It’s that time again! All throughout the year, it's our job here on DC.com to analyze, praise and publicize the works coming out of DC. That includes comics, TV, film, video games and every other medium you can imagine. And that part of the work is never too difficult. Everyone writing for this site deeply loves DC, and DC never stops giving us more reasons to love them. This has been a particularly rich year, between initiatives like All In, the Absolute Universe, a slew of wonderful Young Adult titles, some spectacular DC television and much more. But there are always a few pieces that truly spark the greatest joy and remind us why we do all this and what made us fans in the first place…or perhaps even make us bigger fans than we were before.
It’s become an annual tradition on the DC site that as we come to the close of the year, five of us here at DC.com are asked to highlight the three DC projects that were the most special to us and spoke to us personally as the highlights of the year. These are my 2024 Top Three.
Suicide Squad ISEKAI
Every year, we see a lot of discussion about the best way to adapt the DC Universe from comics to screen. The truth is that Max and Dave Fleischer figured out the secret with their Superman serial in 1942: the heroes of the DC Universe are closer to myth than man. The best way to translate DC's epic characters has always been to animate them.
Cartooning isn't just a cost-effective way to make comic pages real. Far from perfunctory, the virtue of animation is in its capacity for exciting bombast. If the superheroes on screen don’t have that frenetic, eye-popping action, it's not even worth doing. In collaboration with Wit Studio, DC’s very first anime television series, Suicide Squad ISEKAI, understands the Fleischer Bros. assignment. Giving us some of the most memorable action sequences of the year with Harley Quinn, Katana, King Shark, Peacemaker, Clayface, Deadshot and more, ISEKAI channeled the cutting edge of the animation scene as it currently exists on the international stage, meeting the landscape of global genre conventions where they lie. It doesn’t hurt that we’ll be bumping that Mori Calliope ending theme well into 2025. Don’t get confused, we are not the saaaaaaaame…
John Constantine, Hellblazer: Dead in America
John Constantine, Hellblazer: Dead in America represents the ultimate redemption story for Hellblazer fans. Just before the pandemic, Si Spurrier and Aaron Campbell were on an epic tear in their Sandman Universe John Constantine, Hellblazer series, crafting one of the greatest Hellblazer runs of all time as they took the piss out of everything from nationalized horse racing, to the rapid decay of the healthcare system, to the dark undercurrent of modern royalty. Devastatingly, this landmark series was cruelly cut short by COVID-era supply chain shortages and languished for what assuredly felt like forever.
Which is why nobody cheered harder than I did when, at New York Comic Con 2023, they announced it was coming back. I know, I was there. The panel threw signed editions of the first run at me in the room when it was announced until I calmed down.
What we got was a story that turned Spurrier and Campbell’s incisive critical eye, previously aimed in the characteristically Hellblazer way at the modern governance and conventions of the United Kingdom, towards the ethos and climate of the United States—all while brilliantly weaving in the promise of the Sandman Universe banner under which the series started, tugging at plot threads we didn't even realize were there (but once they were pointed out, we couldn't believe we ever missed them). When taking what we assuredly know about John Constantine’s history for granted, Dead in America taught us to never forget Hellblazer Rule Number One: John Constantine is a liar.
The Penguin
And then… there's The Penguin.
Honestly, what’s there to say? It's not just far and away the best thing to come from DC this year, in a year of great projects. The Penguin might be the best piece of live action Batman media ever made. What Matt Reeves and Lauren LeFranc have made for us this year is one of the flat-out greatest limited crime dramas in television history, using the Gotham City of The Batman to tell a generational story of broken family relationships sublimated within the criminal underworld in a way we haven't seen since The Sopranos. Performances from one of the greatest ensemble casts we’ve ever seen in a DC project elevated all the characters involved to new heights in a way that will serve as an enrichment to all of them for generations to come.
If you’ve ever agreed with anything I’ve written for DC.com and haven’t checked this series out yet, you have your next course of action set when you finish this article four sentences from now. I wouldn’t want to be Matt Reeves right now. After The Batman and The Penguin, the bar couldn’t possibly be set any higher for what comes next. But if anyone can stick the landing, it’s this team. Hail to the king of Gotham City.
Look for more Top Three lists all week right here on DC.com!
Alex Jaffe is the author of our monthly "Ask the Question" column and writes about TV, movies, comics and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Bluesky at @AlexJaffe and find him in the DC Official Discord server as HubCityQuestion.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Alex Jaffe and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.
