I was completely blown away by that run in every area. Amazing art, great story, great dialogue, lots of emotion, and the most badass Bullseye appearance I've ever read. Hell, this run even made me interested in Dr. Strange, who arguably hasn't been relevant since the 70s. The scene where he summons Mephisto is just dripping with cool. No, it's not "literary", but it's a damn good time reading comics and I suggest everyone who hasn't read it make some time to do so. I'd say it's way underrated and the hate it seems to get is undeserved.

I read the original Power Pack comics, and they were awesome from day one. Sharp dialogue and storytelling with clean, beautiful artwork that matched the tone perfectly. I bailed on Power Pack when they suddenly became the go-to characters whenever Marvel put out a Very Special Public Service comic.

Criminal might be the best comic on the rack today. By far the best crime comic and a great noir feel. We need more books like this.

Fell was (is?) also great, probably my favorite Warren Ellis book from the past few years. Templesmith's art will either dazzle or repulse you, there's not a lot of inbetween with him. The stories are unusual and so is our hero, Detective Fell.

Stray Bullets definitely should've been in the Top 100. I've enjoyed the first two issues of Young Liars.

Criminal is excellent.

I enjoy Fell, but I don't think it's quite Top 100.

Haven't read the others.

There are plenty of series which were eligible which only had one creative team, though.

"V, by contrast, is a self-contained story of roughly the normal length of a US mini-series so tends to get considered AS a self contained mini-series."

It was published in America as a limited series, where he finished off the story. But I don't think it was conceived as one initially, he just gave it an ending.

Claremont's original stuff wasn't bad, IIRC (I read a ton of it a while back and it was pleasant enough read if not exactly burning its way into my memory with lines of fire).

V, by contrast, is a self-contained story of roughly the normal length of a US mini-series so tends to get considered AS a self contained mini-series.

That's just my guess

He he. If it makes you feel any better, they do actually explain why he wears the hat.

And I think V FOR VENDETTA fell under the "no mini-series" rule, but that's a great choice nonetheless.

But yeah, I've been curious about this one since making my way through (& loving) Ostrander's HAWKWORLD & seeing all the glowing references to GRIMJACK in the lettercols.

I like Ostrander a lot but a lot of why i like him is for how well he works in fleshing out parts of shared universes."

It's funny you say that, Matt, because Grimjack is the ULTIMATE shared universe. The setting is a city called Cynosure (pardon the alliteration there), which is a city located on a dimensional vortex. As a result, all realities/dimensions/planets/galaxies pass by or through Cynosure at some point. The main character, John Gaunt a.k.a. Grimjack, is a former police officer turned bounty hunter & detective who tries to solve his cases while navigating a city where the laws of physics can change at any moment. On one block, there could be no gravity, while one street over, you could find a primitive caveman race, and yet on another you could run across a street that looks very much like one of our own. That's why Gaunt carried a sword, because in some parts of the city, guns won't work right.

Getting back to the shared universe idea, the book has a large cast of original characters, but also manages to feature guest appearances from many other established comic characters. Mostly through the back-up feature, "Munden's Bar" (which is the name of the bar that Gaunt owns), characters from series like TMNTurtles, Nexus, Badger, American Flagg, Sam & Max, Fish Police, E-Man and others often wandered in. Creators like Brian Bolland, Rick Vietch, Tom Mandrake, Steve Bissette, John Totleben, Joe Staton, Steve Rude, and of course, Ostrander himself, contributed to the Munden's Bar stories.

Grimjack's setting also allows for its other big selling point, that being that Ostrander could tell any kind of story he wanted. When you have a city like Cynosure, it's not hard to weave in detective stories, horror stories, love stories, political commentary, religious observations, comedies, tragedies, westerns and even a story or two set in space.

And Ostrander made it work. Perfectly. It's a wonderful series and I urge people to try it out (especially if they can get past the hat on issue #1's cover... )

And I would buy an Essentials volume of Power Pack if Marvel would ever get off their duffs and release one. I loved that book back in the day...

From day one, Ostrander left hints of a long backstory surrounding the middle-aged John Gaunt character. Over the years many different elements were fleshed out and there are still unanswered questions regarding Grimjack's past.

The book was re-invigorated in issue #55, when artist Flint Henry took over the art chores for a resurrected Grimjack, and from there on out the book was PHENOMENAL. The next trade to be released (if it ever does... arrgh) starts with issue #55, and I would absolutely recommend that as the jumping-on point for the series. I would push those issues even more than the early issues, which unfortunately show their age a bit.