Mikel Janín

Dick Grayson, presumed dead after Forever Evil, becomes a secret agent working for Spyral — a shadowy intelligence organisation targeting superheroes. Tom King and Tim Seeley write Grayson with the wit and physical grace that defines the character, while Mikel Janín provides some of the most visually inventive pages in DC publishing of the era. A complete genre switch for a character who had always been a superhero, proving that Dick Grayson works in any narrative One of DC's most creative series of the 2010s.

Justice League Dark: The New 52 Omnibus collects DC's supernatural team book at the point where magic becomes its own battlefield. Constantine, Zatanna, Deadman, Madame Xanadu and the wider occult cast handle threats that the main Justice League cannot solve by punching harder. The volume's shelf role is clear: it is the New 52 magic spine, connecting horror, mysticism and team dysfunction inside one DC line.

The conclusion of Tom King's 85-issue Batman run: the failed wedding arc collapses the Batman-Catwoman relationship at its most vulnerable point. Cold Days puts Bruce Wayne on a jury debating Mister Freeze's guilt. Knightmares traps Batman in an alternate reality. City of Bane brings Thomas Wayne as an alternate Batman into collision with the original. Jorge Jiménez, Mikel Janín and Tony Daniel provide spectacular art. The emotional endpoint of the most literary Batman run in decades.

Tom King's acclaimed Batman run reimagines the Dark Knight as a figure defined by trauma rather than triumph. The opening arc, I Am Gotham, introduces two new heroes who force Bruce to question whether Batman is truly necessary. I Am Suicide takes the Bat-family into Santa Prisca for a Suicide Squad-style operation. I Am Bane is one of the most brutal confrontations in modern Batman history. War of Jokes and Riddles reimagines Gotham's most notorious criminals in a Golden Age-era conflict. Art by David Finch and Mikel Janín.