In no particular order:
Crossed: Wish You Were Here #22 - The conclusion of Volume 1 does something that so many other awesome runs of Crossed hadn't quite pulled off: it wraps up nicely while entirely leaving you gripped for more. The grand reveal that our protagonist, Shakey, the cowardly author rigged the drawing not to avoid getting sent out on the dangerous sorte mission, but actually to guaruntee that he would go... wow. The growth of the character, the excitement of the unknown, and that whole new element of mystery unfolding as we discover that Shakey is far smarter than his original dumb-luck story would have suggested, all in only 8 pages, this was a comic not to miss.
Avengers Academy #36 - HazMat and Mettle voluntarily throw away their cured lives and take their powers back so that they can help their friends. Three years these two have been trying to find a cure (our time, not theirs) and once it's in their hands, they realize that all they really need is each other and their friends. If ever there was a chance that Norman Osborne's tinkering was going to send them over the edge as villains, they proved the Avengers wrong that day. Christos Gage knocks this entire arc out of the park.
Extermination #2 (Boom! Comics) - This one is the most commanding, thought provoking issue of the year. Combine the question Red Reaper poses to Nox, "When killing is the only way to save a life, which party deserves to live more: the killer or the victim?" Then we meet the survivor camp, a place where humans are still alive while everyone Nox has tried to defend ended up dead. But the woman leading the survivor camp and keeping them all alive was a murderer before the apocalypse. Does the good she does for people in the present excuse her evil actions of the past? What do you do when stopping the bad guy will result in the deaths of dozens of innocents who could otherwise survive? And scariest of all, if one man's suffering could save everyone else, is it worth the sacrifice? Try asking that one to a Christian.
The Boys #65 - This one was a toss-up, and I very nearly gave it to Boys #67. Boys #65 boasts the final showdown between Butcher and Homelander, the grand reveal about the Homelander and Black Noir, and the bridge into the final arc. With hindsight glasses, one realizes that while Homelander is a complete jerk we've hated for years, he's actually not 'evil' the way we've all been lead to believe. Butcher's whole grudge is unfounded, and while he kills Homelander to defend the nation, we learn that the real evil is actually Butcher, a man we've grown to love. This was a swerve I was not prepared for, delivered brilliantly by Ennis as his best.
G.I.Joe: Cobra #11 - Cobra delivers the pacing where the core Joe title sometimes stumbles, and issue #11, the end of the Cobra Command arc, everything is boiling over. Tomax is tearing apart the Joe's politically, and milking his newfound alliance with Serpentor. Major Bludd is betrayed by his own and on the run, surrendering to the UN. Baroness is successful in her assassination of the Cobra Council and the new Cobra Commander brings Cobra fully public as a global superpower, all the while our poor Joes are trying to hold them back in a situation akin to blocking a tsunami with an umbrella. G.I.Joe: Cobra delivers month after month, and if you enjoy war stories or spy stories, this one is the way to go.
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