For our 2023 Year in Review, we’ve got a different approach. With the world feeling colder and more distant, we wanted to turn the tide in our coverage and give the most personal approach to our wrap ups yet. Over the next week or so, you’ll be hearing from our staff on what they felt was the best of 2023. We hope you enjoy.
Best Licensed Comic: “Star Trek” & “Star Trek: Defiant”
For my money, the best licensed comic of 2023 is actually two connected series. The main title comic “Star Trek” and its spin-off “Star Trek: Defiant” are the two big threads carrying on the main storyline for Trek that began all the way back in 1987. Picking up dangling story threads and character destinies left unanswered from Star Trek: The Next Generation to Star Trek: Voyager, many beloved characters return, with a healthy dose of new blood, culminating in probably the best comic to ever hold the title “Star Trek.”
Though they are two separate series, you really can’t read one without the other. They are intertwined, with storylines and characters jumping back and forth between the two books. If you grew up watching Trek in the ’80s and ’90s, this is the book for you. This is the era of the franchise that fans have been desperately trying to get more material from, and since we are 20-30 years away from the bulk of the narrative that played out on TV, our best option is comics or animation, as the actors are now so much older than they were back then, and it would be basically impossible to do this era justice without a lot of CGI and body doubles.
For newcomers, these comics are almost impenetrable, but for the die-hards, and even casual fans, this is an incredibly exciting and enjoyable new chapter for Trek. It balances the fan service and the rewarding narrative perfectly with excellent scripts from Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing, and Christopher Cantwell. The artwork done by Angel Unzueta, Mike Feehan, and many more capture the world, the aesthetic, and the character likenesses like few have before. The creatives behind these comics have set up their staff like a writers’ room for a TV series, so everything flows and connects exactly as it should. This is the next generation for Star Trek‘s main continuity and they are treating it as such. Live long, prosper, and buy more Star Trek comics.
Best Ongoing Series: “Fantastic Four”
I don’t actually read a lot of ongoing superhero comics when they come out. I either way for omnibus collections or trades of specific arcs, but when a new Fantastic Four series was announced, I decided to jump on at issue 1 and I’m glad I did. Just from the outside, every issue has a stellar cover done by Alex Ross, with various variants by other artists available. This is a back to basics, familiar series for the foursome, but it isn’t about hand holding or getting too simplistic for its own good.
It manages to take past continuity and storylines into account while being able to move forward with what’s to come. You either read what’s come before or you didn’t. Dive in, pick up what you can from context clues, and enjoy the ride. The Fantastic Four are back and it’s truly one of the most enjoyable and entertaining superhero books on shelves at the moment. Written by Ryan North (“The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl”), Illustrated by Iban Coello and Ivan Fiorelli, and colored by a slew of artists, this is a bright and colorful, wacky family adventure through the 616. If you’re looking for an easy jumping on point for the F4, this is it.
Best Original Graphic Novel: “Hungry Ghost”
This is one I already wrote a full review for, but I’ve only read a couple of OGNs this year, and “Hungry Ghost” by Victoria Ying and Lynette Wong is still the best one I read in all of 2023. A heartbreaking and powerful look at disordered eating, death, depression, grief, and also simply being a teenager, this book is one of the best of 2023 and one of my all-time favorite blind reads. It captures a fully relatable tale through a lens of Chinese American culture, that may not be relatable to many of its readers. It is densely layered and so much more than I could ever put into a short write-up. Read my full review, if you don’t mind spoilers, but please pick up this book! A painfully beautiful, but also charming and funny read, “Hungry Ghost” remains one of the most powerful pieces of fiction I have ever read.
