Welp, the world keeps spinning and we’ve reached the end of another year. It was a crap year full of mostly crap entertainment, and I’m coming up empty in terms of empathy and interest. Following the presidential election, I’m opting to be more cynical these days as a coping mechanism. This was also the year I took a back seat on posting all the time. This was a year.

In good news, I finally started my own original comic — Cover Bard — and am halfway done with the first issue. I need to make a big post about it. And the second volume of Gamer Girl & Vixen is complete and headed to the printers, to be distributed and available for sale early next year. So those were some good things that happened. We also had a ton of great TV shows, but not a lot of great movies or video games. It was a weird year.

But I like putting together a list like this, so join me after the jump for my favorite bits and pieces of pop culture from 2024! And feel free to share your own in the comments below.

Personal achievement: Finished Gamer Girl & Vixen vol. 2

2024 was a tough year for a lot of reasons. I stopped posting every day and every week on this blog. There was that election that will doom this country. There’s my overall choice to become more cynical. So I haven’t had an easy time coming up with stuff to talk about on this list (other than TV shows, so many great shows this year!). So I figured I’d kick things off with a personal note about finally finishing Gamer Girl & Vixen Vol. 2: Tyrant Lizard Queen! I’ve been working on Gamer Girl & Vixen comics for a decade now, and while this one has been a long time coming, we hit the gas this past year and finally brought it to fruition. We had a successfully Kickstarter at the beginning of the year, then finished off the artwork in Novemberish. Soon it will go to the printer and we’ll have physical copies available for sale! And digital PDFs! I’ll write more about it in the future. That’s probably the highlight of my 2024.

Soundtrack: Arcane season 2

As I’ve mentioned in lists past, I just don’t listen to new music. I don’t know any currently popular artists. I don’t know the song of the summer. All of this is just foreign to me. But I need enough entries to reach six, so why not talk about the soundtrack to Arcane season 2 for a little bit? I’m digging it in the wake of watching the season and have been playing the songs a bit on long drives. I like “Spin the Wheel” by Mike Wingert the most, followed by “Wasteland” by Royal & The Serpent, “Fantastic” by King Princess and “Heavy is the Crown” with Lincoln Park. And then somebody on YouTube put “To Ashes and Blood” over the climactic encounter between Ahsoka and Darth Maul at the end of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and it’s a great editing job, so there’s that. Good songs is all.

Video Game: Star Wars: Outlaws

So, uh, honestly, I didn’t play very many new video games this year. I made a promise at the start of the year that I wasn’t going to spend a lot of money on video games — and I didn’t. In fact, the only video game I bought at launch, at full price, was Star Wars: Outlaws. And it was fun enough. Solid story, good enough gameplay, I liked the main character and most of the supporting cast. It was a good enough version of a game where you’ve got a big open map and a bunch of quests and collectibles to get through. Stealth wasn’t all that great, but I enjoyed the game overall — though I don’t recommend anyone else pay full price.

Runner Up: Dragon Age: The Veilguard

I’m only maybe a quarter of the way through The Veilguard and it’s fine. Seriously, I just didn’t buy or play many new games this year. No Black Myth: Wukong or Astro Bot or Palworld or Balatro; so I just don’t have any great games to praise. I was interested in playing Veilguard and then it went on sale for 40% ahead of Christmas, so I jumped at the sale and am enjoying it well enough, though it’s not particularly deep or engaging. The character creator was really good, so at least it’s got that going for it so far. But the fights have like a dozen different buttons and actions and spells to keep track of, in an already frantic battle. Not enjoying that as much.

Movie: Civil War

I think 2024 was really impacted by the writer’s strike the year before and we just didn’t get many awesome movies this year. This was also the first year in a long time where I didn’t have a movie review column for my day job, so I wasn’t out seeing every single new movie every week. Of the new movies I did see this year, I think my favorite was Civil War early on. I loved the story and the characters, how it was a movie about wartime photography and journalism instead of an actual movie about the war. As a journalist myself, I really enjoyed that a lot. Good story, good moments, good characters and a solid, meaningful ending that touched on a personal chord.

Runner Up: Deadpool and Wolverine

Honestly, while I definitely enjoyed Deadpool and Wolverine, I’m not nearly as wildly in love with it as most people seem to be. The movie was all about the cameos first and foremost and then they came up with a less-than-stellar story to put those cameos into. It’s a damn shame, considering the first two Deadpool movies have great story and comedy, making it look easy. Still, this was a fun one, in a year that was pretty light on good movies, at least for my tastes.

Honorable Mentions: The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Furiosa, Hit Man and The Wild Robot.

TV Show: X-Men ’97

Video games and movies may have been duds this year, but television was insanely good! I was tempted to do two separate categories for TV shows just to fit them all in, but I kept realizing it would minimize how damn good X-Men ’97 turned out! Holy cow, you guys! Who could have seen this coming?! I adored the original cartoon in the 90s, a seminal broadcast for this growing comic book nerd. And I was hesitant about a relaunch/continuation over just starting a new X-Men show. But showrunner Beau DeMayo surprised us all with a gripping, entertaining, mind-blowingly awesome show about the 90s X-Men dealing with more classic storylines, more classic melodrama and a heck ton of realistic, modern prejudice metaphors. That Genosha episode is one of the greatest episodes of television of all time.

Runner Up: Fallout

I love the Fallout games and had high hopes for this show, and was oh so pleasantly surprised! They told an original story set in a familiar world and then just had a ton of fun with it. The characters were instantly memorable and entertaining; the story was well thought-out and executed; and all the while, it stayed true to everything that makes Fallout special. The showrunners understood the assignment and have created a great new show! Can’t wait for more!

Honorable Mentions: Hazbin Hotel, Hit Monkey, The Penguin, Arcane.

Comic: Wonder Woman

No comic could match Tom King and Daniel Sampere’s Wonder Woman for me this year. This book stood head and shoulders above all others, a masterclass in tone and storytelling. An exciting mix of action and character pieces, with great new villains, great uses of classic villains and then wonderful uses of Wonder Woman and her supporting cast. Everybody gets a role to play and all of it is wonderfully written and drawn. It’s an exciting tale of hero triumphing over villain, with a few twists and exciting new ideas thrown into the mix. And that Wonder Woman vs. Cheetah issue is easily my favorite single issue of the year. So heartfelt, so true to the characters; Wonder Woman is easily my new favorite work by Tom King.

Runner Up: Absolute Comics

All three of the Absolute Comics released so far have been outstanding and I couldn’t pick one over the others. DC put some great creative minds to work to make these comics, with Scott Snyder in charge of the whole thing, and it’s been great. Absolute Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman all feel very different from one another, while still maintaining the core of each character. It’s amazing how well they’ve pulled this off. Solid, entertaining reboots for the Big Three, one right after another, and I do hope they manage to maintain this level of quality. Could this be the early years of the Ultimate Universe all over again? Let’s hope so!

Honorable Mentions: X-Men: From the Ashes, Nightwing, Void Rivals, Power Rangers Prime.

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