Staff Picks: Our 10 Favorite Comics from 2015

2015 has been a great year for comics – we got two reboots from Marvel and DC, Image kept pumping out winners, and some of the best series from 2014 kept going strong.

It’s also been a great year for Shortboxed! We managed to hit lots of cons up and down the California coast, made it up to Seattle for Emerald City Comic Con, visited some comic book shops overseas, and we got to attend the mecca for comic book geeks, San Diego Comic-Con. We also added another member to the Shortboxed crew this year, Jeremy, who’s been crushing it with his reviews and opinion pieces! All this on top of reading some amazing stories from our favorite creators this year! So thank you to all of our readers and followers on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook for allowing us to geek out with you and connect over this passion of ours.

We put our heads together and each listed our favorite comic books of the year. As expected, some overlapped and some were unique to each of us. This list is not a top 10 best comic books of the year, but a comprehensive list of our favorite comics books of the year, and we think it represents us fairly well.

Some interesting facts about our Top 10:

6 of our Top 10 are returning from our Top 10 2014 list!
7 of the 10 books are from Image Comics (same number as 2014)
Rick Remender and Brian K. Vaughan each made the list twice, respectively.
Only 2 books released their first issue in 2015, the rest were ongoing series.

On to the list!

10. Star Wars

Can’t have a Top 10 of 2015 without mentioning Star Wars! We were busy all year reading every Star Wars series and we even reviewed a few of them! Check out our Star Wars coverage:

9. Birthright

Birthright drops to #9 on our list from #5 in 2014. Great series with an amazing fantasy world that really draws you in. We reviewed Birthright and highly recommend it for anyone who’s a fan of fantasy and magic and mystery and adventure.

8. We Stand On Guard

The long-awaited mini-series from Brian K. Vaughan! “100 years from now, a heroic band of Canadian civilians must defend their homeland from invasion…by the United States of America [with] hyper-detailed combat between badass freedom fighters and giant f***ing robots.” Definitely worth a read!

7. Copperhead

Three out of our four editors read Copperhead, and for good reason! We wrote a review on Copperhead volume 1, saying, “If there’s one thing I’m a sucker for, it’s space westerns. From Firefly to Star Wars to Guardians of the Galaxy, nothing beats a good old fashion anything goes in the old wild wild west.”

6. Thor

Thor claimed our top spot in 2014, but still manages to stay in our Top 10. Thor ended after only a few issues, then got restarted with a new #1 issue post-Secret Wars. It’s still a great series, and the new Thor is just as badass as ever! Check out our review of the all-important first issue of Thor.

5. Wytches

Wytches actually jumped up one spot on our list to #5 from #6 in 2014. The main reason being that Scott Snyder and Jock managed to wrap up volume 1 and kept the story gripping and creepy. Last year I wrote, “It’s very rare for a comic book to actually be scary, but Scott Snyder and Jock have done just that. I can sum up this book in one word – creepy. Don’t read this book alone in the dark. You’ve been warned.” I still feel the same way a year later, even more so.

4. Black Science

Black Science is an ongoing series that started in 2014, but volumes 2 & 3 came out in 2015 and really pushed the story forward. It’s an incredibly fast-paced, action-packed, mind-bending, dimension-warping, time traveling sci-fi thriller written by Rick Remender and illustrated by Matteo Scalera, featuring some of the most beautiful artwork you’ll see in a comic book. If you want to learn more, I wrote a review on Black Science volumes 1 & 2.

3. Ms. Marvel

A book that needs no introduction, Ms. Marvel is one of the most important comic books to come out in the modern era, period. I reviewed Ms. Marvel volume 1 and said, “Ms. Marvel is bigger than the book itself – it represents a shift in the landscape of superhero comics, and will usher in a new generation of comic book readers, many of whom will be young girls who look up to Kamala Khan. She’s here and she’s not going anywhere.” Last year it also landed in the #3 spot!

2. Deadly Class

Another one from Rick Remender on the list! Deadly Class made the biggest splash in our 2015 list, jumping up from #10 in 2014 all the way up to #2! The main reason? Every editor here at Shortboxed reads Deadly Class and loves it, simple as that. If you still aren’t convinced, read our review of Deadly Class, where we say, “Deadly Class is Kill Bill meets Dazed and Confused meets Saved By The Bell. Did you hear that? Highly-trained, deadly teens attending an assassin high school get into wacky hi-jinks. But instead of ruining a dance off at The Max… well, you know… what assassins do. With a Remender story and Wes Craig’s beautiful art Deadly Class is one of my favorite titles of the year.”

1. Saga

Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples have been blessing the comic book world with Saga since 2012, and they are showing no signs of slowing down. It’s one of the best comic books series to be written – ever. We had Saga at #2 in 2014, but this year it takes the top spot. Each one of us is a hardcore Saga fan, and Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples took the story in a different direction this year, forcing readers to examine the family dynamic and truly care about the fates of our favorite characters.

That’s it for 2015! There were so many great books that came out this year, so it was hard to narrow the list down to just 10! Each of us has our own unique tastes and preferences, so coming up with a comprehensive list that represents Shortboxed as a whole is tough. There are so many amazing books not in the Top 10, simply because only 1 or 2 of us may have had it on our list, but consensus doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t a good book. Read what you enjoy!

Just for fun, here are the other books we had on our lists that didn’t make the cut:

Wicked + The Divine
Low
DC Bombshells
Papergirls
Tokyo Ghost
Hawkeye
Batman
Amazing Spider-Man
Batgirl
Spider-Gwen
Gotham Academy
Life After
Ody-C
Hellboy and the BPRD
Birthright
Letter 44
Copra
The Rise of Aurora West
The Force Awakens – Shattered Empire

What are you favorite books from 2015! Let us know – sound off in the comments or reach out to us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook!

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