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Hmmm, yesterday I predict that the Titans and Morrison’s X-Men wouldn’t make the list and today….Well, don’t I feel silly.

I do have to admit that it was kinda funny when I got to your comment.

Morrison’s X-Men is the most overrated run ever.

I really liked it I read it in TPB form, but as Brian said Quitely’s art was amazing, but there were some shocking changes in art “tone” from issue to issue. I remember being really psyched at the end of the Quitely drawn issue when Lilandra and the Shiar Imperial Guard come to the X-mansion. Then the next page it was like “What the hell is this!!!!….”

Whoever said Sin Cty won’t make it is probably right. I can’t see it in the top nine.

Looks like that’s it for Mr Morrison. An impresive howing, with pretty much all his ongoing American runs making the list. His Batman doen’t seem to be floating people’s boats, but I believe he’s still going to turn it into something special.

He’s certainly got the most points now,ut he may be overtaken by Stan Lee or Chris Claremont. Idon’t think Ennis can top, as he’s only got Preacher left to come, though that’s certain to make the top five.

Don’t go taking any weekend breaks now, Mr Cronin. The suspense is killing me.

I guess BDaly is right about Sin City… though I enjoyed it a lot more than 3 or 4 of the other remaining runs. Anybody care to speculate on top spot? My guess is Sandman…. but I’d like to see Preacher, Starman, or Swampy topple the Lord of the Night.

Well Jackdaw, before this countdown started, I expected Lee/Dikto’s Spiderman to be a shoo-in for number 1. But then I thought Steranko and Neal Adams would easily make the top ten. Now, I’m not so confident with my predictions (see above).

Sandman seems as good a guess as any.

‘Riot at Xavier’s’ is one of my favourite story arcs of all time. A unique blend of humour (the Special Class on a field trip!), action (Cyclops, Beast and Xorn chasing down Blob Hermann - excellent pacing courtesy of Mr Quietly) and downright horror (Xorn/Magneto murders Quentin in full view of Xavier and Beast, who believe him to have ascended to a higher plain of existence). ‘Murder at the Mansion’ was equally awesome, and introduced us to the coolest version of Bishop ever - Lucas Bishop, mutant detective (while reading those issues I kept hearing Isaac Hayes in the background). And ‘Planet X’, while flawed in places, had many standout moments and moving death-scenes (Emma comforting proud Esme while she lay dying, Magneto’s last stand,…) As Jean bade farwell to Scott, her ‘best friend’, I almost cried.
The last arc was ill-served by Silvestri’s pencils, but had enough great ideas to keep us loyal readers satisfied. And the ending, again featuring Jean, was beautiful.
A great run by any standards.

I’m shocked to see Steranko not making the top 100, which he apparently isn’t at this point.

Kirby FF remains my prediction for #1, but I see the logic behind thinking it will be Sandman. Lot of Vertigo fans around here. And it’s quite likely more people have read Sandman than ’60s Marvel stuff.

Actually I have a complaint, but it’s not what you think.

All the other entries in this poll use the cover from the first issue in the run. I thought it was a good plan because it spares us from aesthetic complaints about using the ‘really great’ cover.

These you’ve picked whatever cover. And I don’t like your choices at all. The DC Archive edition cover for New Teen Titans? That’s not even an actual cover by Perez– that’s paste-up from other artwork he did.

I want the same rule applied here as for the other 87 entries!

(Watch as I learn these are all temporary because comics.org is down or something)

The Blue Superman was incredible cool, during Morrison’s run on JLA and he handled the whole new look thing, so good, that when Supes turned pink again, i quicky began to miss the blue look.

I would have easily voted for Steranko’s Cap run except for the fact that it’s so freaking short.

If he did another twenty issues, then sure.

As it was, it was barely a run at all.

Good batch. I’ve read and loved all 3 of these. I find it kind of funny that the Grant Morrison books are appearing on this list in more or less the opposite order I would have ranked them. Invisibles was my number 1 choice, and here we are with X-Men getting the most votes for his work.

I’m going to assume at this point that Sugar and Spike and the Helfer/Baker/Sienkievich’s Shadow aren’t going to make it. Swamp Ting and FF probably will.

Top 9 guesses?

Fantastic Four by Lee Kirby
Spider-Man by Lee Ditko
X-Men by Claremont Byrne
Sandman Gaimen et al
Preacher Ellis Dillon
Authority Ennis Hitch
Swamp Thing Moore Bissette Totleben
??
I’m at a loss.

Man, since there are only nine spots left, I can’t believe that Hama’s G.I.Joe is going to place so high. Can’t wait.

I think I phrased my vote as “the Wolfman/Perez run on the ‘first New Teen Titans’ series” (which I meant to include the issues published in that first series after its title changed to “Tales of the Teen Titans,” but I suspect Brian merged my vote into the total score for #11 on this list. This list includes their work on the first several issues of the second, direct-market series that also began with the title “The New Teen Titans.”

The gap between #11 and #10 on this list is wide enough that it doesn’t really matter how he counted my single vote, come to think of it . . . it still would have finished behind Morrison’s X-Men run.

I did no more than toy with the idea of voting for Morrison’s JLA run, and never considered voting for his X-Men run (I’ve read both runs, and like the JLA run a lot better, but “a lot better” still didn’t translate into “anywhere near Top 10 Favorites material.”)

So with just 9 items left to go, I guess I’ve seen 4 of my picks make the grade, and I only seriously expect 1 more of them to go the distance.

One nitpick — according to comics.org, Steve Rude did the pencils on most (not all) of the pages of “Tales of the Teen Titans #48,” and Carmine Infantino did the pencils on most (not all) of the pages of “Tales of the Teen Titans #49.” George Perez did contribute some pages of penciled art for each, as well as helping co-plot, apparently. I thought I remembered those issues right before the wedding of Donna Troy having some different art styles in them. I don’t know offhand how (or if) you like to reflect it when an artist’s run included some but not all of certain issues he also co-plotted, but I just thought I’d better mention it.

Good summary, Davey Boy.

I’ll just add my personal favorite memory of Grant Morrison’s New X-Men (but SPOILER WARNING for those who haven’t read the run) —
John Xorn had become my favorite X-Man. I’d been a die-hard fan of X-Men since around 1990, knew all the characters and all the continuity, and then in less than three years John Xorn had basically become my favorite character in comics. I thought Morrison was giving us the richest, most enduring new mutant the books had seen in ages. Grant Morrison writing X-Men was a dream come true for me. I knew it would be such a perfect fit, I literally used to pray for it. This book was a whole new way to do mutants, and each character Morrison used was a key aspect of that, and I guess Xorn represented the most explicitly side of the evolution Morrison showcasing in this book. And that appealed to me. Xorn was just the coolest guy. I dreamt about writing a John Xorn spin-off series someday.

And then in one issue, without absolutely any warning that I could see, we found out… he was Magneto. All along he was Magneto. It was the biggest surprise I have ever read in a comic - bigger than Thunderbolts 1, bigger than Ozymandias’ “30 minutes ago,” bigger than Bucky coming back.

I wanted to be pissed off, because in a heartbeat my favorite character had been taken away from me. But the sheer exhilaration of being so completely blindsided (and the tremendous quality of the storytelling in the issue in question) far overrode my inner fanboy’s protests. It was pure genius, and Morrison’s X-Men is still my favorite superhero run to date.

And that’s 7 of my top 10 done. Only Sandman and Starman left, plus of course Donna Barr’s extraordinarily popular Desert Peach. Heh. Okay, I gave up on that one being on the top 100 before I even voted for it, but I’d heartily recommend it to anyone who likes to read stories.

at this moment whilst I’m sure to be wrong I’m hoping the top 5 will be
5 james Robinson’s Starman
4 Sandman
3 Lee/Ditko Spider-man
2 Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing
and 1 will be lee/Kirby FF no question.
as far as today’s picks I love them all so no complaints or criticisms from here

Morrison’s JLA is…well, awfully high considering it was just ‘good’ and not ‘great’, in my opinion.

Turns out I was right. Titans is on the list, both of Morrison’s runs are on the list.

Except, I was wrong too. I guessed JLA would be #5, so I lost the contest! Damn it.

I didn’t take into account the “Silver Age Internet effect”. JLA is more praised than New X-Men in the Internet because it’s more Silver Age-y, so I thought it would be much higher. Turns out New X-Men is more popular.

Now I can only win the contest if no one else guesses the Top 5, and it turns out I was right about the Top 4.

Gotta go. Comments and tally later.

Now the guessing gets really fun, because the stakes are higher. I’m shocked to see that at least two of these runs won’t make the top 100 (in no particular order).

Lee/Kirby FF
Lee/Ditko ASM
Claremont/Byrne X-Men
Claremont/Lee X-Men
Gaiman Sandman
Miller Daredevil
Ellis/Dillon Preacher
Moore Swamp Thing
Robinson/Harris Starman
Hama G.I.Joe
Steranko’s Nick Fury

And I’m really sad that my all-time favorite comic book series, Sandman Mystery Theatre, won’t make the top 100 either. For shame, comic blogosphere, for shame!

With 9 to go I can safel say only 3 of my picks made it, and one of those three was Kirbys Mr. Miracle lumped in with the Fourth World. (The other two were Peter Davids X-Factor and Alan Grant Batman).

I’m goint to go out on the limb here but I guess Mantlo didn’t make it. I had both his Rom and Alpha Flight runs on my list. Oh, well bring on the top nine.

Agreed, Stefan, Xorn was awesome. And then Marvel let (had?) Chuck Austen introduce the ‘real’ Xorn (or was it Xorn’s brother?), and in the process undermined what Morrison had tried to explain with his run - namely, that the X-Men had evolved as a concept, and could thrive without the presence of both Magneto and Xavier, whose rivalry had determined the course of the X-books since their inception.

At the end of his run, Magneto is dead and irrelevant, Professor X has left the school, and Cyclops has by virtue of Jean’s death and his romance with Emma become the center point of the X-franchise (which he has, thankfully, remained under the guidance of Whedon in Astonishing X-Men).

It is understandable that Marvel wouldn’t let a villain as compelling as Magneto die an irreversible death. But Morrison gave us the definite version of Magneto, and I rather doubt that there is much more that can be said or done with the character in the wake of his run.

I, too, wonder how how these three entries got this high. NTT is fun and worth re-reading every few years. The Omega Men arc is the most underrated arc. People tend to forget though that Perez suffered under a lot of inappropriate inkers for a lot of this run. Other than the occasional issue he inked himself, it frequently lacked the “wow” factor we associate with him.

The Morrison runs? They’re okay, I guess, though I never bothered to finish either. So strange that they finished so high, as he clearly never grew to love either set of characters and therefore put in about half the effort he did on Animal Man and Doom Patrol. I assume that no one who actually read all four runs would ever rank JLA or NXM higher. If you know anyone who loves JLA or NXM, please force the trades of the earlier runs into their hands! They’re in for a pleasant shock.

If I were to vote for one thing by Bill Mantlo which I’ve read, it would probably be his collaboration with Michael Golden on the first year of Marvel’s “Micronauts” title, way back when. Near as I can recall, they were obviously trying to imitate the general feel of the “Star Wars” space opera approach — which was the “hot new thing” when the series started in the late 70s — and they did a surprisingly good job! (Granted, I haven’t actually reread that material in years, so if I dug out the back issues now, my opinion might change. Come to think of it, I believe I will dig it out over this coming weekend!)

Good to hear some Mantlo love from mrjayberry and Lorendiac. It now looks the only vote of mine that won’t make it was my #10: Mantlo and Buscema’s Hulk. It sounds like one thing that hurt Mantlo is that his votes were split over several good runs. Maybe Brian should rename the whole thing “Top 100 Comic Book Runs Other Than Those Written By Bill Mantlo”.

Those Hulks deserves a series of Marvel Visionaries trades.

DB - It’s funny, because I always dug Claremont’s rather long redemption arc with Magneto, and I didn’t like the way Marvel recast him as a Big Bad at the end of his run. Morrison’s story was good enough, though, that I finaly let Magneto go (just like I let Xorn go).

But the wonderful l thing about the cyclical nature of comics is that even after Marvel did its best to gut the X-books of everything Morrison did to elevate them, the phoenix will rise from the ashes. And now in X-Men: Legacy, Mike Carey’s giving us “the real Magneto” in a way that really works for me. He’s able to showcase the marvelous interplay between those two characters without saddling the X-Men ethos in their old rivalry, which has more or less become irrelevant.

I’ve been saying “hope, thy name is Mike Carey” ever since he came aboard two years ago, and now with Fraction and Ellis joining up, I think the whole line (well, at least the core actual “X-Men titles) could turn around. I still lament that the expansion of the concept as Morrison saw it is lost to time, because it was breathtakingly beautiful, but it seems like something else really cool is rising in its place.

My picks and where they’ve rated so far

1 Clairmont/Byrne - X-Men (*)
2 Frank Miller – Daredevil (*)
3 Walt Simonson – Thor (#15)
4 Thomas/Adams - X-Men
5 Kurt Buisek – Avengers (#41)
6 O’Neil/Adams - Green Lantern/Green Arrow (#59)
7 Jim Starlin – Silver Surfer/Thanos Quest
8 Clairmont/Smith – X-Men (#71)
9 J. M.S. – Thor
10 Simon/Shuster - Superman (importance over quality)
*Agreed to be in the top 9

Overall, I’ll end up with 6/10 making it. I gave a vote on #10 KNOWING that it would never make it, so maybe I could say I’m 6/9. Honestly, I didn’t expect my #8 to make it at all.

I’m still hoping for the Thomas/Adams X-Men to make it, but I’m not holding my breath. That run really deserves more attention than it gets.

With some of the other stuff that’s shown up, I’m a little surprised that my #s 7 & 9 didn’t make it. Then again, Thor got cancelled, so I guess I’m in the vast minoroty on tha tone. It did really go to pot at the end. The Infinity Gem saga, however, was awsome. Much better than Starlin’s original Warlock.

Can’t wait to see where Herb Trimpe’s Fantastic Four Unlimited places!

Huh. So both JLA and New X-Men made the list. I’m more surprised than I should be, probably.

I voted for JLA. The first comics I read were Marvel and that’s what I kept reading for many years. Until JLA came along the only DC stuff I really read was some Batman and Superman. But JLA really served as a gateway into the world of DC (the characters, of course, had always been more than familiar thanks to all the other media they appeared in). So Morrison’s JLA was responsible not only for getting me more fully immersed in the DC universe of the present, but the past as well, as JLA led me to go back and read a lot of the old Justice League/DCU stuff as well.

I know a lot of people don’t like him now, but I loved Morrison’s “I can take down anyone” Batman; the scene in the first JLA story, when he takes on the Martians because he knows their secrets, is one of my favorite comic book moments.

Haven’t read much of New Teen Titans beyond a few trades of the big arcs. I enjoyed what I read, but didn’t feel compelled to read much more than that.

Morrison’s X-Men is, of course, pretty awesome, packed full of great ideas: Xorn, the Special Class, Cassandra Nova, Xavier “outing” himself as a mutant, Beak. I loved that the school was a school, with random kids all over. The Xorn/Magneto reveal was a truly surprising revelation (I too found myself really enjoying Xorn as a character. The funny thing is, Chuck Austen ruined that character, not the Magneto reveal). The only real drawback of the run is the inconsistent art (and yes, I know, Kordey was rushed and really isn’t that bad. Still, it would have been nice if Quietly had been paired with another artist on a consistent rotation).

Titans at #11?! What is wrong with you people? It was #2 on my list and should have easily been top 10, if just for The Judas Contract alone.

Anyway that makes 7 of my 10 on the list so far. The only ones left are Preacher, Moore’s Swamp Thing and Sandman. If all of those don’t make the top 10 then somethings seriously wrong.

My list was done ina hurry to stop me from constantly changing it and consists of

1 James Robinsons - Starman
2 Doug Moench - Master of Kung Fu
3 Giffen/Bierbaums - Legion of Superheroes √
4 Steve Engleharts Avengers
5 Frank Miller- Daredevil
6 Grant Morrison – Doom patrol
7 Steve Gerber – Man-Thing
8 Alan Moore- Swamp Thing
9 Geoff Johns - The Flash
10 Roy Thomas - Conan

I can’t really imagine Engleharts Avengers, Thomas’s Conan or Gerbers Man-Thing displacing Lee/Kirby or Lee/Ditko at the top so I’m looking to Starman, Miller’s Daredevil and Swampy to make the grade to give me a reasonably respectable 6 out of 10. And Now I look at my list again How on earth have I missed off Sandman??

I don’t remember what order I placed my runs in (Or even what my 10th run was), but of the ones I remember voting for, I’m 7 for 9 at the moment with one more (starman) I’m sure to appear. The only one from my list that never appeared is the Greg Rucka-run on Detective Comics (Although I think most people gave their votes to Gotham Central instead, as it kept much of the same feel and was less plagued with crossovers)

Well, it’s looking like the Marv Wolfman/Gene Colan Tomb of Dracula is gonna be shut out. Same for the Kubert/Kubert Tarzan of the Apes. And Haney/Aparo Brave&Bold.

That’s just sad.

My final 9:
9 - Robinson Starman
8 - Perez Wonder Woman
7 - Giffen / DeMattis JLI
6 - Swamp Thing Moore
5 - Gaiman Sandman
4 - Lee / Kirby FF
3 - Lee / Ditko Spidey
2 - Miller DD
1 - Claremont / Byrne X Men

For one, I’m not surprised that JLA and New X-Men are ranked higher that Animal Man and Doom Patrol. Obscure characters versus top superteams in each universe. No contest, even though I enjoyed Animal Man more than JLA and New X-Men (didn’t read Doom Patrol).

Even so, I think JLA and New X-Men are magnificent accomplishments that would have been even more praised bu the Internet if people didn’t already expect greatness and perfection from Morrison.

It’s also interesting how different they are from each other.

New X-Men is less of a superhero book, and more a science fiction / speculative fiction book. Morrison’s crazy thoughts on mutation, society, weird aliens, weirder mutants, psychic affairs, psychic twin sisters… it’s daring, surprisingly daring for a mainstream Marvel book. It gets a bit of flak for two things: the non-Quitely artwork (and I wonder how Ethan van Sciver could be so crappy in X-Men, and so great in Green Lantern), and the way Morrison makes household characters like Cyclops and Magneto more than a bit unsympathetic. The exception is Wolverine, that Morrison casts as smart-mouth comic relief.

JLA, obviously, is the superhero team book with all stops removed, bigger than any superteam book that came before. While Morrison likes to make Marvel characters darker and creepier than they usually are (see also his Fantastic Four mini), he is the opposite with the DC characters, making then even more heroic than they usually are. The Internet complaints here are the hyper-active pacing, the “God” Batman (that I rather liked), and the characterization-on-the-run. Still, the series is packed full of nice moments, like Superman standing there, sad and noble, as the US military opens fire at him.

Both runs definitely deserve to be here.

So does Teen Titans. It’s the comic that, together with Uncanny X-Men, defined the shape superheroes would have in the last three decades. For good or for ill. People can call me heretic, but Chris Claremont and Marv Wolfman had a bigger and more lasting influence on superhero comics than Alan Moore, even though Moore is infinitely more talented than them. People often forget that. The Teen Titans characters themselves didn’t become quite the media juggernauts that the X-Men have, but OTOH, many of these classic Teen Titans stories are still remembered and cherised.

Morrison appears to be benefitting from the relative freshness of his runs (i.e., all within last decade or so), but I have to admit his JLA and New X-Men were insanely READABLE. One thing I don’t think he gets much props for — as people tend to wow over the audacity of his plotting — is how expansive his emotional palette is. Not just the usual comic book emotions (happy, sad, worried), but the whole gamut and finely shaded. How paranoid his Batman is. Petty, proud and needy (Emma). Confused and wallowing in despair (Cyclops in the Hellfire Club; what an awesome ish with Wolverine). Jealous but increasingly ambivalent (Jean). Essentially insane (Plas). Self-doubting and quietly despairing (Beast). Admittedly, his JLAers were more action figures than his mutants, but that New X-Men run was really was all about those characters trying to find happiness (when they weren’t battling nigh-omnipotent villains). That’s still pretty rare.

On a tangent. Anybody else gone out and spent money as a direct result of this thread?

(Was so impressed with Punisher Max write up that I went out and bought the 4 hardback vols next day.)

Yeah, I’m looking pretty seriously at “Planetary.”

Matt Bird — I don’t think “Mantlo love” is the right way to describe my attitude. I really enjoyed his first year on Micronauts, but I thought the title went downhill from there after Golden left. I find what i’ve read of his “Rom” run to be boring at times, and I thought the way he butchered (or ignored) some of Byrne’s ideas when he took over from Byrne on Alpha Flight was just awful. I’ve read very little of his Hulk run (I never was much of a Hulk collector), so I can’t judge that one.

Well, it makes me want to go out and buy Doom Patrol, although that desire didn’t start with this list. And 2 of t3 this week. Read very little Titans, only read first book of New X-men

New Totals. Morrison. Marvel. Modern.

We have 93 runs so far (and 20971 pts)

- 34 runs are set in the Marvel Universe (7736 pts)
- 10 runs are X-Titles (2123 pts)
- 2 runs are Ultimate titles (679 pts)
- 36 runs if you get Marvel plus Ultimate Universe (8415 pts)

- 22 runs are set in the DC Universe (5534 pts)
- 3 runs are Bat-Titles (452 pts)
- 8 are Vertigo comics (2249 pts)
- 26 runs if you get DC plus Vertigo sub-universe plus Plastic Man retcon (5754 pts)

- 5 runs are set in the Wildstorm Universe (994 pts)
- 5 runs have female protagonists (960 pts)

- 77 are superheroes or close enough (17220 pts)
- 16 are non-superhero (3751 pts)

Sorted by decade the first issue in the run was published, we have:

- 1980s (29 runs - 6803 pts)
- 2000s (25 runs - 6297 pts)
- 1990s (24 runs - 5403 pts)
- 1970s (9 runs - 1570 pts)
- 1960s (4 runs – 599 pts)
- 1940s (2 runs - 299 pts)

Sorted by associated creator:

- Grant Morrison (6 runs - 2754 pts)
- Warren Ellis (5 runs - 1285 pts)
- Brian Michael Bendis (4 runs - 1079 pts)
- Alan Moore (5 runs - 909 pts)
- Brian K. Vaughan (2 runs - 854 pts)
- Ed Brubaker (3 runs - 739 pts)
- Garth Ennis (3 runs - 722 pts)
- John Cassaday (2 runs - 722 pts)
- Marv Wolfman (643 pts)
- George Perez (643 pts)
- Chris Claremont (5 runs - 638 pts)
- John Byrne (2 runs - 627 pts)
- Peter David (2 runs - 624 pts)
- Howard Porter (574 pts)
- Pia Guerra (547 pts)
- Kurt Busiek (2 runs - 541 pts)
- John Ostrander (2 runs - 541 pts)
- Keith Giffen (2 runs - 536 pts)
- Geoff Johns (3 runs - 534 pts)
- Walt Simonson (514 pts)
- Stan Lee (3 runs - 490 pts)
- Alex Maleev (480 pts)
- Bryan Hitch (2 runs - 474 pts)
- Bill Willimgham (428 pts)
- Darick Robertson (418 pts)
- Mark Waid (2 runs - 378 pts)
- Dave Sim (370 pts)
- Gerhard (370 pts)
- Mark Bagley (364 pts)
- Roger Stern (2 runs - 334 pts)
- Paul Levitz (328 pts)
- Brent Anderson (323 pts)
- Jeff Smith (321 pts)
- Mark Millar (315 pts)
- Adrian Alphona (307 pts)
- Jack Kirby (2 runs - 292 pts)
- John Romita Jr. (2 runs - 276 pts)
- John Romita (270 pts)
- Denny O’Neil (2 runs - 261 pts)
- Peter Milligan (2 runs - 255 pts)
- Brothers Hernandez (236 pts)
- John McCrea (232 pts)
- Joss Whedon (229 pts)
- Steve Gerber (218 pts)
- Frank Miller (211 pts)
- David Mazzucchelli (211 pts)
- Tom and Mary Bierbaum (208 pts)
- Tom Mandrake (205 pts)
- Will Eisner (204 pts)
- Joe Kelly (202 pts)
- Steve Englehart (184 pts)
- Mike Mignola (179 pts)
- Frank Quitely (176 pts)
- Mike Baron (174 pts)
- Steve Rude (174 pts)
- Neal Adams (162 pts)
- David Michelinie (152 pts)
- Bob Layton (152 pts)
- Mike Wieringo (150 pts)
- Brian Azzarello (150 pts)
- Eduardo Risso (150 pts)
- Kevin O’Neill (148 pts)
- Alan Grant (146 pts)
- Norm Breyfogle (146 pts)
- Michael Avon Oeming (134 pts)
- Paul Smith (133 pts)
- Marc Silvestri (133 pts)
- Christopher Priest (130 pts)
- Greg Rucka (122 pts)
- Alan Davis (122 pts)
- Paul Chadwick (120 pts)
- Joe Casey (117 pts)
- Robert Kirkman (115 pts)
- Mike Carey (114 pts)
- Peter Gross (114 pts)
- Ryan Kelly (114 pts)
- Mike Allred (113 pts)
- Sean Phillips (113 pts)
- Sergio Aragonés (110 pts)
- Mark Evanier (110 pts)
- Roy Thomas (109 pts)
- Jim Starlin (109 pts)
- Steve Ditko (108 pts)
- Mark Gruenwald (107 pts)
- Mike Grell (104 pts)
- Stuart Immonen (103 pts)
- Michael Gaydos (101 pts)
- Kazuo Koike (100 pts)
- Goseki Kojima (100 pts)
- Denys Cowan (99 pts)
- Matt Wagner (98 pts)
- Stan Sakai (98 pts)
- Terry Moore (96 pts)
- Chris Ware (95 pts)
- Doug Moench (95 pts)
- Jack Cole (95 pts)

- 77 are superheroes or close enough (17220 pts)
- 43 are traditional superheroes (10551 pts)
- 34 are non-traditional superheroes (6659 pts)
- 12 are nonpowered superheroes (2182 pts)
- 7 are comedic superheroes (1007 pts)
- 32 are team books (8111 pts)
- 16 are non-superhero (3751 pts)

all three of these were in my top 10. that makes 5 total so far (Runaways and the Giffen Legion being the other two).

Morrison’s New X-Men was one of my top votes, so yay for me. My favortie arc was ‘Riot at Xavier’s’, my least favorite was ‘Here Comes Tomorrow’ (weak story combined with Marc Silvestri’s boring art).

Never read Morrison’s JLA, other than JLA: Earth 2 which was mind blowing. But it’s not included in the vote above, so whatever.

Unfortuantely I never read Wolfman/Perez’s original collaboration and only found several issues of New Teen Titans (1984) years ago in a local book store. I think that other than issue #1 Perez only did a few covers.
By the way, couple of years ago I heard that DC is planning to publish a lost, never finished TT story by Wolfman and Perez in GN format. Never heard of it again and I’m not sure if it was an April Fool’s Day prank or real.

I’m also considering checking out Planetary now, and I had not been before. And I’ll echo the couple of people showing love for Hama’s GI Joe. I love that series, and it was 3rd or 4th on my list.

I liked Rom the Spaceknight. 1950s paranoia alien invasion movies plus Silver Surfer with a bit of Green Lantern Corps. The problem is that Bill Mantlo’s unrepentant sentimentality doesn’t play so well with modern, more cynical readerships. It’s interesting that he had some pretty creepy horror concepts in there too, like the Hybrid, and those dogs mutated by black magic and science.

I liked Mantlo’s Hulk more. The daring thing Mantlo did with the Hulk was to make his run a long, continuing storyline. That was pretty unusual for the Hulk, that traditionally had been just about the wandering monster smashing whatever got in his way that month. Bill Mantlo instead told a long story about Banner conquering the beast within, gaining acceptance, then tragically slipping back into savagery, and finally becoming more bestial than ever before.

It certainly deserves more recognition.

“Has anyone spent money…”

Not yet, but I am going to, once the list is finished.

No surprises here, though I thought Titans would place higher. I think Claremont/Byrne X-Men’s going to take the top spot handily.

i *almost* went out and bought The Authority the other day… i’d read it in the past and (like a good deal of Ellis’s work) didn’t get it, but the writeup here encouraged me to take another look.

(there was something else i wanted to buy because of this countdown… can’t remember what it was right now, though)

I think this needs to be said clearly for those who haven’t read the run: Grant Morrison tried to change the core concept of the x-men. Old concept: x-men fight for a world that hates and fears them. New concept: the x-men represent the evolution of humanity and will lead us boldly into the future.

In a recent interview, Grant Morrison mentioned that he doesn’t like killing characters - he likes leaving them with fates worse than death. Grant didn’t just kill Magneto, he killed Magneto’s argument, making him absolutely ridiculous in the process.

At the end of New X-men, Marvel was left in a position to either embrace the new concept or reject it. They could have gone back to the old concept or come up with something new. They went for something in the middle (which was probably what they thought their audience would best relate to). New/old concept: The X-men are a big superhero soap opera family without much purpose at all except for perpetuating that status quo. See: Astonishing X-men, House of M, Messiah Complex.

I miss New X-men, but I don’t know any current writer at Marvel who could have done the new concept justice. Oh, wait, Peter Milligan (who wrote some pretty bad post-New X-men stories, under the new/old concept) and Warren Ellis (we’ll see what he does with the x-men soon enough).

“However, outside of Giffen, Giffen’s take on the League was not particularly popular, so when DC was debating on how to revamp the title,….”

Not particularly popular? It re-energized the whole Justice League franchise, added a second monthly title, plus an oversized quarterly, plus a slew of annuals and specials.

Are you Dan DiDio in disguise?

–Ed

Reading about the origin of Morrson’s JLA run, it’s astonishing how stupid the DC powers that be can be. Every time they to mess with the JLA formula (the big guns, exteme threats) they come up with crap, or at least something that’s not the JLA anymore.

I’ll be using this list for input on what trades to buy. So yes, I’ll be spending money as a direct result of this list.

I LOVED Mantlo’s Micronauts. It almost made my list. I re-read the whole series a few years ago. Did you realize the entire first run only took a week in comic time? I’m sure that wasn’t on purpose, but DANG!

When I glanced at a few issues, back around 1989/1990, I thought the Giffen DeMatteis collaboration on the Justice League was:

1. Often very funny, touching, whatever . . .

but also:

2. Totally unsuited to a series with Justice League in the title. If they had been writing exactly the same scripts, using a membership that ran heavily toward such previously-obscure and/or just-recenty-created characters as Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Fire, Ice, Oberon, Dmitiri (Rocket Red #whatever-the-heck-his-number-was), Animal Man, Max Lord, etc., along with bigger names such as Batman, Martian Manhunter, and even Guy Gardner to liven things up . . . and if they had called it something complely different, such as “Global Guardians” or “Unifiers” (in honor of their being chartered by the UN), then I might actually have become a regular buyer at the time. But to me it just didn’t feel right to see all this sitcom-style stuff going on in something that ought to have a bit more dignity if it called itself the Justice League.

(I have since collected and read full runs of the Giffen/DeMatteis stuff on JLI and later JLE, and while I generally enjoyed reading them, I still feel “It may be well-written in its own way, but it ain’t really the Justice League.)

“Not particularly popular? It re-energized the whole Justice League franchise, added a second monthly title, plus an oversized quarterly, plus a slew of annuals and specials. Are you Dan DiDio in disguise?”

I think Brian is right, Ed.

It was wildly popular for a while, then that particular type of comic book disappeared without a trace after Giffen left the books, and the JL franchise languished again until Morrison. The Giffen/deMatteis League, as unique and original as it was, didn’t seem to have left a lasting mark on comics.

Mark me among the people surprised at how low New Teen Titans was; I expected it to be one of the top two DC runs (along with Sandman) and to break 1000 votes.

Morrison’s JLA is like taking a 24 hour course in Quantum Mechanics. There are a lot of brilliant ideas, but a lot of it really rushes by quickly. Look at Rock of Ages: one issue you’re inside the maze that is Joker’s mind, the next issue is with Wonder World and giant New Gods and the next issue is a post-apocalyptic world with Darkseid. This is one of the few runs that could have benefited from a bit of decompression.

Morrison’s New X-Men was one of my top 10. Interesting to note the comment about Morrison being given carte blanche because Marvel was practically bankrupt. Does that mean there would have been more constraints if Marvel wasn’t looking down the crapper? Hmmm. There’s a lesson there, methinks.

Oh, one more thing. Giffen’s JLA - I’m not a big DC fan but a friend leant me this run and I thought it was hilarious. Really, really good. Guy Gardner forever!

“Never read Morrison’s JLA, other than JLA: Earth 2 which was mind blowing. But it’s not included in the vote above, so whatever.”

It probably should be, come to think of it - it was an Elseworlds story at first, but Busiek retconned it into a normal story when he took over JLA for his year.

I figured all three of these would be top-10s, actually, especially JLA. Kind of shocking to see it so low.

“Reading about the origin of Morrson’s JLA run, it’s astonishing how stupid the DC powers that be can be. Every time they to mess with the JLA formula (the big guns, exteme threats) they come up with crap, or at least something that’s not the JLA anymore.”

yeah, in retrospect it just sounds crazy, but at the same time you have to remember that it wasn’t just “editorial” per se… in some cases, the creators themselves didn’t want their characters in the League because they felt it messed with the new post-Crisis stata quo they were trying to establish for the characters.

John Byrne was redefining Superman as more of a loner and didn’t want him to be in the team… George Perez’s Wonder Woman reboot had her only recently arriving in Man’s World and still trying to learn its weird ways… Hal Jordan was dedicated to the Green Lantern Corps… Wally West was still pretty new as the Flash… Mike Grell was turning Green Arrow from a superhero to an urban vigilante… Hawkman and Hawkwoman, like Wonder Woman, were rebooted in the present…

I felt that Morrison’s JLA was the best JLA that DC had produced in decades. I’m in the camp that liked Giffen’s JL, but didn’t really compare it to the 70s Justice League America that I had enjoyed.

I especially loved how, about halfway through any given story arc, you could tell which character was the spotlight. Was this the story that Batman saved the day, or the one where Superman shone brighter than ever, or the one where Flash demonstrated why a former kid sidekick could hang with the big boys, or etc. He didn’t seem to have a favourite character.

Although, looking at the comments, am I the only one who was disappointed by his use of the Blue Superman? I felt while reading it, and since then re-reading it, that he wasn’t told that Superman was turning Electirc Blue, and that the stories really should have been set either just before or just after that arc in the Superman titles.

I didn’t read Morrison’s X-Men. I’d long become disillusioned with the franchise, and it took Whedon’s name to get me to even try an X title for a long time. Maybe I should go back and look for collections?

I am surprised that NTT is so low. I expected it to be neck and neck with Claremont/Byrne X-Men, hovering at around 7-5, either just in or just out of the Top 5.

My predictions for the next nine:

9. Hama’s GI Joe
8. Ellis’s Preacher
7. Moore’s Swamp Thing
6. David’s Aquaman
5. Claremont/Byrne’s X-Men
4. Miller’s Daredevil
3. Gaiman’s Sandman
2. Lee/Dikto’s Spider-Man
1. Lee/Kirby’s Fantastic Four

Theno

Funny that some people think these runs are too low, others think they’re too high, a few thought they wouldn’t even be here.

Let me see, in the earlier thread I guessed that New X-Men would be #12 (it was #10), I guessed that Titans would be #7 (it was #11), and I guessed that JLA would be #5 (it was #12).

I overestimated a bit the appeal of the DC superheroes, and underestimated the huge popularity of the X-Men. Hanging around in the Internet always makes you think that EVERYONE hates the X-Men. An illusion, of course.

Thanks, Stefan. I wasn’t sure about whether to check out Legacy or not, but now intend to do so following your recommendation. I guess I would have given Carey’s X-Men a read sooner due to the good reviews it was receiving early in the run, but lost interest when Messiah Complex was announced. I prefer runs where writers need not compromise their plans to such a degree as to accomodate crossovers.

And Thok, I agree with you on Morrison’s JLA; it would probably have benefitted from a less frenetic pace. But ‘Rock of Ages’ is my favourite story from his run by a wide margin.The issues set in the future were perfect. “Everything you know, everything you own: I’m taking it all.” Never has the Bat been cooler.

I should say that I don’t mean that Giffin’s JL “didn’t compare” to the 70s Justice League America that I read as a kid, in terms of quality. Quality-wise, Giffin’s was much better. What I meant to say was that the team dynamic, the sorts of situations they found themselves in, etc. wasn’t really what I considered “Justice League Material.”

I really consider that Giffin’s League was using the name ironically. The characters wanted to be the heavy hitters of the DCU, and named themselves thusly, but they really weren’t.

Theno

“Although, looking at the comments, am I the only one who was disappointed by his use of the Blue Superman? I felt while reading it, and since then re-reading it, that he wasn’t told that Superman was turning Electirc Blue, and that the stories really should have been set either just before or just after that arc in the Superman titles.”

I think it reads that way because the change happens so early in the run - #5, if memory serves - so he didn’t even have a chance to establish his version of Superman, let alone in relation to the rest of the League. But the Angels arc relies a bit too much on the presence of the Electric version to make me think that Morrison didn’t know what was coming.

“I overestimated a bit the appeal of the DC superheroes, and underestimated the huge popularity of the X-Men.”

I don’t think it’s necessarily an X-Men thing so much as people like me, who wouldn’t touch an X-Men comic UNLESS someone like Morrison was on the book and writing it in a completely opposite manner to how they’d been handled for years up until that point. My underestimation was that people would have a bit of a Bradley effect and talk up the Vertigo classics but then vote them lower than the big DC super hero titles. That apparently hasn’t happened (Sandman was the one I figured would take the biggest fall).

Of course, if Hama’s GI Joe DOES make the Top 9, I’ll be doing backflips and forgetting about Preacher apparently being more loved than Transmet.

Thenodin - I’m biased, of course, because JLI was my number one pick, but the league *were* the heavy hitters of the DCU. They faced big challenges, and they came out on top. It wasn’t laughs all the time, although people seem to think it was. I’m still holding out hope it’ll be in the top nine.

Too much of JLI’s humour was derived from the heroes’ incompetence (or at least the appearance of incompetence), that I don’t think people are mistaken when they say those heroes weren’t really respected or heavy hitters. Of course, the DCU had no other team at the time that could be called heavy hitters either.

The battles with Despero and the Extremists were the ones I remember that weren’t for laughs. The others were mostly stuff like Queen Bee or Manga Khan or Mr. Nebula or that Injustice Gang that wasn’t really heavy-hitter material.

I think Mantlo hasn’t appeared on the list because his work is (mostly) unavailable except as back issues. I don’t know if Mantlo’s Hulk, ROM, etc. were big sellers, and they don’t have the reputation of other ’80s series. I’ve read a few Mantlo Hulks, but very little else by the man because they only exist as back issues. When I was a big back issue buyer (around 1992-99, pre-my having access to the Internet, pre-bills), I got JLI, New Teen Titans (beat up copies real cheap), Suicide Squad, Howard the Duck, some Sandman Mystery Theatre, Animal Man, Spectre, Hawkworld, Green Arrow, early PAD Hulks… almost always comics that I had heard were good or were by writers or artists I was familiar with. Mantlo’s work didn’t have its proponents in my neck of the woods.

In New X-Men, the X-Men concept moved forward. The angst let up, Emma Frost was great, and Cyclops became interesting (a feat never beforte achieved, to me). I may be in the minority, but I thought Phil Jimenez did an admirable job filling in- his art wasn’t Quitely’s, but it was consistently good. How about those two John Paul Leon/ Sienkiewicz fill-ins? I wish they had done more work on the series.

Top 9:

JLI
Preacher
Starman
Miller DD
Moore Swamp Thing
Sandman
Ditko Spidey
Kirby FF
Claremont/ Byrne X-Men (the most common denominator among comic book readers, excluding manga-only or indy-only fans)

I had Watchmen at number 5 until I read that it could not qualify, so I’m 99.9% sure I lost the contest.

Rene - Yeah, but what about Darkseid? What about the time they raided Apokolips, rescued Mister Miracle and left victorious?!

Honestly, though, that’s fair enough. I think that series is tremendously entertaining, and the character work is so good. That’s my favorite Justice League book by so far that I don’t question it being called that. But for those who want the League to be Big and Epic and Important, I could see how it wouldn’t measure up.

But Morrison gave us the definite version of Magneto

I strongly disagree there; he completely missed the point of the character, and, had he had his way, he’d have utterly ruined Marvel Comics’ greatest antagonist and offered jack that was anywhere near as compelling. Now, Marvel’s retconning of his story was incredibly inept, but it most certainly had to be done.

Morrison’s NXM run is a mixed bag for me; there’s a lot of good stuff in there, such as the increased importance of the school, and the introduction of Emma to the X-Men, but other stuff I didn’t like, such as his treatment of Professor X and Jean Grey, the “human extinction gene”, and whole Xorn/Magneto thing. It’s cheap to destroy a lot of the franchise’s standard, successful features and then leave, saying “Do something new” on your way out the door.

The first 13 or so issues of JLI balanced the wisecracks with the action. After that, you had Manga Khan, Injustice Gang, goofier Guy Gardner, Kooey Kooey Kooey, etc. The excellent Despero arc (illustrated by Adam Hughes?) was the only “unfunny” exception, and Breakdowns was a mess. Overall, I enjoyed the Giffen/ DeMatteis material, but I think the first half of the run holds up better.

New Teen Titans is WONDERFUL. I actually thought it would be a little higher, but hey, that’s DC’s stupid, stupid reprint policy. There should be 2-3 Showcases with all of it in there.

In 95 I had been reading Marvel comics for about 5 years. I was oh, we’ll see about 14 years old and I was looking to raid the back issue boxes at New England Comics in Brockton. I had heard such good things about New Teen Titans over the years and thought it would be a good way to get into the DCU (of which I only had 5-10 comics).

It was. I bought maybe half the run in one go. I was hooked by the “letters to home” issue. I was really engrossed by the Search for the Doom Patrol’s Killers arc.

And by the time I hit Who is Donna Troy, I felt such a connection to the characters already that I was moved.

And I knew broadly what was going to happen at the end of the Judas Contract. I knew Terra died. What I didn’t realize was that it wasn’t the same black and white story that I had read so many times. She didn’t die, redeemed, saving the team. She died with hatred on her face and it was shocking, even ten years after the issue came out.

One of my favorite single issues ever is the one that follows with Gar Logan having coffee with Deathstroke.

It’s a shame how two dimensional Johns ended up making his character later. (And I usually like Johns).

It is ABSOLUTELY a Marvel style book at DC, probably the first, and that’s why it works so well. It’s the perfect gateway drug into the DCU.

I’m fairly sure it was #10 on my top ten list.
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And then once I really got into buying DC monthlies, Morrison’s JLA started and it was huge and felt important and used Kyle, one of my favorite characters at the time, so well (He’s the best green lantern ever because he knows fear. Daniel said so and it makes so much sense), and it played with the entire DCU and looked at everything in a different way.

And none of the payoffs really work well except for at the end of Rock of Ages. I don’t think it should be this high but it was certainly a lot of fun at the time. It was even more fun when I reread it a few years ago and knew all the references this time around. I had no idea who Triumph was the first time. The second time I was just confused about why he was acting like he was.
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On the other hand, I wish I had come into New X-Men blind. I have a real hard time moving past my bias and enjoying it. I grew up with X-Men and Morrison’s X-Men don’t act quite like I want/expect them to and it gets in the way of all the big ideas for me.

Anthony, I honestly don’t remember. Did the JLI actually fight Darkseid, or just made some sort of deal with him to get Scott Free back? I don’t remember that story very well.

I have mixed feelings for the JLI. You gotta respect a comic book that managed to be so unique while being also so successful, but the humour was hit-and-miss with me. I usually like humour in superhero books (David’s X-Factor, Wessner-Loebs’s Flash, Slott’s She-Hulk, Ennis’s Hitman are all faves of mine), but I’m not big on the sit-com style of humour.

I can see what Morrison tried to do with Magneto. When you get down to it, Magneto is a violent master race supremacist ideologue. Chris Claremont managed to make him sympathetic through his tragic past, but Grant Morrison’s point was that violent master race supremacists don’t deserve to be made sympathetic, they deserve to be ridiculed.

Makes sense, right? It’s true that it reduces a complex character to an unusable caricature too, but you can’t fault Morrison’s morals.

They made a deal with him.

Yep, they saved the day without violence. What a novel concept.