The New Avengers & 9 Other Essential Comics To Read By Jonathan Hickman, Ranked
Jonathan Hickman may be known for his Marvel contributions, but it's through his original comics that he really demonstrates his singular narrative style and vision. From East of West to The Manhattan Project, Hickman's unique works examine themes of war, destruction, and survival.
Hickman has also imbued classic gangs like the Avengers, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four with darker undertones and nuanced plots without sacrificing their legacies. His fascination with mass media and government inner workings shines through, making all of his works more prescient than ever. But what is his best comic book work of all?
10 The Nightly News (2006 - 2007)
One of Hickman's early successes, The Nightly News is a six-issue limited series published by Image Comics. Written and drawn by Hickman, it tells the story of a messianic cult whose leader urges his followers to rally against mainstream media.
The Hand acts out the wishes of his leader by assassinating the reporters and journalists whose sensationalistic, poorly-researched pieces ruined lives, careers, and reputations. While it suffers from an awkward layout and plotholes, The Nightly News indicates the provocative themes to come from Hickman in the future.
9 Pax Romana (2007 - 2008)
Another limited series from Image Comics, Pax Romana sees Hickman following a writing and illustration style very similar to The Nightly News. This comic handles some heady ideas about religion, time travel, and war — ideas that would be better executed in Hickman's subsequent work.
Set in 2045, Pax Romana centers around a Vatican-funded research facility that discovers the secret of time travel. The Pope then sends a hand-picked army back to the reign of the first Christian emperor, Constantine, with the hopes of altering the course of history.
8 The Avengers (2012 - 2015)
Between 2012 and 2015, Hickman wrote a series of biweekly The Avengers comics for Marvel, which were illustrated by a rotating group of artists for each progressive story arc. Collected and published in 10 compilations, Hickman composed 44 individual comics under The Avengers moniker in total.
Hickman takes his Avengers beyond the confines of Earth, beginning his saga with Iron Man and Captain America deciding their team should expand their influence to an interplanetary level — which invites all kinds of trouble from the deep recesses of space. Hickman manages to transform this familiar story into something refreshingly different.
7 Secret Warriors (2009 - 2011)
Secret Warriors focuses on former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury, who creates a new team of superpowered agents called Team White. Secret Warriors is an alias for this group, first created in 2008 by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev for Marvel.
Hickman wrote or co-wrote all 28 issues of the comic, compiled in 2012 into the Secret Warriors Omnibus. In classic Hickman fashion, Fury and his associates must contend with occult shadow organizations, globe-spanning cabals, and their own struggles to become efficient spies.
6 The Manhattan Projects (2012 - 2014)
In The Manhattan Projects, a Hickman original, the writer takes a well-known moment in history and takes it into esoteric, speculative territory. Penned for Image Comics, the 29 issues of The Manhattan Projects were illustrated by Nick Pitarra.
During World War II, the Manhattan Project brought together the world's greatest scientific minds, who manufactured the world's most devastating device: the atomic bomb. Hickman delves into an alternate history of the Manhattan project here, one where the group proved to be a front for mystical, covert sci-fi operations.
5 The Fantastic Four (2009 - 2012)
After publishing the Dark Reign: Fantastic Four limited series for Marvel in 2009, Hickman became the main writer for Marvel's Fantastic Four with issue #570. Hickman completely reinvented the wheel with this cornerstone comic featuring Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and Thing.
In issue #588, a tragic incident involving the Negative Zone causes the team to dissolve, leaving Mister Fantastic to establish a new group: the Future Foundation, aka FF. This gave Hickman the chance to introduce new characters, new enemies, and new environs into the long-running franchise.
4 East Of West (2013 - 2019)
East of West is a stunning, sprawling epic that sees Hickman perfecting many of the concepts he explores in his other works: government corruption, prophecy, conflict, and retribution. This 45-issue comic written for Image Comics matches Hickman's pitch-perfect prose with Nick Dragotta's immersive artwork.
The action unfolds in a dystopian, alternate America, one where the Civil War never ended and six warring factions have divided the country up into fortified regions. A truce signed by leaders of these territories begins to crumble when the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse physically manifest on Earth, set upon bringing about the end times.
3 The New Avengers (2013 - 2015)
Brian Michael Bendis introduced The New Avengers to Marvel in 2005, offering up a spin-off to the long-running The Avengers series. Bendis wrote the first two series, and Hickman took over for the third installment, which spans 33 issues.
Hickman, of course, takes this gang of superheroes into occultist territory, shifting his focus on a secret group created by Bendis: the Illuminati. Composed of Black Bolt, Captain America, Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, and Namor, the Illuminati formed in the aftermath of the Kree-Skrull War in order to complete covert missions without gaining any outside attention.
2 House of X/Powers of X (2019)
In 2019, Hickman returned to Marvel to publish two concurrent comics designed as crossovers within the Marvel Universe: House of X and Powers of X. Working with artists Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva, Hickman weaves together a new vision of Mutantkind that spans 1,000 years.
Each comic contains six issues, bringing standard X-Men characters into new circumstances that include many new faces. The events that unfold in Hickman's comics are preludes to Marvel's relaunch of the franchise: Dawn of X.
1 The Black Monday Murders (2016 - 2018)
Hickman's darkest, most brutal vision of humanity, The Black Monday Murders is a comics outlier, one that may seem too dense or arcane for the average reader. In truth, this monthly Image Comics publication with terrifying art from Tomm Coker may not be for every comics lover, but it's up there with the best works from Alan Moore or Grant Morrison.
The basic plot of The Black Monday Murders takes the 1987 Black Monday stock market crash and transforms it into a tale of black magic, blood sacrifices, and collusion between the top financial firms in the world. It will be impossible to look at global financial markets the same again after reading this quintessential Hickman work.