Welcome to the Multiversity Year in Review for 2020! While this has been, by many accounts, a terrible year, there were a number of fantastic comics released in 2020, and over the next ten days, we’ll be highlighting our favorites across 25 categories. If you want to give your thoughts on our picks or share your own, feel free to do so in the comments!
Best Licensed Comic
To be clear, lots of great comics are licensed. There’s not a year that goes by where truly wonderful superhero comics don’t earn a spot among our favorites. This isn’t the space for that. This is about the other kind of licensed comic- stories that tie in to non-comics media franchises. Whether it’s a story continuing a book series, a TV show, a popular film, a video game, or even more esoteric media, there is a special craft that goes into adapting a comic from something else. So we made it a whole category. These are our picks for 2020’s best licensed comics.
5. Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins
Starting our list here at number five is a sequel to the 2017 Dark Horse miniseries, “Critical Role Vox Machina Origins.” Wrapping up its final two issues in 2020 (plus a beautiful Dark Horse hardcover and trade paperback), the books were able to provide Critical Role starved fans a much needed alternative, as the Twitch-streamed show saw a three month hiatus during the pandemic.
For those who haven’t heard, Critical Role is a Twitch-streamed series where a bunch of “nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons.” The largest creative force is Overwatch’s ‘McCree’ himself, Matt Mercer, dungeon master for the show. With his breathtaking ability to craft a compelling story, he and his voice actor friends have helped breathe new life into D&D for the next generation of nerds, breaking Twitch Stream and Kickstarter records in the process.
The comic series, “Vox Machina Origins,” and this newest volume penned by Jody Houser and art by Olivia Samson (with creative input by Mercer), is a look at the “show” before it was a show, essentially adapting the long-running home D&D campaign of the first season of Critical Role before it became the internet phenomenon it was destined for.
What makes this prequel series special, however, is not that it just gives diehard fans an early glimpse at some of their favorite characters in situations only hinted at in the show, but the fact that you never get the sense of any of that same magic, that same fun dynamic the cast has together, is missing. In the capable hands of Houser and Samson, the series feels very much like an extension of the series, a natural and necessary supplement to the “core” material, and when dealing with licensed properties, you can’t ask for more. – Johnny Hall
4. Vampire: The Masquerade
Which series has the best vampire lore? How about all of them? That’s the secret behind Vampire: The Masquerade, a franchise that has been going strong on and off since 1991. It posits that all the different types of creatures of the night- from the ghoulish Nosferatu, to the broody Toreadors, to the blackhearted Tremere- are different breeds of bloodsucker. All of them unlive in a world full of political intrigue and dangerous magic. And now there’s a wonderfully dark comic you can read every month to scratch that kindred itch.
The “Vampire: The Masquerade” comics are written by Tim Seeley, Tini Howard and Blake Howard, with art by Devmalya Pramanik, Nathan Gooden, David W. Mack and Aaron Campbell, colored by Addison Duke, and lettered by AndWorld. It’s a big team, but it’s a big detailed world. The comic smartly keeps the story small, focusing on power struggles in small Midwestern American cities. Seeley and the two Howards clearly love the setting and genre. Every issue has a messed up use for blood or a clever rumination on malaise of eternal life. The art team captures the style that has existed in the source books and video games since the 90s. And every issue is filled with character sheets and rules you can use in your RPG game.
Continued belowThere’s a version of this comic that chooses to focus on the big parts of the story. The secret history of Caine, the flood that destroyed the ancient Vampire city. The series smartly eschews all that in favor of situations that would make for a good tabletop game. You can’t help but feel like the creators played this out before adapting it for our reading pleasure. The World of Darkness is a wonderful one to tell stories in, and having a comic series is a gift. A series this good might be a gift none of us deserve. -Jake Hill
3. Life is Strange
Like comics, video games often have a shared universe that can be hard to crack for those new to the property. The challenge in that transition is in using the universe to create new stories that honor what fans of the video game love, while making those stories self-contained enough for those comics readers not familiar with the source material.
What “Life Is Strange” has is a universe that embraces both of these ideals. A simple concept – – the idea of the butterfly effect – – opens itself up to worlds of possibilities, literally and figuratively. This series does not bog itself down in itself, not referencing back too much to Max and Chloe’s digital adventures, but using them to propel the story forward. No “what might have been,” no alternative histories.
But it’s not just the construction of the larger Life is Strange universe that makes this story succeed. Writer Emma Vieceli knows how to write Gen Z: self-aware, but not precocious. Teens that sound like teens, even if they are a little wiser than the average teen, proves incredibly refreshing. Taking the look of a video game from pixels to page is the no-brainer part of the process, but also can be open to error if it isn’t treated with care. Claudia Leonardi and Andrea Izzo show they studied this video game inside and out to get the visual world just right, all while bringing in small touches that lend and extend tone, themes, and symbolism.
We’re now on the fourth volume of “Life is Strange” comics. Not bad for a series that was solicited two years ago as a four issue miniseries. – Kate Kosturski
2. Avatar: The Last Airbender — Katara and the Pirate’s Silver
“Katara and the Pirate’s Silver” may be the purest distillation of Avatar: The Last Airbender that we’ve ever had in comic book form. That sounds a little dramatic, but I truly think the book works on every level as both a comic book and as an extension of a licensed property that could only be made today.
A big part of Faith Erin Hicks and Peter Wartman’s success has to do with their adherence to the show’s narrative and style. Where other licensed comics keep their chronology hazy to avoid clashing with the main property’s canon, this book is incredibly specific (it takes place in between episodes 9 and 10 of season 2) to ensure accurate characterization. This allows the creators to tap right into the developments the characters were going through at that time and explore some of the nuances that the show couldn’t. Hicks and Wartman also capture the tone of the show better than any prior Avatar comic, filling this story with equal parts adventure, societal exploration, and glorious visual gags.
But the book’s strongest aspect is where it tells a story that could only be told today. In the B-plot, Aang, Sokka, and Toph capture a young Fire Nation soldier who has been brainwashed by Fire Nation propaganda. True to character, Aang attempts to challenge the soldier’s misinformation as opposed to letting him go, leading to conflict and comedy. This theme of misinformation is so distinctly 2020, yet with the expert characterization from Hicks and Wartman, it feels like it belongs in the show from 15 years ago.
That’s the real magic of a licensed comic, and I can’t wait for some similar magic from this creative team. -Nick Palmieri
1. Blade Runner 2019
“Blade Runner 2019” is a worthy follow-up to the original film, a pulpy detective thriller that also reflects issues like wealth, disability, and migration. Writers Michael Green and Mike Johnson, alongside artist Andres Guinaldo and colorist Marco Lesko, told a strong standalone story about Aahna “Ash” Ashina, a Blade Runner-turned-guardian, while subtly setting up the line of replicants we met in 2049, and opening up the universe by finally taking us off-world.
Continued belowGuinaldo’s pencils are superb, gritty and grotty yet glamorous as Blade Runner should be: he can draw physically attractive characters, but not render them absurdly so, fleshing them out with visible wrinkles, scars, or hair follicles, reminders that they are living, breathing residents of this scorched world. The action is brutal and punchy, but never gratuitously so, in keeping with the original, and the sheer amount of architectural and cultural details on display truly honor its lived-in aesthetic — Moebius was a huge influence on the Blade Runner‘s production design, and the landscapes, fashion, and people here really bring the series full circle. (To wit, Guinaldo is careful to make sure the characters’ hairstyles feel like they belong to an ’80s vision of the future, instead of making its 2019 feel like 2020.)
Marco Lesko’s incredible coloring bridges the classic and modern beautifully, with textures that would’ve been impossible had this comic been published to capitalize on the film in the late ’80s or early ’90s: every lightbulb glows as if it were a screenshot from the movie, and every explosion feels impactful and dirty, rather than a fireworks display. Most importantly for a piece of visual Blade Runner storytelling, Lesko renders the rain beautifully: it would be so easy to make the lashes of rain overwhelm the pages, but they glow and reflect light naturally, without ever becoming too large, or a distraction.
It’s been an excellent ride, and the best part? It’s only the beginning of Titan’s exploration of this iconic world… – Christopher Chiu-Tabet
