For #6-5, I’m going to guess Miller Daredevil and maybe Swamp Thing, in some order.

But it’s all hair-splitting from here. I think we’re all in agreement on the final six, which are all great and important for their own reasons. Rene, if you haven’t already revealed your original top 10 (it’s hard to keep track of everybody), I’ve love to see it. I’m sure you could put me on to some good stuff.

Seconded. The series has tons of heart and the New Year’s Eve issue is among the sweetest damn things I’ve ever read.

I think only Gaiman has a chance of keeping Stan Lee out of the top two. Claremont was reworking Lee’s mutants remember. Magneto, the sentinels, Juggernaut, even the anti-Mutant hysteria all stemmed from Lee.

(But then there was Phoenix and the Hellfire Club…blimey, this called be close, couldn’t it?)

And Alan Moore…

I love all 6 of these runs and consider them all great. My personal # 1 is not even any of these 6, but was the Levitz run of Legion.

I just couldn’t get into Silver Age comics when I was a teenager in the 80s. I thought those comics were dumb, unhip, the artwork ugly, the writing woody. It was just much later that I started to see those comics with different eyes, could get past the different style, and saw how fun they were.

JLI is great, from what I’ve seen of it. As for Preacher, I never had any use for a comic full of disturbing violent images.

Sandman, on the other hand, didn’t have to split its vote with anyone.

Theno

That run is like your first kiss — a little awkward maybe, simple, but tremendously exciting and (hopefully) uncomplicated, and it makes you want to swing around the city screaming “Wha-hoo!”

One scenario I see is a majority of folks naming Spidey their second or third pick (leaving No. 1 to their current favorite), and thus outweighing a fewer number of people picking “Sandman” as No. 1. But only Brian knows …

I can’t see any other scenario in which that is NOT the top 6. They’re the most highly regarded runs in the history of the medium and they have yet to appear on the list. There is absolutely no doubt that this is the top 6, the only question is which one will take the top spot (I say Claremont/ Byrne X-men).

i’m not a very big Gaiman fan (like Ellis, he just repeats himself too much in his stuff) but i disagree with this assessment, keeping in mind the thousands (and i do mean thousands) of Filipinos who lined up for more than twelve hours to get his signature, and that was just for one of the three days he was here back in 2005 (could be wrong with the date, though), from high school kids to fat-ass dads. reportedly, the only other country that was that big of a surprise for him was Brasil. i don’t think Claremont’s (or Ellis, or Ennis, or Morrison, or even Moore, for that matter) that universally popular. maybe with comic book people in general, but not universally, “universal” including people outside comic book people.

as an aside, Templesmith was here, too, to promote THIRTY DAYS OF NIGHT. reportedly, only fifteen people came to the signing.

And Sandman is Sandman.

Ditko for the pictures and inventing all the best bits of Spider-man and Sandman for the stories.

A tie?

Of course I’ve I got the first two FF omnibuses too…

Preacher is about as far as you can get from torture porn, in that the horrific violence always takes a backseat to the character work, and the events of the series ultimately leads to the the protagonists growing as people and finding redemption.

By contrast, the best example of the equivalent of torture porn in the comics medium right now is probably The Walking Dead, in that the entire series has no planned arc beyond Kirkman constantly mutilating or killing his characters and making their lives worse and worse with no storytelling goal in sight other than prolonging the series and the suffering of the characters as long as he can think up ways to make their lives worse, and only one significant moment of character development (“WE ARE THE WALKING DEAD!”) in nearly 50 issues. Regardless of the shock value in Preacher, at least Ennis knew what he was working towards with the series, had an end goal in sight, and clearly had affection for the characters. I’d be hard-pressed to think of any character in The Walking Dead who comes off as anything more than a plot device destined for a horrible death.