Life is Strange Settling Dust Featured Columns 

2022 Year in Review: Best Concluded Series

By | December 20th, 2022
Posted in Columns | % Comments

Welcome to the Multiversity Year in Review for 2022! We’ve got over 25 categories to get through, so make sure you’re checking out all of the articles by using our 2022 Year in Review tag.

There are ongoing series and miniseries and graphic novels. Comics can come in many formats. But there are some universal truths: all series have beginnings and endings. We wanted to let different formats go head to head, so we created a new category to reflect that. Best completed series honors any 2022 comic that published its finale during the year. The series could have been going on for a few months or a few decades. To qualify for this list, a comic needs to be impactful. These are all stories that we think are going to stick in our minds, haunt our dreams, and keep us talking about them for years to come. These are our best completed series for 2022.

3. The Swamp Thing

DC’s latest saga for “The Swamp Thing” was one of the publisher’s very best titles in 2022. The way that author Ram V and artist Mike Perkins slowly unfold the narrative behind Levi Kamei is a beautiful way to move the franchise forward instead of looking back at what others have accomplished with Swamp Thing. Watching Levi go up against The Parliament of Gears lent a great sense of environmental commentary without being too obvious. I also really enjoy how much time Ram V spends focusing on the narrative of Levi becoming more radicalized in trying to help the environment. The Second Season of this series also utilized really interesting guest characters spread wide across the DC Universe. Mike Perkins is an incredibly solid artist that lays out the comic book page incredibly well. Perkins does a great job drawing mysterious facial expressions that emote a lot of information on any given page. The way that Perkins is able to implement other characters across the DC Universe into this series feels inspired.

The 14th issue of “The Swamp Thing” combines two intriguing DC players together. Ram V and Perkins have also focused deep on the political issues that cause environmental ruin. I love how the corporate forces destroying the environment are directly referenced in this series. There’s so many great cliffhangers and emotional moments towards the end of issues and the beginning of the next issue. V did a great job bringing out past characters of the series to inform and even make the new saga for “The Swamp Thing” feel appropriately mystical. If you are a fan of this series or property, “The Swamp Thing” is a careful expansion of this franchise into brand new directions. Instead of focusing too much on the past or too far into the present, “The Swamp Thing” honors what came before while looking ahead to the future of the DC Universe! – Alexander Jones

2. Once and Future

Look, it shouldn’t be a surprise that something written by Kieron Gillen made the top list, but “Once and Future” is a fantastic example of what’s awesome about his comics, not to mention a showcase of Dan Mora’s artwork.

“Once and Future” started by taking Arthurian mythos and giving them a horror twist, but eventually grew beyond that. Additional British tales and literature entered the fray, with everything from Beowulf to Robin Hood to Shakespeare playing a role, all while exploring the nature of storytelling, mythology, and archetypes. The comic was never predictable, always finding a new twist to throw at us. Whether it was multiple Arthurs vying for the crown, Duncan’s family drama, or even the shocking twist of the prime minister pulling back the veil and revealing everything to the world, “Once and Future” kept us on our toes the entire time.

And each of these figures is brought to horrifying life by Dan Mora’s art and Tamra Bonvillain’s colors. Dan’s artwork is intense and detailed, bringing out the twisted horror and awesome might of the creatures, while still maintaining the expressiveness and distinct designs of the human characters. The way sceneries twist when things get magical, accompanied by Tamra’s otherworldly colors, command the tone and draw us in with a sense of unease. It simply looks fantastic.

Continued below

Then, of course, there’s the characters themselves. Duncan and Rose are great, with plenty of development throughout the series, but Bridgette absolutely steals the show. She may be Duncan’s granny, but she’s a take-no-nonsense badass who knows her mythology, has in-depth knowledge of the workings of magic, and isn’t afraid to use trickery, wits, and plenty of firepower to solve her problems. Who else would think to knock over Little John by blowing up the log bridge he’s standing on?

So as the comic came to its conclusion, everything got all the more intense. Stakes got higher, characters were both developed and twisted, and few could predict how it would end. But Kieron stuck the landing with a powerful, satisfying, and character-driven ending that even managed to be pretty happy, all things considered. Between a proper King Arthur claiming the crown, a clever use of King Lear and the waters of Lethe, and no small amount of clever planning, it gave us exactly as perfect a conclusion as we could have hoped for. “Once and Future” a story that lasted exactly as long as it needed to, and hit all the right notes when it ended.

(Unless, of course, it gets a sequel, in which case I’m all in for whatever comes next for Duncan, Rose, and Bridgette.) – Robbie Pleasant

1. Life is Strange

I am not a video game person. But there was one video game that won me over: Life is Strange the exercise in the butterfly effect that also provided a beautiful queer love story at its core. A story based in this idea of multiple timelines and multiple paths lends itself to the construction of a franchise, which Life is Strange has done, from sequels to prequels to – – the reason we’re here – comics.

The “Life is Strange” comic series was such a success for the simple reason that it stuck with its roots. The focus of the comic volumes was on Max and Chloe and their dimension bending story of friendship and love, and their attempts to return to each other’s rightful time. Naturally, Max’s gifts played a role in this story, but they were secondary to the characters: the whole reason video game fans of all kinds fell in love with the original game in the first place. Authenticity reigned supreme throughout the series, from Emma Vieceli’s script that combined teen-speak with an appropriate amount of wise-beyond-the-years philosophizing to Claudia Leonardi’s artwork that replicates the look of the video game and manages multiple dimensions, timelines, and sets of characters superbly.

Much like the video game, the “Life is Strange” comic took the slow road to completion. The first issue was released in 2018, and the final issue of the final volume, “Life is Strange: Settling Dust,” dropped in February. The payoff, however, was worth the wait. – Kate Kosturski


//TAGS | 2022 Year in Review

Multiversity Staff

We are the Multiversity Staff, and we love you very much.

EMAIL | ARTICLES



  • -->