There’s never really a bad time to be reading comics, but 2025 proved to be an especially strong year for the industry. From DC’s Absolute Universe and Marvel’s Ultimate Universe to Skybound’s Energon Universe and IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles relaunch, it’s never been easier or more rewarding to dive into the big franchises. And this was an equally great year for indie titles at publishers like Image Comics and Dark Horse.
Each December, the IGN team looks back at all the comics we’ve read over the past year and votes on which one we think is the greatest of them all. Now, the time has come to narrow down 2025’s lineup to the absolute best of the best and pick a winner. Keep reading to find out which book came out on top.
Honorable Mentions
As mentioned above, there’s rarely been a better time to dive into the big superhero properties, as publishers are making things more accessible than ever with reboots and relaunches like the Absolute Universe and Ultimate Universe. In fact, last year’s winner was Deniz Camp and Juan Frigeri’s The Ultimates, and that remains one of the best books on the stands. The same goes for Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man, Jason Aaron and Juan Ferreyra’s TMNT, and Daniel Warren Johnson’s Transformers.
Elsewhere in the industry, we were enamored by several Image Comics projects in 2025, including Johnson and Riley Rossmo’s fantasy adventure The Moon Is Following Us and Matt Rosenberg and Stefano Landini’s spy/revenge thriller We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us. It was also a great year for original graphic novels, including Mike Mignola’s Bowling With Corpses and Other Strange Tales from Lands Unknown, Mariko Tamaki and Nicole Goux’s This Place Kills Me, and Craig Thompson’s Ginseng Roots.
Runner-Up: Assorted Crisis Events
One of the challenges this year was figuring out which of Deniz Camp’s various projects to single out. The Ultimates is still great, and his collaboration with Javier Rodriguez, Absolute Martian Manhunter, is equally strong. But in the end, we had to give the nod to Camp and Eric Zawadzki’s Image Comics series Assorted Crisis Events.
Assorted Crisis Events is a sci-fi anthology series set in a world where a cosmic calamity is causing the very laws of time and space to break down. It’s like Crisis on Infinite Earths, only it focuses on the ordinary men and women who have to soldier on as the world collapses around them. It’s a high-concept, deeply character-focused series that never fails to tug at the heartstrings.
Runner-Up: Batman – Dark Patterns
DC publishes so many Batman comics that, statistically, one of them was bound to end up on this list. But as much as we’re enjoying the flagship Batman title from Matt Fraction and Jorge Jiménez and the bombastic thrill ride that is Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s Absolute Batman, there’s a slightly more under-the-radar Bat-book that has truly consumed our attention this year. That would be Dan Watters and Hayden Sherman’s Batman: Dark Patterns.
In many ways, Dark Patterns is the spiritual successor to the classic Legends of the Dark Knight series. It’s set earlier in Batman’s career and takes more of a detective, noir-laden approach to his nightly adventures. It’s also an expertly plotted, gorgeously rendered series that trades blows with any superhero book on the stands. It’s just a shame we only got 12 issues.
Runner-Up: Drome
Of the many great graphic novels released in 2025, none left quite as strong an impression as Jesse Lonergan’s Drome. Lonergan has been one of the most exciting new cartoonists to hit the scene in recent years, and he truly levels up with this massive fantasy epic. Drome is essentially a sci-fi creation myth following a demigoddess sent to lead mankind away from its darker impulses. It’s a stark, beautifully rendered story, with all the inventive panel work and use of color we’ve come to expect from Lonergan.
Runner-Up: Ice Cream Man
Ice Cream Man has easily ranked among Image Comics’ best ongoing series for the past several years. Writer W. Maxwell Prince and artist Martín Morazzo have crafted one of the most unique horror comics on the stands. It’s an anthology series loosely tied together by the sinister title character, and one crammed full of disturbing, unsettling sights.
Part of the fun with Ice Cream Man is that the creators are never content to rest on their laurels and follow the same formula month-to-month. They’re always finding ways to experiment. Case in point: Issue #43 features a number of guest creators (including Grant Morrison and Patton Oswalt) crafting one-page tales of terror. It’s risks like that that make Ice Cream Man one of the most rewarding comics you’ll find today.
Winner: Absolute Wonder Woman
In many ways, 2025 really felt like the year of the Absolute Universe. This new line is easily the most exciting thing DC has launched in years, offering fresh, contemporary takes on DC’s classic heroes free of the burden of 80+ years of continuity. One need only look at the monthly sales charts to see that the Absolute line has struck a serious chord with readers.
We could have crowned any one of several Absolute titles as the winner this year and felt satisfied with our pick. Absolute Batman is an inspired revamp of DC’s most popular hero, and Absolute Martian Manhunter is quite possibly the most inventive superhero comic on the stands right now.
But, in the end, we had to give the crown to Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman’s Absolute Wonder Woman. More than any other Absolute comic, this series realizes the full promise of this blank canvas of a universe and truly reinvigorates Diana. Thompson’s characterization of a woman raised in Hades but whose heroic heart burns as brightly as ever fuels this series. And as for Sherman, his art is simply stunning, characterized by both massive scale and a true sense of warmth. Along with colorist Jordie Bellaire and letterer Becca Carey, they make a truly killer team.
Absolute Wonder Woman is IGN’s best comic of 2025.
Congratulations to DC Comics, and to the other publishers whose projects were recognized in the Best of 2025 awards. Did your favorites make the cut, or would you have picked different winners? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to check out our full list of awards to see who else we honored in our round-up of the very best of games, movies, TV shows, and more from across the year. We hope you had a great year, and we’ll see you soon in 2026.
