Top of the Geek 

• Disney+

At the end of the year, it's always our habit to look back at the best of what's come and honor it in some way. The world of geekdom is no different. 2021 felt a lot like 2021, with many of us cloistered away in our first full calendar year in a full-blown pandemic, but there was a lot of great geeky art to consume and games to play. Here's our round up of some of the best.

Best Unapologetic Geek Movie: Spider-Man: No Way Home - This film knows exactly what it is and what it wants to be. It's the proverbial red meat for comic book fans: lots of interconnectivity to a whole bunch of lore that is beloved, for better or worse. The film closes the book on twenty years of Spider-Man storytelling and opens a door to an all-new era, sure to satisfy fans of any iteration of Spider-Man. It's in theaters now.

Best Comic Book TV Series: WandaVision: There has been a lot of new superhero and comic-book television adaptations hitting the small screen, and the only one that tackles trauma, grief, and humanity in such a relatable way is WandaVision. As a piece of art, it's unparalleled in 2021. You can watch it on Disney+.

Best Star Wars Experiment: Star Wars: Visions: Lucasfilm approached a number of Japanese animation studios with dump trucks full of money and said, "Here, please make a Star War. Don't worry about canon, just do what you do." And what we got was almost three hours of unabashedly wonderful Star Wars, free of the chains of the continuing story. It is must-watch for anime fans, Star Wars fans, Kurosawa fans, animation fans, film nerds and all points in between. You can watch it on Disney+.

• A24 Films

Best Fantasy Film: The Green Knight: A24 offered us their version of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and brought something bold and beautiful on a budget, proving you don't need to spend a trillion dollars to tell a quality fantasy story. More storytelling like this, please. You can rent or purchase this across streaming platforms.

Best Board Game of 2021: Descent: Legends of the Dark: Board games are always in need of updates, and Fantasy Flight's update of Descent is nothing short of majestic. This cooperative dungeon-crawler for 1-4 players is a gateway drug for bigger, better games like Dungeons & Dragons, but it will do that trick. With app-directed play, it makes it simple and fun. Get it for your friends and watch them all transform. Snag this at Oasis Games or Game Night Games.

Best Self-Published Indie Comic Find of 2021: Upstate by Stephen Pellnat: It's not often you hit it off with a bartender in a strange city and they reveal they make comics. Then, when they hand you the issue and you read it, it's even rarer that you're blown away. This is what happened when I read Stephen Pellnat's Upstate. It has all of the visual storytelling acumen of anything published by Drawn & Quarterly or Oni Press. Get a copy at stephenpellnat.com, and you won't be disappointed.

Best new Bookstore: Under the Umbrella: For anyone looking to support a local new bookstore, you can get plenty of sci-fi and fantasy offerings at Under the Umbrella (511 W. 200 South #120). The best part is that it's a queer-owned bookstore that specializes in books by or about queer folks. There was a need in the city for a safe space like this, and who can think of a safer space than a bookstore? Visit Under the Umbrella and pick up a book. You owe it to yourself, and to them. undertheumbrellabookstore.com

An Excellent 2021 Book to Buy at Under the Umbrella: Aetherbound by E.K. Johnston: Johnston fashions an extraordinary science fiction world with an impossibly unique magic system based on caloric intake. It's a sci-fi-fantasy that tells such a wonderfully personal story, in such a sprawling science-fiction world, that you will want to revisit in future installments. Get it at Under the Umbrella.

And that's it for the best of 2021! Let's all hope that 2022 is even better, and that we'll see each other out in the world of geekdom—with masks on, though, of course. There's still a pandemic on out there, no matter how much the legislature and governor pretend there's not.