Spike, I always saw that scene as a representation of the viewpoint from DD, that's how he saw the Avengers. I don't see the Avengers in their own book as trite or camp - the writers knew how powerful they were, the characters knew how powerful they were, we the audience knew how powerful they were. How could we not? After going up against people like Graviton, Korvac, Ultron, Kang, Nefaria, etc, constantly pointing out how powerful they were in their own title would have gotten tedious (*cough*cough*Morrison*JLA*cough*cough*). That scene works if we're seeing it through Matt's eyes...er, you know what I mean.

THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES!!!

which started out as an adult parody of Miller's Daredevil.

At the height of this run, Daredevil was not the strongest or most powerful character in the story, and he appeared overmatched when facing off against Bullseye and especially Elektra. Both Elektra and Daredevil couldn't even finish the training started by Stick and the Hand. The drama increased knowing Daredevil had to be the best man in his world even though he seemed so much less than these battling ninja forces. I had friends reading it at the time who said they were afraid of Bullseye and what was going to happen. Schoolboys afraid of characters in a comic book! Don't remember this series from Colin Ferrel in the lame Daredevil movie or the wimpering Jennifer Garner.

Remember when Elektra puts her sai through the back of the stool pidgeon at the movie theater and warns Ben he is next if he talks. I always check who is sitting in back of me at the theater.

Remember when Daredevil and the good ninjas finally are able to gang up and defeat the Hand's resurrected ninja assassin. And then Matt gets the news that the Hand is now going to resurrect an even greater foe....Elektra! That page still gives me shivers, because you know if they had that much trouble even with Stick, they are in loads more in the coming issues. In those issues, Daredevil won but barely.

Remember when Matt thinks he failed in purifying Elektra, and then she scales that mountain at the end. Amazing stuff.

I would put the under-rated poetic Elekra Lives Again graphic novel as the final story to this run. That, even more than Dark Knight Returns, is the greatest work Miller ever did. It ties up this story arc on what really happened to Elektra after she returned.

Don't forget the two What If issues during that run, particularly the beautiful one where What if Elektra had lived.

Thanks for the input ! I've heard over the years that the Nocenti run had some really good stuff. I knew it was different from what Miller did, and has been pointed out, after a phenomenal run, the next creative team usually has nowhere to go but down in quality.

This brings something else up.

I'm going to pick up at least the first of the Nocenti / JR Jr / Williamson run, but was curious what people think of the Karl Kessel run (which I've also heard good things about) and the Dan or D. G. Chicester run (which I don't think I've heard many positives about).

I think ’storyline’ is a bit broad, and if you try narrow it to criteria that suit you, you’ll have to put up with even more whining than you did on this.

If whining really bothered me, I wouldn't be doing a public blog.

These extensive endeavours seem to be mostly in the arena of persons of religious inclination. It's like religion gives them an excuse to stop just being repulsed and actively going on crusades to battle this "evil".

But boy, are we being off-topic here.

Maybe it makes a difference that I read these in high school as they came out. I missed out on the Silver Age being born in 1966 and not getting my first comic until 1975. Comics were bought by hook or by crook off of a combination of 4 different newsstands in my hometown (3 grocers and the Candy Kitchen next door to the movie theatre - my best source). It wasn't until 1980 and Marvel launching there first 3 direct market only titles and the John Byrne Silver Surfer one-shot that I * had * to somehow get. I ordered the Surfer through Superhero Merchandise (Heroes World in NJ that advertised heavily in late 70's comics) and subscribed to all 3 Marvel titles as I read them all and they were fan favorites but sold poorly on the newsstands : Bruce Jones & Brent Anderson's Ka-Zar, Bill Mantlo's Micronauts with art at the time by Gil Kane IIRC, and Doug Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz's Moon Knight (all excellent reads I still enjoy). That really introduced me to the newly emerging direct market and, being stuck in Smallville, IA, subscriptions were my most economical and reasonable access to getting my "fix." I had picked up Miller's Daredevil when McKenzie was still scripting it and really liked it and added the title to my subscription list. That and Claremont / Cockrum, and later Claremont / Paul Smith, were the most exciting new reads every month.

Miller, and host too often overlooked outstanding inker Klaus Janson were turning out some of the best work at that time period. Bullseye was instantly catapulted into super heavyweight status with classic scenes I'll never erase from my memory like the initial meeting with him and Kingpin and Bullseye demonstrating his skill with a simple rubber band and paper clip taking down an annoying fly. Brilliant. Miller's visuals of Matt's radar sense and scenes like when he realizes that Wilson Fisk isn't just fat, he's dense and extremely tough in his own right and gets thrashed pretty well. That cover to # 189 that has been unfairly criticized IMO was just brilliant. Literal ? Of course not. In fact, it never occured to me as that cover just blew me away with its use of shadow and sense of dynamism as Daredevil was an armed cult of ninjas at point blank range. Amazing. # 181 with the classic Bullseye / Elektra battle was as epic as the tragic climax and death of Jean Grey in X-Men # 137. My brother and read and re-read those two issues infinite times.

Miller was paying homage to his mentor, comics great and Golden Age pioneer Will Eisner, but part of the appeal of his initial Daredevil run was that, for those of us that were fans of one of the most popular shows on network tv at the time, Hill Street Blues influenced this run as well. To this day, even those it's roughly 25 years ago now, that's one of my very favorite tv shows of all time. That added another rich layer of depths that probably is missed by people who didn't follow HSB, which, btw, earned 98 Emmy nominations in its 7 seasons and tied both The West Wing and L.A. Law (both favorites of mine) for most acting nominations by regular cast members in a single year.

I had Miller's DD @ # 5 and Moore's Swamp Thing at #4, just the inverse of what Brian's tally came up with.

My predictions for how the rest of the list will manifest :

# 3. Lee / Kirby FF
# 2. Gaiman's Sandman
# 1. Claremont / Byrne X-Men

I'm going to post after the # 1 is finally revealed how I voted and would like to see how and why other people voted the way they did. One thing that's struck me over the years, and again on this blog, is the love I hear for Ann Nocenti's Daredevil. I've never read it though I like what I've heard about Typhoid Mary and am going to at least try it based on the good reviews.

Are you Blind? I see them all of the time, people who are straight secular who think that homosexuality is a sign of weakness a man having sex with another man is disgusting. Go on any message board and you'll see how so many people are willing to call a man a "a faggot" "or a homo" at a drop of a dime in order to demonize another person. I'm not being rude but your comments seem very naive to me.

I had heard that Dave Sim was mysoginistic and homophobic, but never knew the details. Curiosity aroused by this poll, I've read the wikipedia description of Cerebus. Holy Shit! A feminist/gay group that advocates pedophilia and juvenile drug use? What the hell. Where did he get the idea that gays are any less revolted by pedophilia and drug use than straight people are? I'm astonished to see such ignorant oppinions, usually harbored by uncreative bigots, being defended by someone supposedly so talented and revered by other creative people.

Am I missing something here? Maybe the actual stories are a lot more nuanced than this? It's just that I assume the plot descriptions in Wikipedia were done by fans of the comic, and fans of Sim wouldn't make up stuff like that, would they?

I also didn't know Sim was such a fan of Abrahamic religions. I don't mean to be a bigot myself, I'm certain that the majority of religious people aren't necessarily mysoginists and homophobes, but it's interesting that almost all homophobes are religious. I don't think I ever met a activist homophobe that was secular.

I think minis plus storylines is better than only minis.

I'm not really interested in manga, but more power to people who are.

Top 10 runs by character I'm not so sure about. That would be a lot of polls. I can see doing a poll by publisher (or a non-Marvel/DC poll), but by character is a bit much.

One possible poll that no one has mentioned yet: Top 100 movies/cartoons/TV shows based on comic book properties. That would be neat! Not sure if stuff that isn't really based on a comic property, but that has a lot of ties with comic book stuff, should be included (like the Heroes TV show, or the movie Unbreakable).

I had just rediscovered comics ala New Teen Titans # 39 and peeking out on the crowded comic rack was a bright yellow cover that shouted "KICK ASS" to me.

I scored all the pharmacies, supermarket, book stores and all my friends at school trying find back issues, and promptly dropped it when Miller left.

With the former, you’d be getting stuff like Uncanny X-Men #251 at #90, with 40 points or something.

And with the latter, Beauty and the Beast would be a lock for the Top 100."

I think the problem with singles is that there are too many of them and too much divergence of opinion.

As far as limiteds, look how many there were that people wanted to include in the runs, but weren't allowed to. There'd be no problem getting a good top 100 if we can get a few hundred people to vote again.

Otherwise, you could make it a top 50. There's no law that says it has to be a top 100.

I think 'storyline' is a bit broad, and if you try narrow it to criteria that suit you, you'll have to put up with even more whining than you did on this.

I say you should make the next one "self-contained comic stories" including, one-shots, OGNs, and limited series.

As far as the contemporary practice of arcing stories goes, I don't think I've really seen much dismissal of subplots from what I've read. Ultimate Spider-Man and Daredevil both had plots lurking in the backrounds and coming to light in later arcs. Though it's true that I haven't seen anything like Walt Simonson's DOOOOM-hammering Surtur in years (though that seems to have been rare even back then... I remember Claremont playing with subplots a lot, but other than that, I'm kinda fuzzy on how frequent subplotting was back then).

i would love to see the next one to be top 100 one-shots and miniseris or limited series.!!!! i think after writers , artists, charcters and runs , that´s the one missing.

keep the good work. why i think it´s wrong to wait? because you usually give one month to vote, and then one month to give us the results!! so we have one list every other month. so i think that´s a great schedule.
here is what i would love to see.

may 08: voting for top 100 one-shots and mini or limited series.
june 08: results
july 08: voting for top 100 manga
august : results
september: top 10 runs by book, example top for x-men, top 10 for batman, etc

just my idea. what do u think brian?