Ram V’s comics highlight the power of human (and superhuman) connection

At the end of a year defined by division among political, ideological, and technological lines, the comic-book work of writer Ram V stands out for the ways it explores the things that bring people together. Whether via food, the wires of a giant techno-organic mech, or a secret language written in the blood of murder victims, V uses these connections to bring personal stakes to high-concept genre fiction. 2024 was a banner year for V, showcasing the versatility and ambition that makes him one of the comic industry’s most intriguing creators. In addition to wrapping up a two-year run on Detective Comics and relaunching Jack Kirby’s The New Gods for DC Comics, V had three independent series at Boom! Studios, Dark Horse Comics, and Image Comics, each dramatically different in genre and tone. 

Rare Flavours (Boom! Studios) is the highlight of Ram V’s exceptional year, reuniting him with his The Many Deaths Of Laila Starr artist, Filipe Andrade, and letterer, AndWorld Design, for a powerful tale about a man-eating demon and the young filmmaker he hires to create a food-centric documentary in the wake of Anthony Bourdain’s death. Like Laila Starr, it’s a comic rooted in Hindu mythology, following the demon Bakasura, now going by the name Rubin Baksh, as he emerges from hiding to share his passion for food with the world. This is complicated by his compulsion to eat humans, providing the plot’s central tension. V and Andrade have outstanding creative chemistry, and Andrade’s fluid linework, exaggerated character acting, and evocative environments bring Rubin and Mo’s culinary road trip across India to life in vivid, expressive detail. 

The structure of Rare Flavours makes each issue a full meal. The main action with the two leads is enriched by the recipe for a specific dish, which introduces a thematically connected side-narrative to reinforce the ways that food connects people across space and time. This allows the team to explore a wide range of human experiences: a family man who brews his grandmother’s Masala chai, an international student at NYU who gets a taste of home by roasting a leg of goat, a Chinese-Indian cook who refuses to trade his humble cart for a lavish restaurant. It builds to a tearjerker finale with Mo recounting the epic feast his mother cooked for friends and family as she was dying of cancer, a story that converges with mythical fantasy in the end for an astonishingly emotional ode to rice pudding. 

Working with an artist on multiple series is a sign of strong collaboration, and Ram V had two books with artist Evan Cagle in 2024. V and Cagle worked on an issue of Catwoman in 2021 and Cagle provided stunning covers for V’s entire Detective Comics run, but Dawnrunner (Dark Horse Comics) shows what the two can do on a longer story and it is beautiful. A mecha sci-fi story in the vein of Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Pacific Rim, Dawnrunner imagines a future where giant monsters called Tetza have terrorized Earth, forcing the world’s countries to disband and divert their power to five corporations that keep the planet safe through the power of Iron Kings, massive robots whose fights against the Tetza are broadcast as sporting events. 

Dawnrunner is a new Iron King with a unique operating system: the human brain of Major Ichiro Takeda, a survivor of the first Tetza attack. When hotshot pilot Anita Marr neurally links to the mech, she’s thrust into Takeda’s memories and begins to form a personal bond with him as two parents worried for their children in an exceedingly dangerous world. That danger takes the form of thrilling mech vs. kaiju action depicted in meticulous detail by Cagle and colorists Dave Stewart and Francesco Segala, with Cagle combining balletic grace with explosive force in the action. V writes a story that shows off Cagle’s skills as a concept designer and action choreographer, but he also navigates the emotional beats of the script with clarity and specificity, giving the book a beating heart to go along with its battering robot fists.  

The scope of Dawnrunner is massive but also intimate, making V, Cagle, and Segala an extraordinary creative team to handle DC’s The New Gods, a property built on larger-than-life cosmic figures exerting their influence on the regular people of Earth. The New Gods #1 (DC Comics) is a hell of a way to end the year, setting up a sprawling space opera about prophecy, duty, and the stress of being a new parent. The majority of the first issue finds the New Gods dealing with the fallout of Darkseid’s death in the DC All In Special, taking readers to breathtaking intergalactic locales that capture the majesty of Jack Kirby’s original concepts. 

But the book shines brightest on the streets of Glendale, California, where Mister Miracle and Big Barda are raising their newborn daughter. Their fight is with projectile bowel movements and Mister Miracle likes it that way, which creates a very compelling conflict when his fellow New God, Orion, asks him to find and save a child destined to destroy their people. Orion has been tasked with killing the child and has never disobeyed an order before, so he turns to Mister Miracle, the universe’s greatest escape artist, to help the target escape his wrath. It’s a request that puts Mister Miracle at odds with some of the most powerful beings in existence, and despite his initial refusal, Orion knows that Mister Miracle’s inherent compassion and empathy will compel him to do the right thing.

2024 also saw V collaborate with another writer, Dan Watters, on The One Hand And The Six Fingers (Image Comics), a cyberpunk mystery originally published as two separate but intertwined monthly titles about an aging detective whose retirement is delayed by a new string of murders echoing a case from his past. V partners with artist Laurence Campbell, colorist Lee Loughridge, and letterer Aditya Bidikar to show the detective’s side of the story while Watters works with V’s These Savage Shores collaborator, Sumit Kumar, Loughridge, and Bidikar on the killer’s side, spotlighting how art style shapes character perspective on the comic-book page. Campbell’s photorealistic, intensely shadowed linework puts the detective in a gritty crime noir aesthetic while Kumar’s more animated artwork shifts away from reality to heighten the spectacular sci-fi elements.

The most fascinating element of The One Hand And The Six Fingers is the aforementioned murder-language composed of symbols that evoke the look of panels arranged on a page. These patterns appear throughout the story’s settings, suggesting that the world itself is trying to send these characters a message that only they can understand. In one of the book’s most striking sequences, those symbols become the layout for a murder scene, tying page design to horror in a way that amplifies the feeling of dread and confusion that washes over the detective in this grisly moment. The book eventually introduces a cipher that allows readers to translate this language, adding an extra element of interactivity that encourages deeper investigation.  

Watters is also a regular fixture of V’s Detective Comics run, providing back-up stories that spotlight the book’s supporting cast of heroes and villains. While DC has incorporated back-ups into many of its flagship titles, the ones in Detective Comics have been the most effective at adding new layers to the main narrative while bringing in more stylistically diverse artists, including Hayden Sherman, Jorge Fornés, Christopher Mitten, Robbi Rodriguez, Lisandro Estherren, and Francesco Francavilla in 2024 (with Triona Farrell and Patricio Delpeche on colors). 

V’s Detective Comics reads unlike any other superhero book on the stands because of its heightened language, intentionally channeling the lyrical, poetic quality of opera. Uninterested in addressing the other happenings in the DC Universe, Detective Comics gives V the freedom to explore the elements of the Bat-mythos that interest him most, and 2024 starts with Bruce Wayne confronting and accepting his demons on a self-actualizing journey through the desert, where he faces off with major figures from Grant Morrison’s iconic Batman run, including Dr. Hurt and the demon Barbatos. Artist Riccardo Federici and colorist Loughridge capture both the grandeur and surreality of this introspective quest, which contrasts with the bluntness of the side-story following the Question in Gotham, drawn by Stefano Raffaele on a nine-panel grid. 

When Batman returns to Gotham, the theme of connection comes into play as the hero teams up with his villains to take down their common enemy, the foreign invaders who have turned the city into an authoritative state. Artist Guillem March and colorist Luis Guerrero do phenomenal work presenting a ruthless Batman that barrels through waves of enemies, and each of the villains gets a standout moment that brings an undeniable cool factor to the story. It’s fitting that a run inspired by opera would end with so many high notes, and whether working on legendary superheroes or creating original concepts, Ram V and his collaborators showed how to make the comic page sing in 2024.