2016 is over, and one of the most relevant pieces of art to come out of it is a comic book about the freaking Flintstones. Of course. Figures, you know?

The Flintstones was, from its start in the '60s, a rarity: a prime-time animated series aimed at adults as much as children, The Honeymooners with more Stone Age sight gags and puns and less jokes about domestic abuse. Its humor was squarely couched in the concerns and preoccupations of the blue-collar working class. It was an ode to the grind, the gentle caricature of domestic life that was common in early sitcoms.

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The 2016 comic book take on The Flintstones is similar in form and function—juxtaposing modern life with prehistoric aesthetics for great jokes and sharp satire—but it takes things even further. This Flintstones critiques hysteria over gay marriage by treating marriage as an entirely new, deviant concept in Bedrock, asking humane and considered questions about why we even bother with marriage in the first place. It does the same to religion, putting together a slapstick origin for the idea of church, wherein well-meaning people searching for meaning settle on the idea of a deity, but can't seem to find an adequate god to worship until they settle on Gerald, an invisible being responsible for everything. In one terribly timely story, Fred, Barney, Wilma, and Betty learn that Bedrock—like the United States, apparently—is more easily won over by an incompetent bully spewing racism than a capable leader who refuses to stoop to that level.

The satire the Flintstones engages in is sharp and surprising, but also humane. This is par for the course if you're familiar with writer Mark Russell's work—Russell has made incisive-yet-accessible satire his stock and trade, writing a barstool version of the Bible called God Is Disappointed In You and lambasting politics in another DC comic book about the first teen president voted in via Twitter, Prez. Artist Steve Pugh re-imagines the familiar cast from the caricatures of the cartoon into hulking cavemen and svelte cavewomen that aren't quite real but are still given a range of expression and emotion that is genuinely moving. Fred Flintstone, in particular, is a character of tremendous and surprising vulnerability, and it all works thanks to Pugh's strange-yet-effective character designs.

The Flintstones is the capstone on a year that was full of Marvel and DC comics that took their superhero (and cartoon) fare in incredibly relevant and powerful directions. Writer David F. Walker, across a trio of Marvel books—Power Man and Iron Fist (with artist Sanford Greene), Nighthawk (with artist Ramon Villalobos), and Occupy Avengers (with artist Carlos Pacheco)—explored ideas that ran the gamut from the emboldening of armed militias to police brutality, black rage, and a water crisis akin to the one in Flint, Michigan. Marvel's complimentary Captain America series by writer Nick Spencer—one following original Cap Steve Rogers (with art by Jesus Siaz) and the other new Cap/former Falcon Sam Wilson—explored the radicalization of the disenfranchised working class and the militarization of law enforcement. Mockingbird by Chelsea Cain and Kate Niemczyk flipped the gender politics of spy stories, telling a badass caper firmly from the vibrant, funny perspective of its eponymous super-spy.

Given their comparatively short turnaround time, comics have the potential to be among the most responsive fictional media when it comes to current events.

On the DC front, The Omega Men by Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda used the Green Lantern as a lens by which terrorism and terrorists could be examined and explored with complexity and nuance. Midnighter & Apollo by Steve Orlando and Fernando Blanco showed just how fun and badass a gay antihero could be if given the chance. Deadman: Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love by Sarah Vaughn and Lan Medina spun a compelling gothic mystery given more texture with queer characters. Deathstroke, by Christopher Priest, Carlo Pagulayan, et al. is a nasty, slick contemplation on violence and how it propagates itself. And, of course, there's The Flintstones.