I liked it is not a very sophisticated method of comparative analysis. I have personal preferences and weaknesses for certain runs and material but I would never place them near the top 100 runs. Honestly, is this Cap run anyhwhere close to Brubaker’s Sleeper?

And is Brubaker's Sleeper anywhere close to Acme Novelty Library in terms of conceptual scope and pure ability to utilize the comics medium to tell stories?

(Short answer: No.

Long answer: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Whew. No.)

We're not rating the best comics. More than anything else, it's a list of what this particular audience at this particular time thinks is cool.

I read most of Gruenwald's Captain America for the first time this year and was suitably impressed. It's fast paced, it thinks long term, it's relatively smart - And it knows exactly what it wants to be. Unlike Sleeper, which never really figured out it it was a comedy or not.

I don't know where you got that idea--the instructions specifically said "Vote for your top 10 top (and by top, I mean your favorites) comic book runs".

And then he crumples, and his friends run to his aid. Steve curls into a ball and whimpers to his friend Hank Pym (in full Thriller outfit- ugh), "Hank... I sick, I need help". Steve Rogers at his strongest and weakest at the same time. The idea of Captain America clearly defined as being far more than a patriotic anachronism, or corny superhero. Is it Watchmen or Cerebus or something like that? No. But its good comics, good art, good storytelling and yes, it deserves its place. The quality and skill are there. Gruenwald was kind of like Cap that way- he could say the silliest things sometimes but he had conviction behind it, and like Jimmy Stewart, you just had to buy into it.

I liked it is not a very sophisticated method of comparative analysis. I have personal preferences and weaknesses for certain runs and material but I would never place them near the top 100 runs. Honestly, is this Cap run anyhwhere close to Brubaker's Sleeper?

Rene may well be right though in placing the Cap run in the top 200.

Plus this entire list is individual people's opinion of what they like the most. To claim that the quality is not worthy of being on the list is like telling someone that they're wrong to like their favorite food or movie. It's all opinion.

Also good point on the "lighter" tone of Cap versus Daredevil Rene. Just because it was "lighter" didn't mean it was any less effective, or any less of a good comic. Seems to me people taking things darker ruined a lot of comics to follow thereafter.

I recently wrote about Gruenwald's Captain America over at my blog, with some comparisons to the current Brubaker run:

http://blog.newsok.com/nerdage/2008/04/07/captain-america-the-more-things-change/

There was heavy-handed moralism, but at least Gru was interested in discussing morality, it wasn't just slam-bam action. I remember villains like Flag-Smasher and Madcap, that represented interesting concepts (anti-nationalism and nihilism, respectively). And was Gru the first writer to work intimately with a group of villains, making them more like supporting characters in the ensemble cast of the comic than just occasional adversaries? The way he dealt with internal workings of the Serpent Society, while not as cool as the later Suicide Squad or Thunderbolts, was a first in comics, I think.

Still, for all of that, I would have ranked it even lower in this list, more closer to the bottom, if at all. Maybe it would be fairer to put it into a top 200. I still prefer J. M. deMatteis run that came almost immediately before, for instance.

As another poster mentioned these were the Dwyer/Lim issues, where not only was the art highly enjoyable (and I'm perfectly willing to leave that as a matter of taste rather than fact), but the plots were simply mesmerizing, with equal time given not just to some sterling action sequences but an emphasis on Cap's personal life that really allowed Steve Rogers to come into his own as never before as a more well-rounded person than just a speech spitting fighting machine- the "date" issue with him and Diamondback being secretly chaperoned by the Serpent Squad so Rachel and Steve can actually enjoy a night out without costumes is one of my favorite done-in-one's ever, and I really loved Diamondback being added to the cast of characters. There was a bit of work done on this side of Cap's life in the earlier runs, but even with the Bernie Rosenthal relationship, it kind of fell by the wayside to the superhero stuff. Not so here, where Cap's personal and professional lives were expertly balanced and equally compelling.

Two other points worth mentioning during this run that I loved

- we really got to see Steve's strategies as a fighter- Gruenwald had him thinking through his moves and Dwyer and Lim really put effort into showing a man fighting for his life rather than effortlessly dispatching legions of foes (though there was plenty of that to be found through the run as well)- but we saw Steve's thought process in combat -without telegraphing anything-and it heightened the stakes of the action for me.

Also we saw a startling bit of insight into the villains side of things. For a while, one wouldn't have been wrong to call this comic "Red Skull" instead of "Captain America" - we got a fly on the wall view of Skull's inner workings and politics of his organization, and again, Mark delved deeply into who all of these people were other than moustache twirlers - before this, Skull was the behind the scenes plotter who would then appear to flourish his plans in Captain America's face- but Gruenwald took the whole "Skull House" adventure set up by his predecessors one step further and gave us the planning stages and day to day workings of Skull and his lackeys- he even made the best work out of "Acts of Vengeance" by setting the stage for a great Skull/Magneto showdown where at the end, we are supposed to empathize with Skull's plight and see if he can survive Magneto's judgement (as a secondary tale drawn up by Mark Bagley no less).

And of course, "Streets of Poison" is to this day one of my favorite Cap stories- there's so many plates spinning throughout this arc you'd think a circus crashed into a restaurant (Skull versus Kingpin, Crossbones versus Bullseye, Diamondback versus Widow, Cap out of his mind on drugs, Cap without Super Solier Serum, Cap versus Daredevil). Yes, the run fell by the wayside in the later years, but man, this was one of those desert comics for me back in the day- the one you save at the end of the pile so you can end your reading with a bit of sweetness- like a Slott She-Hulk issue or Ultimate Spidey.

Apologies for what I now see is a really long post.

I've never read Dreadstar, so I can't comment on it. It'd really like to read it, though.

I started to get the impression Starlin was always telling the same story, only more elaborated.

I'm surprised Ditko's Dr. Strange isn't much higher. The art on those comics is phenomenal- Ditko imagined an entirely new way of doing comics about a magical super-hero. Jim Starlin's excellent Warlock comics were directly descended from those Dr. Strange comics.

Still, as good as the Starlin Warlock is, it isn't his best work. For my money, the Infinity cycle blew it all away.

It also showcased the perfect combination of done-in-ones with overarching subplots and story arcs, before Claremont became a parody of himself and the industry became obsessed with writing for the trade.

Glad to see it placed at all; I figured with all the (justified) love for the Claremont/Byrne and Morrison runs, the Claremont/Romita Jr. gem of a run would get completely overlooked.

I love that Kulan Gath two parter...