Top ten

What the hell, it's a slow day at work... top ten favorite comic books! Here we go!

(these are in no particular order, just entering them as I think of them)

1. New X-Men (X-Men #114-154):  It's impossible to overstate how different Morrison's X-Men run was from everything that had come before, and everything that's happened since.  It's amazing that this book was ever published.  It certainly wouldn't have had a chance today.  Morrison systematically tore through the X-Men mythos and themes, deconstructed them and put them back together in a modern context (or, if they didn't work, left them torn apart and ridiculed them, like the idea of the old-school world-conquering supervillain).  It read like the ultimate culmination of 40 years of X-Men continuity, a final summation of every thread and idea.  Of course, it wasn't, Marvel quickly ignored what had happened and moved on to other things.  But for those of us who read it, the X-Men would never feel the same.

2. X-Statix (X-Force #116-129, X-Statix #1-26, X-Statix presents Dead Girl #1-5):  Launched the same month as New X-Men, the reinvented X-Force is another book that could never have been published before, and never will be again.  Peter Milligan wrote a book that served as a wry commentary on superheroes and the media, while somehow managing to be more than satire, with beautifully-done character work and horrifically real consequences.  The book touched on race relations, mental disorders, homosexuality, the loss of loved ones, and more, and did it all with garish costumes and one character who looks like a flying green potato.  Mike Allred's retro-styled art gave the book an innocent 60s look, making X-Statix feel like a book out of time, allowing it to further toy with the genre's conventions and play its own artistic innocence against itself.  There will never be another book like this one, and that's fine.  It couldn't be duplicated even if someone tried.

3. Howard the Duck (Howard the Duck #1-27, 29-31):  HTD is another book that could only existed at one point in time.  In the 1970s, the populace had become more concerned about social issues, and social commentary proliferated TV shows, movies, and comic books.  At the same time, underground comix had begun to rise in popularity; these were generally VERY adult comic books, printed in very limited runs, full of drug usage, sex, and of course social commentary.  But more relevant to Howard, they were also a large number of comix which parodied existing cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.  At this confluence of events, Marvel decided to publish Steve Gerber's Howard the Duck.  Howard was naturally full of social commentary, and as the book progressed it did deal with some surprisingly adult situations, though they were not portrayed graphically as in comix.  The book often dove into parody and even dabbled in the surreal.  But the real standout is just the character of Howard himself.  Most writers now treat him as just a cantankerous caricature, basically what you'd expect, but Gerber's Howard was a work of art, a character who hated the world around him but only because it was such a disappointment, who abrasively hated people but only because he loved them so much.  Marvel would eventually ask Gerber to tone down the adult nature of the book, which was too smart, complex, and sophisticated for the children who Marvel considered its audience.  Gerber refused and left.  Three final issues were published, one an old fill-in script by Gerber and two written by Bill Mantlo, and though the magic is completely absent from them they do finish the story, so they're worth reading for that.  I've read my volume of The Essential Howard the Duck probably three or four times now, and each time I can't believe how good it really is.

4. Ultimate Spider-Man (Ultimate Spider-Man #1/2, 1-133, Ultimatum Requiem: Spider-Man #1-2):  This one had a huge impact on comics, bringing decompressed storytelling into vogue (in layman's terms, not cramming a story into a single issue but allowing it to breathe over a longer stretch of issues, making it more cinematic and allowing finer character work).  As reviewers will generally point out, Ultimate Spider-Man is a book that does not reveal its greatness issue by issue; every issue is GOOD, but there's rarely an issue that blows you away. But when read in long form, in sequence, it reveals how great it is.  Brian Michael Bendis created the perfect superhero book, a blend of action and character work that is simply unparalleled.  The book is an incredible piece of realism, keeping its fantasy elements explainable while portraying real characters who have real conversations, real problems, and suffer genuine consequences.  It's the ultimate (forgive the pun) incarnation of what Stan Lee was trying to do in the 60s with the first Spider-Man comics, and it will never be better than this.  I don't list the second volume of the series up above because I haven't read them all, although if pressed I'd have to say it hasn't really been as good as the old stuff.

5. Alpha Flight (Alpha Flight #1-69):  After their appearance in X-Men, Marvel wanted John Byrne to write and draw a spinoff series for Alpha Flight.  What's surprising is that initially Byrne didn't want to do it; it's surprising because once he started the book, he created some of the best work of his life.  Byrne started the book in an interesting way:  the first 12 issues focused on only one or two members of the team at a time, allowing him to delve into them and really create the characters in a way most team books don't allow.  He then increased the amount of team interaction, and by issue 24 finally had an issue where everyone was together.  The stories are phenomenal; while most superheroes are based in science, Alpha Flight largely dabbled in mythology, and the mystic bent created a whole new type of superhero book (this was also possibly the first Marvel book to feature a gay character, though at this point in time Byrne couldn't just come out and say Northstar was gay, he had to still skirt around it a bit).  Byrne left with issue 28 to work on Hulk, and Bill Mantlo took over.  At first Bill pretty much served the same function he had on Howard the Duck, after a few issues he found his voice and started to take the book in a fascinating direction.  By issue 50 he had completely dismantled the team, leaving some characters dead and some simply absent.  Issues 51 through 69 are my favorites of the series, as the small cluster of remaining Alphans try to work together to find their place in the world, accompanied by the stunning mainstream comics debut of artist Jim Lee.  The series would continue to issue 130 and experience three subsequent relaunches, but it would never be even nearly as good (the current series, from the preview pages I've read, looks terrible).  Byrne and Mantlo's work here is certainly not one of the greatest comics of all time, but for its sheer energy, its difference, and its great characters, I love it. 

6. All-New All-Different X-Men (Uncanny X-Men #94-144):  When Chris Claremont relaunched the X-Men in 1975, he took a book that was Marvel's lowest seller and turned it into their highest.  While Claremont's more recent work has ranged from bad to appalling, his classic work on X-Men was endlessly innovative.  First of all, the book featured a multi-national, multi-racial cast, something unheard of at the time.  Second, he threw the conventional superhero format out the window; these were not heroes who went out to fight villains, these were people just trying to survive and protect each other, who found themselves constantly under attack and had to fight to live.  Third, Claremont made the book an odyssey, taking the characters around the world, across the universe, and through dimensions, making the X-Men not just a team but a universe unto themselves.  Finally, my favorite thing:  Claremont adamantly refused to allow the book a status quo.  The team and its circumstances constantly shifted, characters changed, left, came back, grew mohawks, and died as blazing cosmic entities.  The book was not a franchise back then, Claremont had total freedom and he used it.  Claremont's main run on X-Men would continue all the way though issue 280; I can only call the first 50 or so issues my favorite because those are the ones I'm most familiar with.  No judgment on the rest of his run, that's just the stuff I know the best.  But I'll say this, I'm constantly looking for cheap copies of Essential X-Men to complete my set, and complete my experience of Claremont's unique odyssey.

7. Secret Wars (Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars #1-12):  The very first event comic, the first book to bring together a bulk quantity of the company's heroes and villains and make them fight.  What turns the lovably old-school action into a truly great book is the fact that Marvel's conflicted and personality-clashing heroes are used to their utmost, with shifting allegiances and internal fights aplenty.  The action is perfect, with sneak attacks and daring raids and a big ending where Dr. Doom betrays everyone and goes for the source of absolute power.  It is nothing less than awesome, and a must-read for everyone.

8. The Dark Knight Returns (The Dark Knight Returns #1-4):  There's little love for DC on this list... it's not that DC hasn't made great comics that really interest me, it's just that I haven't read them.  Morrison's Doom Patrol and Animal Man sound absolutely great, I just don't have them.  And I only have a couple of issues of All-Star Superman (#1 and 2).  Dennis O'Neill's 70s run on Batman sounds great, as does the 70s run of Green Lantern/Green Arrow, but they're not available in the way that Marvel reprints all their old stuff in cheap black & white.  Beyond that, I find their heroes too shiny, flawless, and all-get-along happy, and their event stories too ridiculously over-the-top, mired in time-travel, dimension-crossing, and the minutiae of decades of DC history.  The Dark Knight Returns is the antithesis of all that, a dystopian look at the real effects of vigilante justice, a vision of the future where Batman is aging but is needed more than ever.  The book really shows us that when it comes to Superman vs Batman, Superman is the deadly one, a man with too great of power and the morality of a little boy, too easily manipulated because of his sense of right and wrong and too powerful to ever be trusted.  It's a deconstruction of DC heroes themselves, and it began the grim-and-gritty era of superhero comics where the antihero became more popular than the hero.  Now things have swung back the other way, the bright shiny heroes are in charge again.  Even The Dark Knight Strikes Again served as a celebration of Superman and the like.  Personally, I'll always prefer this grim vision.  It may not be happy, but it's real.

9. Watchmen:  Everyone would put this on their list, but really is that good, it really does deserve to be on this list.  I think there are some works of art that you always appreciate more than you love, though, and this is one of those.  It's not something that I excitedly read over and over again and enjoy like crazy, but it's something that reveals a beautiful complexity each time.  The first truly realist take on superheroes in the real world, and a wonderful work of art.  I'm also looking forward to Marvel reprinting Alan Moore's Miracleman so I can finally read that too.

10. Ultimate Marvel Team-Up (UMTU #1-16, Ultimate Spider-Man Super Special #1):  I just love the hell out of this book.  I've always loved Marvel Team-Up, and this is the best version ever published.  Each month, Bendis teamed Ultimate Spider-Man up with a new Ultimate version of a classic Marvel character, illustrated by a stable of small-press and indie artists, many of whom had never appeared in a Marvel book before.  And it was awesome.  The book ended purely because Bendis was just too busy to write it, though that's probably just as well.  I'd rather have a little of a great thing than a lot of an okay thing.  Just pure fun and excitement from beginning to end, with gorgeous art, quirky and fun and endlessly enjoyable.  It may seem like cheating to have both this and Ultimate Spider-Man on the list, but what the hell.  I really love this book.