Urban fantasy takes a genre normally associated with ancient and medieval times and incorporates its elements into a modern-day time and place. Pairing magic with contemporary conflicts and struggles draws out the use of magic and fantasy as metaphor, literalizing the meaning humans populate their lives with. It calls back to the original myths and fables that originated the genre and were set during the time period in which they were told.
The comics featuring urban fantasy frequently feature tensions between the mythic and the scientific, the arcane and the medical, and the fantastical and technological. Many contrasts give way to striking similarities. Urban fantasy comics explore subjective belief’s influence on a seemingly objective reality and the ways in which the supernatural can still be found in a modern world where so many mysteries seem to be answered.
10 Once and Future (2019)
By Kieron Gillen and Dan Mora
Kieron Gillen’s modern King Arthur adaptation sees a group of British nationalists resurrect Arthur with plans of restoring ethnic purity to his kingdom. Setting out on a course of death and ethnocentric violence, the only thing standing between him and the destruction of Britain is retired monster hunter Bridgette McGuire and her grandson Duncan. The two embark on a journey that unravels a revisionist history of British myth and a secret history of the McGuire family. Gillen’s adventure is a thrilling and contemporary fantasy epic, rendered with kinetic and fluorescent beauty by artist Dan Mora and colorist Tamra Bonvillain.
9 The Black Monday Murders (2016)
By Jonathan Hickman and Tomm Coker
The culmination of years of Hickman’s writing and combining multiple forms of graphic storytelling, from traditional comics to flowcharts to infographics, Black Monday Murders follows an investigation by an NYPD detective into an occult murder that involves the most powerful financial institutions in the United States. The world he stumbles into reveals a secret history of elite financiers who’ve made a pact with the dark god of money, accumulating wealth through secret magic and manipulation of global financial crisis. Hickman rethinks schools of magic as investment banks and uses the trappings of fantasy to explore the dark side of real capital and power.
8 Thor and The Mighty Thor Starring Jane Foster (2014)
By Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman
In the wake of Thor believing himself to be unworthy in the pages of Original Sin, a cancer-stricken Jane Foster finds herself called by the magic of Mjölnir to claim the title of Thor. Finding herself amid a boiling political conflict between the Ten Realms, Jane discovers that every time she uses the hammer, it regresses her chemotherapy, slowly advancing her cancer. Frequent collaborators Russell Dauterman on pencils and Matt Wilson on colors defined the series with fluid, emotive figures, energetic fight scenes, creative incorporation of sound effects, and a palette of colors that made everything seem to glow with energy.
7 Loki: Agent of Asgard (2014)
By Al Ewing and Lee Garbett
In the wake of Kieron Gillen’s work with young Loki on Journey into Mystery and Young Avengers, Al Ewing continues Loki’s struggle to go good as he becomes a personal secret agent for the All-Mothers, rulers of Asgardia. Despite his good intentions, he can’t escape his habit of cheating, stealing, lying, and manipulating his way to success, nor can he ditch the evils of his past that continue to haunt him. A journey of self-discovery in a world that keeps trying to define him as something he doesn’t want to be, Loki: Agent of Asgard blends Norse mythology with a modern tale in search of self.
6 SuperMutant Magic Academy (2010)
By Jillian Tamaki
SuperMutant Magic Academy is a sassy, delightful, and frequently existential comic strip at a school that combines Hogwarts with the X-Mansion. The strips follow a group of high schoolers who can transform into animals, fly on broomsticks, and cast spells. However, it mainly focuses on how they get nervous around their crushes, lash out in an angsty phase, or break school rules. Though the strip frequently shows these everyday snippets, it can also explode into experimental and conceptual territory. It’s an encapsulation of teenage years defined by raging hormones and explored with characters who run away from their problems by ditching school and shapeshifting into a tree for a few hours.
5 Doctor Strange: The Oath (2006)
By Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin
The author behind Saga delivers a miniseries that crosses Doctor Strange’s present as the Sorcerer Supreme with his past as a doctor. When Strange discovers that his assistant and friend Wong was diagnosed with cancer, he sets his mind to finding a cure in the realm of magic. He comes across the fabled Otkid’s Elixir but also discovers that a powerful pharmaceutical company has sent a sorcerer to stop him, seeking to prevent magic from rendering their services moot. Marcos Martin and colorist Javier Rodriguez deliver awe-inspiring art that creates dynamic and trippy bombast, coupled with highly expressive body language and facial features.
4 Seven Soldiers: Zatanna (2005)
By Grant Morrison, Ryan Sook, and Mick Gray
Grant Morrison explores DC’s world of magic in Zatanna, which sees the titular magician robbed of her powers and her confidence. Struggling under the weight of her deceased father’s legacy and falling into depression, Zatanna uses magic to try and summon the love of her life, only to call forth a shapeshifting demon that kills her friends during a séance. Without her ability to cast spells, Zatanna takes in an apprentice and begins a journey to rediscover her faith in herself while being hunted by the murderous shapeshifter. Through her adventures, she is swept into defending the present from an invasion by Earth’s residents of the future.
3 The Invisibles (1994)
By Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison’s anarchic epic The Invisibles follows a cell of magic users fighting oppression in all its forms, from psychic to physical. The series sees modern magic as the literalization of symbols, the weaponization of metaphor, and the meaning that humans create in their everyday lives. The cell faces off against the Archons of the Outer Church, interdimensional alien gods who have already enslaved most of the human race. A fantasy adventure treatise on rebelling against the forces in life that push humanity to its most repressive and exploitative, the book’s about the outcasts of society freeing their minds and hearts to overcome anger and find the magic inherent in themselves.
2 Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment (1989)
By Roger Stern, Mike Mignola, and Mark Badger
After Doctor Doom uses tech to cheat his way to victory in a mystical tournament, Doctor Strange is bound by oath to aid Doom in a journey to hell to save the soul of Victor’s mother. The former magician was trapped there decades ago after she bargained her soul for the power to protect her Romani people from persecution. Strange and Doom fend off threats both astral and corporeal, realized by Mike Mignola’s jaw-dropping and explosive artwork. His renderings of the demons of hell are diverse and his detailing of Mephisto is horrifying and electric. Mignola’s expressionist and bombastic pencils and use of deep shadows and silhouettes make him the perfect fit for a battle through the land of the dead.
1 The Addams Family From The New Yorker (1938)
By Charles Addams
Monumentally influential from its aesthetics to its humor, Charles Addams’ original single-panel Addams Family strips remain just as imaginative, apt, and hilarious as when they came out. Addams creates a macabre, reclusive, old-money family whose sneering sarcasm is only matched by their penchant for witchcraft, trickery, and the grotesque. Whether it’s making torture devices as a family or children complaining that their siblings poisoned them, The Addams Family pairs the horrific with the mundane to delightful effect. The artist’s exaggerated gothic designs maintain an undercurrent of humanity, and the fiercely independent family became an unexpected inspiration for anyone who’s ever rejected the pressure to fit in.
