My Favorite Graphic Novels of February 2025

The comic bug bites again! I OD’d so hard on Marvel Rivals that I finally shook off my disinterest in reading all the latest and greatest comics! Doesn’t hurt that 2025 is off to a roaring start with must-read graphic novels from the likes of Kieron Gillen, James Tynion IV, Jeff Lemire, Juni Ba… oh just read the list of my favorite graphic novels of Feb 2025!

Don’t hesitate to let me know any of your favorites I may have missed via dave@comicbookherald.com!

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Transformers Vol. 2

This came out late in 2024, but I’ve been putting it off, I guess because I’m kind of a hater? I mean, listen, I don’t *hate* the Daniel Warren Johnson era of Transformers, aka the knockout Eisner-winning flagship title of the new shiny Energon Universe. I included DWJ and Mike Spicer’s work on Transformers Vol. 1 among my 2024 favorite graphic novels (albeit not in the final top 50!), and here we go again with inclusion on the 2025 recommendations. But, like, here’s the thing: I’m not feeling the Energon Energy. I’m not an Energuy. I get that it’s the hot new supes universe to read alongside Marvel’s Ultimate (love) and DC’s Absolute (also love), but I tried Void Rivals, Duke, Destro, and I’m just not interested.

All of which is to say, even as a classic heel hater, I still gotta hand it to Transformers. This comic’s got the juice. I thought the book would fall apart in volume two with the Notorious DWJ moving strictly to writing and off art, but Jorge Corona slots shockingly seamlessly into some pretty big shoes, and Mike Spicer’s shared palette covers up most of the gaps. Corona can’t quite match Warren Johnson’s absurdist wrestling poses (watching Optimus Prime look like John Cena rolled him into an elastic hold is kind of thrilling!), but he does nail the character acting and spectacle this book needs to sell that Cybertron is about to crash onto Earth. In a lot of ways, this book is the platonic idea of meat-and-potatoes superhero comics. Invested creators, a distinct visual tone, and at least one moment where a teen is saved by a robot on a surfboard. I don’t hate it!

Fishflies

I’ll admit, I needed reminding: Jeff Lemire’s a singularly gifted storyteller. Over the last decade, Lemire’s hustle made James Brown look like Luka Doncic (well at least if you’re the completely insane Dallas Mavericks!), which is commendable, but it also had the adverse effect of Robert Pollard-ing Lemire’s comics bibliography to the point of severe dilution.

Fishflies plays all Lemire’s greatest hits: Sad lonely kids, strained paternal relationships, serene quiet parts of Essex County, Canada. Perhaps if I was fresh off Sweet Tooth, this would all feel lacking. With some remove, though, it’s comforting and engrossing to let myself fall into the hands of a master craftsman yet again. I have a healthier respect now, too, for artistic styles that are so utterly defined. There’s something to be said for a style so well-honed that readers could look at any single page, maybe even panel, and within seconds recognize it’s a Lemire. Show me a Martin Simmonds, and I’m at least debating whether or not it could be Rod Reis, unfamiliar Sienkiewicz, Stipan Morian, etc (all *phenomenal* artists btw!). But show me Lemire’s thin line, wispy hair, bug-eyed shock (pun-intended), delicate 40 degree day water-colored skies, and it’s near instantaneous. This is far from some kind of lock to greatness (Liefeld and Land are quite recognizable as well, and generally speaking I’d rather read the ingredients on a jar of sour cream). Nonetheless, I appreciate what Lemire brings to cartooning!

Much like the Cranberries, Lemire likes to let his work linger. Your appetite may vary. In my impatience, this often leads to bloat, and once Fishflies is established and Francine Fox is on the run with her wanted Bug Man, let’s just say I was *keenly* aware I had more than 150 more pages to go. There are some effective pacing tricks to help retain focus, either through all black “Crunch!” scene changes or Documentary style interviews about these weird ol’ bugs. Ultimately, I’m of two minds. I think Fishflies peaks far too early, which leads to a bloated narrative, and would have paced better losing about 100 pages. BUT, this means 100 more pages of Lemire’s supernatural smalltown haunted wonder. Push and pull, you know?

Fishflies falls short of my favorite Lemire works (Sweet Tooth, Essex County, Black Hammer) but adds yet another entry in an absolutely stacked bibliography of graphic novels. I quite appreciate the work, and can easily see how someone less exposed to the cartoonist could pick up Fishflies and immediately fall in love.

The Department of Truth Vol. 5

James Tynion IV, Martin Simmonds, and Aditya Bidikar’s The Department of Truth launched in September 2020, which is one of the more appropriate collisions of subject matter and surreal living history that I can remember (if it had tried to launch in March, I’d have questions). Since then, the conceptually zeitgeist-rich exploration of conspiracies turned real, and the secret shadow organizations who shape the very basis of what’s “real” has remained one of my favorite Image comics, in no small part because of the ways Simmonds gleefully takes the lessons of Sienkiewicz to an endlessly rich conclusion. The work’s momentum halted abruptly in November 2022 as the creative team took that wholly unreasonable beast we in comics like to call “a break for sanity.” One and a half years later, with America no less conspiracy addled (I’d happily swap the future where this book no longer resonated but everyone in power hadn’t collectively lost their minds!), The Department of Truth returns to ongoing status, and through 2025 it will become one of a shockingly few number of comics over 30 issues into a run!

Volume 5, collecting issues #23 to #27, is a mixed bag, admittedly carried onto the list here through the power of those first 22 issues and Simmonds and Bidikar’s prowess. I dramatically prefer the backhalf of the trade, where Tynion IV and team focus back on “living fictions” in the world, this time through Hollywood’s portrayal of the once real Marilyn Monroe. It’s a captivating blend of neo-noir, old Hollywood decadence, and drug-addled fever dreams. In a book that walks among UFOs, Bigfoots, and Mothmen, it’s been the inclusion of a mother who lost her son in a school shooting, and now Marilyn Monroe losing her grasp on her own reality that have gripped me most tightly. When The Department of Truth is firing, there’s really nothing on its wavelength in comic books.

The first three issues are much bigger swings, and a muddier result, as Tynion IV finally delivers the secret “true” backstory of the book’s Lee Harvey Oswald. I won’t delve too deeply into the particulars of the alt-history, but suffice to say, we see in great detail the founding of the Department of Truth as Oswald has known it, his shot on JFK’s life, and the great secret at the heart of his role with The Department. Primarily, this serves as a vehicle to compare America to Russia’s “Ministry of Lies,” and to give voice to reasons why JFK would have told too dangerous a story for The Department of Truth to control their message of an imperial America soaring high. Simmonds does the most he can here, but the issues are stuck in first-gear commentary on the American experiment, and largely forget insight, action or emotion. The sequence ends with a reminder that it’s literally three issues of Lee Harvey Oswald telling a story in a kitchen – For a work fixated on how the stories we tell shape us, this one sure drags.

Regardless, now that that’s out of the way… I’m very excited for what comes next! The Department of Truth has largely been excellent, and I expect this is some expositional scene-setting to drive towards great collections in the near future.

Babe in the Woods: Or the Art of Getting Lost

Julie Heffernan’s astonishing Babe in the Woods might be one of the most impressive graphic novels I’ve read in my life. It’s also absolute sensory overload, with a majority of pages exploding with surreal digital paintings, dueling word balloons, scribbled interior monologues, and sketched depictions of a mother lost in the woods with her baby. At times, it feels like you could sink into Heffernan’s world for months. Artistically, I’ve truly never read a work quite like this. While stylistically quite different, Herffernan’s approach to page composition reminds of Bill Sienkiewicz’s Stray Toasters, an onslaught of creativity that refuses to hold your hand. I’m not there, but if someone told me Babe in the Woods was among their very favorite graphic novels in existence, I’d *get it*. It’s a bit on the nose, sure, but this is truly art to get lost in.

Heffernan’s subject matters are fascinating as well, blending her daylong hike gone wrong with flashback memories of her entire life. The near stream-of-consciousness memories take us from childhood family struggles, to experiences of sexual assault, to professorially explaining renaissance paintings to her (deceased) mother. Much like the forest that surrounds her, it’s a density of thought and sight that bounces between ascendance and smothering. Admittedly, were I a more patient reader, I might sing this work’s praises with a more assured voice. As it stands, I’m in awe, and simply want you to see it for yourself.

The Boy Wonder

Welcome back to the Juni Ba worship hour, the monthly gathering where I sing the praises of one of the 2020’s best cartoonists in relation to their latest entry among the contenders for best comic book of 2025. The Boy Wonder is the first time we’ve seen Juni here for Big 2 work (again with his Fables of Erlking Woods collaborator Aditya Bidikar), writing and drawing a DC Black Label exploration of Batman’s Robins through the lens of a Damian Wayne fairy tale. Ba sacrifices very little of his creative prowess in tracking how Damian relates to all other Robins, framing the Bat-family as royalty and Batman as their brooding, withholding King. Chris O’Halloran is one of my favorite working colorists, and it would take a far more trained eye than mine to discern where Ba ends and O’Halloran begins – this is a colorist who understands how to maximize and synergize with their collaborator, particularly mirroring Ba’s love of Mignola/Colan shadow amplified by the neon green of the Demon’s Head. At its best, The Boy Wonder feels like the template for a fresh animated lens on Batman, avoiding The Caped Crusader‘s pitfalls, and capturing the youthful energy of Adventures with Superman.

Amid Ba’s delightful style applied to Gotham is a creator who’s beginning to rival anyone in the game at emphasizing internal struggle and overcoming trauma. Comics fans like to return to King and Gerads “Darkseid Is” repetition in Mister Miracle, but Ba’s more varied in his thematic resonance. The Boy Wonder #3 (the Tim Drake adventure) features a recurring panel of Ras Al Ghul simply uttering “Weakness” to reflect the upbringing Damian fights to overcome, and during the ending battle sequence action is broken by panels declaring “I. Will. Be. Worthy” with each word in a new panel. Damian is tough, and Damian is skilled, but through each moment we can feel his bravado colliding with his insecurities.

The only limitation of The Boy Wonder is plot, content to perfect the pillars of character and style within the confines of known narrative. At its core, The Boy Wonder is really a retelling of Batman and Son, and the ensuing years of Bat-Family character development neatly summarized. Again, this would be a chore, an encyclopedia entry, in the wrong hands. Fortunately, during the monthly Juni Ba worship hour, we are not in the wrong hands!

The Murder Next Door

Hugh D’Andrade’s debut graphic novel from Street Noise Books is a striking testament to the lasting tendrils of an act of violence. As a child, Hugh goes inside his neighbor’s home and discovers his friends mother murdered, bled out on the living room floor. D’Andrade details the memory of the experience through the lens of his ongoing therapy sessions working out the lasting impact of this moment, and how it shattered notions of safety. Told through confident monochromatic autobiographic reflections, The Murder Next Door is sad, haunting, thoughtful, charming and reflective. On the surface it seems like the subject matter will run out of runway, but D’Andrade finds intriguing angles throughout, such as how the witnessed violence shapes his own views and fears surrounding masculinity, and the direction of his angry protests as he grew up. It’s an earnest, effective entry in the great history of autobiographic graphic novels.

Into the Unbeing Vol. 1

Hayden Sherman is on a heater. Sherman’s star finally properly ascended with recognition of their skill on Absolute Wonder Woman, not to mention the now feature film licensed work with Scott Snyder on Dark Spaces: Dungeons. Into the Unbeing is my favorite of Sherman’s recent knockout works, though, teaming with writer Zac Thompson to deliver Annihilation meets Scavengers Reign meets What If the Fantastic Four got lost on Ego the Living Planet? It’s a post environmental collapse, not-to-distant future sci-fi following a team of four varying scientists on an expedition into the unknown. The mystery of how the world crashed is slowly dolled out over 5 issues, as the scientists sink deeper and deeper into an alien ecosystem.

Sherman and Thompson’s sci-fi is grounded in contemporary fear (a world on the brink of financial systems engineering ecological disaster), but filtered through intensely human motivations, with four distinctly unique women acting in the self-interest of their own philosophies, religion and survival instincts. Sherman’s curving panel-borders and tubular layouts (both in the sense that they are shaped like tubes exploring underground networks, and in the sense of our greatest philosopher Turtles) help dictate a world that is both navigable and suffocating, somehow bigger on the inside and leaving you desperate to find a way out. Sherman is uniquely gifted at a modern lens on Moebius’ soft, literally out-of-this-world eye for detailed design, and Into the Unbeing captures that just as well in a journey to the center of a living mountain as Absolute Wonder Woman‘s Tetracide. The volume ends on a cliff-hanger, and part two is releasing in single issues as we speak – I’m very curious to see how Thompson and Sherman can find a second gear.

The Power Fantasy Vol. 1

I have five angles I considered for the opening to a review of The Power Fantasy, which means I have thought about approaches to discussing this book approximately 5x as much as any other comic. The Power Fantasy is a book that invites – perhaps demands – *takes*. From creators Kieron Gillen, Caspar Wijngaard, and Clayton Cowles, this is Gillen’s attempted apotheosis on superheroes, after over 15 years in the trenches, and fresh off best-in-franchise work on Marvel’s Eternals and saved-the-franchise-from-heat-death work on Immortal X-Men. There are six superpowered individuals, each posing the weight of a nuclear arsenal, and this is Gillen’s post- post-Watchmen commentary on the ways the global-political landscape would be upended in a world where an all-powerful telepath could wipe out the U.S. government with a thought.

Hey, you don’t invoke the name of Dr. Manhattan if you don’t think you have something big to say.

I’m a post-Marvel Round 1 Kieron Gillen convert, as high on his stretch from 2018 to present as anyone. Personally, I think the run from Peter Canon: Thunderbolt, Die, Once and Future, Eternals, and Immortal X-Men is among the best Direct Market comics of the last 7 years (that caveat isn’t really a slight; I just don’t want to sink into the quagmire of considering pure graphic novel book market work from the likes of Emily Carrol or Chris Ware!). So, while I am primed to follow a work that is Gillen’s reaction to writing X-Men without the restrictions of corporate-ownership, familiarity and praise also breeds expectation. I *want* The Power Fantasy to be my new favorite comic, which is a dangerous bar to place.

Let’s start here: This book is HIGHLY ambitious, eminently critiquable, and I did not want to put it down! After Peter Canon, Wijngaard’s no stranger to superhero commentary, but it was on Homesick Pilots where I saw the artist’s ability to blend character acting and stylized chromatically surreal backgrounds in a way that felt genuinely fresh (you can pretty quickly recognize a Wijngaard page by an analogous palette of pink-purple-blues popping off every building and background). Over the course of 5 issues, Wijngaard is tasked with bringing these Superpowers (the Atomics as they’re known) and their supporting pals to life as if we’ve lived in this world where it’s impossible to have missed them. In his way, he’s successful, if not as instantly defined as Jamie McKelvie’s Lucifer or Baal from Wicked+Divine (there are entire critical companions to be written about Wic+Div vs. the Power Fantasy). It takes all five issues to clearly define the players, which is no small wonder considering the way we open en media res and are asked to puzzle out the contours of the Atomics ourselves. The cut and paste effect of characters that look like they were chopped out of magazines and glued over Wijngaard’s backgrounds can be offputting, although I’d argue this faux-collaging is an effective part of the book’s DNA as it progresses. Chapter four’s focus on Masumi’s Void-esque darkzilla highlights Wijngaard’s full potential, with gorgeous teases of an ultimate world-shattering monster lurking beneath this young depressed artist, and assures with conviction that Wijngaard is *the* artist to pull this off.

The weight, then, falls on Gillen, and through a single volume it’s less clear if he can lift it. On one hand, The Power Fantasy Vol. 1 does the work of pulling me in for what comes next. I’ll eagerly be reading where Etienne Lux’s “ethical” telepathic murder gets him (if you want a clue that Gillen’s working out some leftover X-Men feelings, look no further than the “oh golly, sure wish I didn’t have to use my mind powers this way!” focus on Lux). I want to know more about the all-powerful, perhaps literally angelic might of Valentina, or the weaponized right-wing militant magic of Jacky Magus. But on the other hand, I remain unconvinced that a work so geo-politically concentrated can dig any deeper than through the topsoil. Valentina is born at the exact moment of the first atomic blast in 1945, and the history of the Atomics is all *very* directly tied to historical moments. (When I was in college, I wrote a novella, clearly ripping off Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, that began with a junior high author stand-in hooking up behind the bleachers for the first time and orgasming at the exact moment of 9/11. Superpowers followed. It makes me wince to share that with anyone, but it’s also a massive red flag that I’m seeing parallels!)

Ironically, for a work that seeks to upend the tropes of cape comics (we solve issues with words, or at least fistless violence!), it still generally functions best within those parameters. As a creator who has thought deeply about the possibilities, limits and potential of the genre, this is where Gillen excels. And realistically, I’m ready and willing to cruise alongside “Heavy” as a Magneto stand-in, floating in his island for Atomics, without Marvel editorial breathing down Gillen’s neck. The Power Fantasy is still best sold – to my mind – as Gillen’s post-IP reaction to how we make superhero comics. But with a work wearing its ambitions so nakedly, and during such a decidedly political *moment*, with a world screaming on fire, I simply hope for something more insightful, or at least more precise. I don’t buy-in to Sean Dillon’s visceral critique on The Beat (although I LOVE that there’s room for them to make it!) that The Power Fantasy is all shine no substance, particularly through the vaguery of Lux’s issue 1 government wipeout (Sean seems particularly fixated on Bill Clinton getting his, and for me, that wouldn’t have moved the needle one way or the other). But I do agree that there’s a lack of specificity to the present day, to the post-1989 transformation revealed in these pages, generally in favor of world-building mystery. We are talking here about the dangers of world superpowers without affiliation to the nation-state – how much world history do you keep, and how much do you completely rewrite in such an environment? The answers are still unclear, and are essential to the work succeeding as alt-history.

Listen, these are the thoughts and questions of someone five issues into a run built for the long haul. I was skeptical, frankly dismissive of Wic+Div until I read it as an integrated whole as well. I’m also confident this first volume doesn’t accidentally cap at 1999. There’s a LOT more story to be told, a LOT more world to build, a LOT more to say. I’m excited about creators that want to try and say it, despite, well, *gestures at the 2000s*. That’s the kind of ambition I want from all my favorite comics.

Bring Me the Head of Susan Lomond

Silver Sprocket stays winning with this delightful riff on high school rivalries (and the thin line between rivalry and relationship!) from debut graphic novelist Connor B. It’s Wednesday meets Dexter’s Laboratory, as teen genius/mad scientist Monroe Poole looks to exact her revenge on high school Prom Queen/star of the football team Susan Lomond. Sure, the thing starts with Monroe trying to blow up Susan in the end zone, and may or may not include plans to send a flying lumberjack’s ax at Susan’s head during Prom, but you won’t find many cuter, sweeter or more wholesome stories of blooming queer love in the entire YA market!

Connor B’s cartooning is clear, focused, and quite good at emphasizing how slight movement of the eye or flushing of the cheeks can convey entire volumes of character-building. It’s a familiar trope that two teen “enemies” might actually have the hots for each other, but Connor B approaches the work with such an enthusiastic love of Monroe’s family of mad scientists (big shouts to Nero) that by work’s end it’s a wonder this wasn’t already a beloved Saturday morning cartoon. I would read an entire shelf’s worth of a “Bring Me the Head of…” series with this precise blend of absurdist dark humor and budding supervillain romance.

The Ultimates Vol. 1: Fix the World

It’s not without consideration, and some droll irony, that I place the first volume of Deniz Camp and Juan Frigeri’s Marvel Ultimates trade collection *just* higher than The Power Fantasy. Both show a desire to elevate superhero fiction with political and social commentary ingrained in their every fiber, and despite the perceived limitations of a work within the House of Mouse, Camp’s Ultimates has more teeth. I was already an Ultimate 2niverse convert through Hickman/Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man and Momoko/Davvison’s Ultimate X-Men, but it’s Ultimates that lifts the new universe to heights where, were it not for Ryan North’s excellent 616 Fantastic Four, the original Marvel Universe would be completely obsolete.

In the vein of Victor LaValle’s work on Sabretooth, Camp combines Hickman’s House of X data page insertions with historical lessons melding real history with Marvel Comics. Much like a pill mashed into dog food, Camp tricks us into learning about Pacific Island colonialism, the dark history of American atomic testing, and mistreatments of indigenous peoples, all while seamlessly integrating these histories into the introductions of the universe’s new She-Hulk and Hawkeye. It’s not a surprise that the writer of 20th Century Men would have a clear point-of-view on an Ultimates unit that has been branded “terrorist” by the Maker’s controlling council, but the sheer confidence of mashing message and Marvel makes it look almost too easy. This Ultimates – my favorite Ultimates in Marvel’s history, for the record (with shouts to Al Ewing’s great 616 work!) – raises the stakes for anyone writing superhero comics, and makes the bulk of the field look factory-produced and uninspired by comparison. The mainstays have to be lying awake at night cursing Camp’s name.

All of this overshadows the other secret ingredient of The Ultimates: It knows how to lean into what makes Marvel Comics great. Which is another way of saying: Uh, The Hulk has the power of Iron Fist and the Immortal Weapons by his side!

I’ll predict that The Ultimates will have missteps, but even so, this level of ambition and skill is everything you could ask of a new flagship superhero team book. The only limitation – which is exacerbated by Nick Dragotta’s performance on Absolute Batman and Hayden Sherman’s on Absolute Wonder Woman – is that Frigeri and Federico Blee have not yet coalesced into a standout visual storytelling unit. Indeed, the most memorable visuals from the run to date are Phil Noto’s guest pages in The Ultimates #4, the story of Ultimate 2niverse Reed Richards, turned into a Doom by The Maker (in a story told entirely through 4-panel pages running on different timelines! Comics! Hell yeah!). Nonetheless, this Ultimate Universe is quite clearly in Camp’s more than capable hands, which is a big reason why it’s my favorite thing happening in superhero comics in 2025.