to come out and I eagerly read it right away. This was one of those. The artwork, by Stefano Landini, fit the 1960's type of sci-fi & James Bond era perfectly. This was wild, funny, bonkers, thrilling, visceral, and totally alive. I loved it.

READING THE CLASSICS: BATMAN #619

Published on September 24th, 2003

    The website Bleeding Cool posted an article a few weeks ago about how comic book stores have seen a rise in popularity in the last year. A few workers at comic book stores commented that it was true and that it was mostly younger kids and that they weren't buying single issues. One new item that's apparently very popular is the DC compact trade paperbacks. They're meant to copy the Japan anime trade paperbacks, which are smaller and cheaper than the usual American comic book trade paperbacks. One of the first DC compact books released was Batman: Hush (the first was Batman: Court of Owls and the second was Watchmen). For $9.99 you can get a small version of all 12 issues of the "Hush" storyline, which is a good price considering single comic books these days are usually $3.99 or $4.99. The "Hush" storyline is a popular Batman story, and I guess will always be. They haven't made a live action movie about it yet, but they did make an animated one. There's been two sequels that I know of, one currently still running (Batman #162, which is technically #927, and part 5 of "Hush 2" is coming out this week). This is part 12 of "Hush" and the big finale. Since it's so popular even all these years later, is it actually any good? No, not really. The fantastic Jim Lee art is truly what saves it. The story is a muddled mess. In this finale, we finally learn that Hush is Dr. Thomas Elliot, which was fairly obvious all along. The reason he went after Batman is because he tried to kill his parents years ago but Bruce's father, who was a doctor, saved his mother. This meant that Tommy had to wait until his mom died of cancer to get his inheritance. Kind of a lame reason to become a villain, truth be told. Hush gets shot by Two-Face, who was surgically repaired by Dr. Elliot. Two-Face is now just a regular, one-faced good guy. Hush falls off a bridge and is swept out to sea. There's more in this issue: The Riddler had cancer and was cured by Dr. Elliot so he helped him go after Batman. Hush put a subliminal message onto Batman's computer so that he would think about Tommy Elliot. Dumb. A few people noted that the sequel, "Heart of Hush," that Paul Dini wrote and was in Detective Comics, is a better story. I guess we'll have to check that one out (a lot of people online rave about Dini being one of the best Batman writers). And I'll have to start reading "Hush 2" which started this year. It's so late that a new Batman book already started. That means that last week Batman #3 came out and this week Batman #162 comes out. And they wonder why comics are so fucking hard to get into. ** (out of ****)

READING THE CLASSICS: BATMAN #618

Published on August 27th, 2003

    In this issue, the penultimate issue of the "Hush" storyline, Jason Todd confronts Batman and they have a fight in a graveyard. Jason Todd was killed by The Joker, so it's strange that he's alive. Well, it turns out it's just Clayface pretending to be Jason Todd. The funny part is that DC actually did bring back Jason Todd from the dead in 2005 and he's currently still alive in the comics. Another amusing anecdote is that because Jason Todd wasn't that popular of a character in the 80's, DC decided to do a fan poll asking if he should die or not. Is it any surprise that in this bloodthirsty world the fans voted to kill him off? So they did! The Joker beat him to death with a crowbar in 1988's Death in the Family. Which always makes me laugh when comics decide to kill a character off. What a joke, because you know they'll be back. It also makes reading books like Batman confusing as hell. There seems to be a new Robin every decade, and they're all still running around. One is Red Hood, one is Nightwing, one is Robin. I'm sure there are others. Hush, the actual big bad in this story, finally shows up at the end of this issue. There's also a strange character, Harold, that shows up only to be shot dead by Hush. Harold was a mute that apparently helped Batman in the Batcave years ago. What? Did he sweep the floor? Harold, of course, was brought back from the dead by writer Scott Snyder in 2003. This from the Batman Fandom website: "Harold has two major disabilities: he is mute therefore cannot speak, as well as having a misshapen body, much like a hunchback, even his mother being repelled by him." He "was Batman's trusty engineer and the resident mechanic of the Batcave." Honestly? That has to be the stupidest idea for a character ever. I'm sure some writer was just thinking that, well, the Batmobile needs a mechanic and can't really just go to the local car mechanic. The problem with that logic is that this is a superhero world, it's not supposed to be realistic! So we have one more issue of this "Hush" storyline. This issue is at least basically just one fight sequence with good Jim Lee art so it's fast paced and fairly entertaining. I started reviewing this storyline in April and it's already October and I still haven't finished it yet. That probably tells you how great I think it is, though. **1/2

READING THE CLASSICS: BATMAN #617

Published on July 30th, 2003

    Two weeks ago, DC published a new Batman #1 with writer Matt Fraction and artist Jorge Jiminez. It wasn't very good to be honest. Hopefully, it'll get better. The strangest thing is that the book was supposed to follow "Hush 2" but that got delayed, so for the next few months there's going to be two main Batman books with different numbers (Batman #3 and Batman #162 are both coming out on November 5th). I don't know how they're going to figure out the legacy numbering in the end but it's kind of a mess. It probably doesn't help that everyone online keeps mentioning how terrible "Hush 2" is. I can't exactly say the original "Hush" storyline is that great, either. The art by Jim Lee is good and you get to see all the famous villains (Scarecrow shows up in #617). The story, though, is getting ridiculous. At first it seemed to just be a murder mystery. Now, who the fuck knows what's going on? In this issue, Catwoman gets invited to the Bat Cave. Catwoman fights with Robin. Catwoman then jumps on a motorcycle and ends up getting in a fight with Huntress, who also shows up riding a motorcycle. Scarecrow eventually jumps on Huntress' motorcycle. Maybe Jim Lee just really felt like drawing motorcycles that month. That, or writer Jeph Loeb was just like, "Wouldn't it be cool if there's a fight between everyone riding motorcycles!" Eventually Hush kidnaps Robin and Batman confronts them in a cemetery. Hush reveals that he's Jason Todd, an ex-Robin that's supposed to dead. First off, there's way too many Robins. The real Robin in this issue is Tim Drake. The original Robin was Dick Grayson. The Robin these days is Damian Wayne. I'm sure there have been others considering Batman has been around since 1939 and Robin showed up in 1940. The art in this issue is a little sloppy and rushed in parts, but it still looks dynamic and in-your-face. There's still two more parts of "Hush" to go and this storyline feels like it's fallen apart. *1/2

READING THE CLASSICS: BATMAN #616

 Published on June 25th, 2003

    It's pretty crazy that the sequel to this storyline didn't come out until this year. It was popular and a big hit when it came out in 2003. You would think they would want to do a sequel pretty soon after it came out, not 22 years later. And nobody is talking about "Hush 2." The books everyone seems to be talking about these days are the Absolute books from DC and the Ultimate books from Marvel. They're the same thing: alternate universe books. It is kind of amusing that the most popular books from both companies are set in alternate universes. That tells you something about how great the regular books are. 

    While "Hush" is entertaining and pretty to look at, the big problem is that it's so scattershot. Every issue seems to just be showcasing one of Batman's villains, so there's no real cohesion to the story. This issue features Ras Al Ghul and Talia Al Ghul. Batman knows that someone is manipulating everything around him and decides that it's probably Ras Al Ghul since he's rich. Okay. To get to Ras Al Ghul, Batman kidnaps his daughter, Talia. While Batman goes to find Ras, Catwoman keeps an eye on Talia but ends up getting beaten up by Talia's assassin, Lady Shiva. Meanwhile, Harvey Dent shows up in Jim Gordon's bedroom to let him know that he's not Two-Face anymore and he's a good guy now. I mean...way to showcase that you're a good guy...showing up in a dude's bedroom when he's asleep. 

    This is one of the weaker issues of this storyline. While Hush is obviously pretending to be Harvey Dent, we're not supposed to know that yet. And this is part 9 of 12. I feel like we're going to end up with a rushed conclusion since the whole mystery behind Hush hasn't even really been hinted at yet. Oh, well. *1/2