Two of my favorite books being produced right now are Lazarus and Velvet. Both are published by Image with all-star creative teams. Lazarus takes place in a dystopian future where several families rule the world and follows the Lazarus of one of the families, Forever Carlysle. We are still learning more about her, but basically a Lazarus is the family's bodyguard and head of military. They are enhanced humans. Forever thinks that she is really a part of the family, but events are unfolding that leads her to believe otherwise. It is written by Greg Rucka and drawn by Michael Lark. Velvet is a spy thriller that written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by Steve Epting that is also fantastic. It follows Velvet Templeton, the head secretary of a spy organization. After she is forced to go on the run, it is discovered that she used to be one of their best agents and is trying to solve a murder investigation to clear her name. These are the two books that I usually look forward to the most each month.
From Marvel, Black Widow has been fantastic. It has been a very exciting book written by Nathan Edmonson and wonderful art by Phil Noto. There have been a lot of twists and turns in a thoroughly entertaining book. Thor: God of Thunder was another wonderful Marvel book. The first 12 issues are a must read and the rest of the series was very enjoyable as well. I have also been enjoying the Time Runs Out storyline in Avengers and New Avengers. I enjoy Hickman's writing, but it is a pretty large commitment to go back and read through both series as a lot happens that is important to what is going on now.
From DC, Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman was a great read. I believe it was issues 1-34. Excellent story about Diana and incorporates a lot of the Greek pantheon. Jeff Lemire's Green Arrow as also a fantastic read which went from issues 17-35, I believe. I would not read any of the stuff before that though as it was not good, and I dropped the book with their final chapter, so I don't know how the new creative team has done. Swamp Thing has been very enjoyable since the beginning. The first half was written by Scott Snyder and was good as it wrapped up with the Rotworld event along with Animal Man. Charles Soule took over from there, and I believe made the book even better.
TMNT from IDW has been a very good read as well. I would definitely recommend it from the first issue on up if you are a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Even if you are not, it is still a great story, especially the City Fall arc.
Valiant has been producing great books for the past three years. It is it's own shared universe like Marvel and DC, but with less than a dozen books and not have years of continuity to get hung up on. My favorite books from the start have been X-O Manowar and Harbinger. X-O Manowar is still ongoing and is written by Robert Vendetti. The lead character is a Visgoth from the 5th century that is taken aboard an alien ship where he obtains a sentient armor. Due to how the alien ship was travelling, by the time he gets back to earth, it is now modern day even though it does not seem like that much time has passed for him. In one character, you get the personality of Thor, the armor of Iron Man, and the man out of time angle of Captain America. It is a great tale of him against the aliens that took him and then his presence on earth which is the backbone for a couple other books, mainly Unity. Harbinger is sort of like the X-Men meets the Runaways. These are teenagers who are psionically active. Basically, they have different abilities like telekinesis, strength, telepathy, etc. They main group of teens are on the run from the Harbinger Foundation, which is led by the main antagonist of the Valiant U, Toyo Harada, who is the world's most powerful psiot and is using his foundation to subversively change the world to how he sees fit. The protagonists are on the run and then decide to strike back. It is a great read that ended after 25 issues. These two books are the main gateways into the Valiant Universe with Bloodshot and Archer & Armstrong not far behind. They are also producing a lot of great books that have just started like Imperium (focuses on Toyo Harada) and Ninjak.
Those are my favorites of the past couple years. There are others that I truly enjoy, but didn't detail like Fantastic Four because it is pretty much geared for FF fans, and uses a lot of the history of the book that might not be as enjoyable if you do not know or care about that. I also really enjoyed Uncanny Avengers from issues 6 through 22 that focused on the Apocalypse Twins and Kang. The first and last arcs were weak through.
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