Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Many people have compiled lists of what are the best superhero comics ever. Not just in single issues, but in terms of high periods or creative bursts, like for instance, the Schwartz stable of Superman writers in the 1970s (Maggin, Bates, and the artists Paul Kupperberg and Curt Swan) or the Lee/Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR.

It's time to step into an overcrowded field and say, "hey, me too!"

That said, here's my personal list of 20 Best Superhero comics ever. If it is an ongoing title, assume it is the period under the writer that is highlighted.  

20. GREEN LANTERN/GREEN LANTERN CORPS (Steve Englehart)

19. Any of Jack Kirby's FOURTH WORLD comics, but most especially the clever, unpretentious MISTER MIRACLE

18. AVENGERS/DEFENDERS WAR (Steve Englehart)

17. TOM STRONG (Alan Moore)

16. Any Superman story after 1952 (or thereabouts) written by Jerry Siegel, especially "Return to Krypton" and the "Legion of Super-Villains."

15. DETECTIVE COMICS (Steve Englehart)

14. MIRACLEMAN (Alan Moore)

13. Any SUPERMAN or ACTION COMICS story written by Cary Bates or Elliot S! Maggin, with the exception of ACTION COMICS #502, with its ridiculous ending that destroyed the premise of the story.

12. "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" (Alan Moore)

11. SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (Cary Bates)

10. MARVEL FAMILY (C.C. Beck)

9. LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (Jim Shooter)

8. 1963 (Alan Moore)

7. "To Kill A Legend" and "The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne" (Alan Brennert)

6. ASTRO BOY (Osamu Tezuka)

5. SUPREME (Alan Moore)

4. AVENGERS (Kurt Busiek)

3. JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA (Gardner Fox)

2. AVENGERS "Celestial Madonna" Arc (Steve Englehart)

1. FANTASTIC FOUR #60-80 (Stan Lee)

To determine most of my rankings I looked at the following things that are necessary to a superhero comic and ranked them in order:

1) Characterization. This is why there are so many stories here by Steve Englehart, as are the Luthor stories written by Elliot S! Maggin, as well as Kurt Busiek and Stan Lee.

2) Real Emotions. This is why stories like ASTRO BOY, Alan Brennert's Batman stories, and "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" are here: because they make you cry. Because they suckerpunch you in the gut with very real, legitimate emotions that aren't trumped up.

3) Trippy Concepts. That is to say, how often does the story WHAM! you with an incredible, neat idea? The better the story, the more often it should do this. The old arcade screen that says that "Winners Don't Do Drugs" should be amended to read "Winners Don't Do Drugs...unless they Write Superhero Comic Books." One can see now why SUPREME, 1963, Fox's JLA, and TOM STRONG make the list.

4) Plausible Science. Superhero comics are an offshoot of science fiction. All philosophy aside, there's something about science that gives plausibility to a situation, and something about science that makes things more detailed, gives powers greater permutations, suggests weaknesses, and in general makes the world feel all around more real and detailed. For this reason the Gardner Fox JLA, ASTRO BOY, TOM STRONG, and MIRACLEMAN are on the list.

5) Sense of Humor. How often does the comic give real belly laughs that come from the characters? This isn't as necessary as the others, but can save a concept from being terrible. Alan Moore's work, for instance, somewhere between 1985-1990 was absolutely, utterly unreadable because it only had glimmers of the usual Moore humor and charm (WATCHMEN is an example of a particularly terrible story by Alan Moore standards; a plodding, self-congratulatory dinosaur, it only has a few places where it is ironic, only occasionally is it funny, and only occasionally does it have has legitimate emotions besides existential angst, and it's vile, unlikeable characters utterly repulse me)

Most of the superhero comics on this list suggest themselves based on the criteria that I listed above.

Also, I limited the list to SUPERHERO comics. Which means that KAMANDI, a personal favorite of mine, the Silver Age TOMMY TOMORROW, and Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN, as well as Roy Thomas's CONAN, great works every one, are off the list, unfortunately. Many independent comics also don't make the list. To which I say - tough tamales.  :D  I liked ELFQUEST in High School. On a related note, I'd love to go back in time and beat myself up in High School. MAUS was emotionally manipulative, dishonest "emotional pornography," the comic book equivalent of Steven Spielberg's A.I., except instead of teddy bears and little robot boys that want Mommy, Spiegelman cloyingly goes for the greatest inhuman act in human history with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the gut. MAUS has only one thing going for it, which is it came out in that year where superhero comics wanted desperately to be taken seriously by anal, trendy jackasses that feel embarassed of their hobby and seek to justify their existence to girlfriends and landlords. In other words, coddling their neuroses and anxieties about adulthood by insisting comics be taken seriously. And why is it nobody can point to "adult" comics as great as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, WATCHMEN and MAUS? Because 1986 came and went, that's why. These comics just happened to come out in the right place at the right time, and the window of relevance shut. Oh, and if you're doing a "comic that wants to be taken seriously," don't put funny animals as the main characters! Symbology my Aunt Banana - the real reason he used it is because Spiegelman's crude, clumsy art style just can't draw realistic humans. Why didn't Spiegelman go all out and make MAUS about the Donald Duck Holocaust?

Oh you and your opinions ;)

Maus is a retelling of his father's actual experiences during the Holocaust as a sort of animal fable, with the Jews represented by mice and the Nazis by cats. The book won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

from an interview:

BOLHAFNER: Harvey Pekar has commented that he feels you shouldn't have used mice for any of it. He thinks it would have had more impact if you had used people, and is especially critical of your using pigs for the Poles.

SPIEGELMAN: And I'm unhappy that so many readers thought it was OK to use vermin for Jews but not pigs for Poles.

BOLHAFNER: But mice have a long history of cuteness in cartoons. Look at Mickey Mouse.

SPIEGELMAN: Look at Porky and Petunia Pig. But that's beside the point. These images are not my images. I borrowed them from the Germans. At a certain point I wanted to go to Poland, and I had to get a visa. I put in my application, and then I got a call from the consul. He said "the Polish attache wants to speak with you." And I knew what he wanted to talk to me about. On the way over there, I tried to figure out what I was going to say to him. "I wanted to draw noble stallions, but I don't do horses very well?" When I got there, he gave me the perfect opening. He said, "You know, the Nazis called us schwein" (German for pig). And I said, "Yes, and they called us vermin (German for mouse or rat)."

Ultimately, what the book is about is the commonality of human beings. It's crazy to divide things down the nationalistic or racial or religious lines. And that's the whole point, isn't it? These metaphors, which are meant to self-destruct in my book - and I think they do self-destruct - still have a residual force that allows them to work as metaphors, and still get people worked up over them.

BOLHAFNER: What about the idea that it lessons the impact? I kind of agree, but I see it as a positive thing. It makes the work more accessible. I don't know if people could take it if you'd done it in the style of "Prisoner on the Hell Planet" for instance.

SPIEGELMAN: I don't agree at all. I don't think it lessens the impact, I think it increases it. I think by screening things through the masks it makes the reader envision them himself, re-create them in his mind.

BOLHAFNER: Like in the panel where the German soldier smashes the Jewish child's head against the wall. It's not graphic, in terms of the picture, but the image is powerful in the mind.

SPIEGELMAN: Exactly. If you look at that picture - do you have the book with you there?

BOLHAFNER: I can get it. Wait a minute . . . (short pause while interviewer locates his copy of Maus) . . . OK.

SPIEGELMAN: OK. Now if you'll turn to page 108, Professor Spiegelman wil explicate those last two panels for you. First, the way it's drawn, I defy you to tell me whether that's cats and mice or people. I remember this panel very well, because it went through several revisions. That's one reason Maus has taken so long, because I keep doing these things over and over and sketch it different ways before the final version.

Anyway, I had a dilemma. I couldn't show it and I couldn't not show it. I said to myself "Spiegelman, you can't just avoid this." But I didn't want to be overly graphic. I didn't want the picture drawing the attention like "Ooh, look at that!" The panel is basically like an ideogram of a swinging motion. The head is outside the panel, although there is a splash of blood. And on the next panel, the splash of blood is covered up by a word balloon as my dad and I walk by and he says "This I didn't see with my own eyes, but somebody the next day told me." And that's important.

BOLHAFNER: Instead of happening on the page, it goes on inside the reader's head.

SPIEGELMAN: Exactly. It took me a long time, when I was starting Maus, to develop a visual style that would be easy to look at and wouldn't intrude and would keep the flow going and allow me to do what I wanted to do. "Prisoner on the Hell Planet" was something that happened to me, something that affected me in a certain way that the style, heavily affected by German Expressionism, was appropriate. The Expressionists weren't trying to put things on canvas, they were trying to put emotions on canvas, and these emotions were very powerful and personal and that style fit. For me to appropriate my father's emotions and portray them in that style would have been very dishonest.

read the whole thing here: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/9923/ispieg2.html

Here's a kind-of retraction: I considered bringing my copies of MAUS off the shelf to point out particularly eggregious examples of what I'm talking about with my claim of "emotional pornography," but then I realized that I didn't want to read MAUS again for the same reason I don't want to see GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES again: because it made me cry like a little girl.

Perhaps my dislike of it comes from a kneejerk distaste for Independent Comics, Crumb and Pekar, Dave Sim, Wendy Pini, Gary Groth and Clowes on up. I'm tired of their identical, obsessively autobiographical tales of failure and not getting laid. I'm tired of their ultra-cynical malaise and postmodernism. I'm tired of their kneejerk, unreasoning contempt for superhero adventure comics. I'm tired of their fan base (all 1,000 of them). While Japanese Animation and Harry Potter fandom may be ridiculous at least at this stage in development, in terms of sheer unwarranted self-congratulation, lack of a sense of humor, and undeserved, infuriating pretention, Independent Comics has them all beat hands down.

And at least Japanimation can be fun, albeit geeky.

10 Best Superhero Comics

1. The Death Ray by Dan Clowes
2. Maggie meets Maniak by Jaime Hernandez (early Love and Rockets issue)
3. The Roy Stories by Gilbert Hernandez (Love and Rockets)
4. Herbie
5. Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware
6. Wonder Warthog by Gilbert Shelton
7. "Power Femmes" by R.Crumb
8. Jetcat and Space Ape #8 by Jay Stevens
9. Flaming Carrot by Bob Burden
10. The Labors of Hercules, Gustave Dore
10a. Sparky Watts by Boody Rogers

My standards:

1. Beautiful Cartooning: comics are a visual narrative art form and substandard art or generic hackwork by wage slaves working on a deadline can only occasionally create great art (even though they can be regularly entertaining, highly professional, and even profound and beautiful occasionally).

2. Humour: because life is short

3. An adult sensibility: not to knock the work of Kirby, Ditko and Lee on the 60s Marvel comics, or the work of the Silver Age Superman family editorial teams (probably the greatest fictional and mythic story series of our time), but great superhero comics, like great novels or movies, are usually best enjoyed if they seem to be the expression of a coherent individual adult worldview, without hackneyed melodramatic or other generic constraints (I say this realizing that the concept of a superhero story as well as "comics," "novel" and "serious literature" are considered genres).

Superhero comics are inherently for children. By their very nature as a type of story.

This is not to say that the medium of comics is inherently for children, but that what makes a SUPERHERO story specifically operate are elements that only appeal to a childlike mentality: fantasy elements, strange powers, keeping secrets, dressing strangely, monsters, robots, and secret treehouse bases. Removal of the child-like elements from superhero comics yields a product that is dreary, dull, boring, unreadable, and borderline sleazy.

This does not mean that good superhero comics, like other wonderful works, cannot be appreciated for different reasons by both children and adults. As a kid, I loved Steve Englehart's action-centered plots and mysteries, and only now as an adult do I grasp his gift for characterization and how he created living, breathing characters.

And the note about things being best from an "adult worldview" is really a case where it is important to say WHY we like things flat out. This reasoning is one that I do not share. I feel guilty for leaving off another of possibly one of the greatest superhero comics of all time, Bob Layton's HERCULES: PRINCE OF POWER miniseries. When a robot asks Hercules why his chariot can fly in space without them requiring oxygen, Hercules responds: "Because it is the will of Zeus, of course!"

What delightful, surreal non-logic! How typical of the "Magical Realist" weirdness that children accept without a second thought. Does this disconnect between cause and effect, this lack of a truly adult worldview destroy HERCULES: PRINCE OF POWER aesthetically? Well, let's see:

Is Hercules less emotionally accessible? Nope.

Does it prevent the story from advancing? Nope.

Does the world feel any less real? Nope. They're consistent with their mythic cosmos.

So, in conclusion, a childlike perspective make HERCULES: PRINCE OF POWER, and superhero comics as a whole stronger and more charming.

Is it possible to successfully do a superhero comic that is for adults alone, however?

The only one I can possibly think of off the top of my head is Alan Moore's MIRACLEMAN, where the problems that the main character faced were ones that were comprehensible to adults but not to children, for example. As a kid I wondered why Mickey Moran would CARE if Liz's baby was either his or his alter ego, Miracleman's, but as an adult I understand why that's a big deal.

But apart from that, it's never been done.

It's hard to give an answer, so I'll mention one only comic book: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.
Spider-Man is my favorite comic book character, and his flagship comic book is for me a sort of guide to superheroes: whatever you want to read... Is here!". I am talking especially about issues #1/122 (plus AMAZING FANTASY #15). Peter Parker, aunt May, Jonah Jameson, Mary Jane Watson, Gwen Stacy, Jor Robertson... A little universe which has always seemed great to me.
I'm sorry 'cause now this title and the main character are so ruined...

Hmmm.  Looks at an issue of the comicbook Flare and the Sparkplug back-up feature.(Mein gott, they're both insane!) or I look at Go! Girl.  Both are superhero comics and have a sense of whimsy.  The original Flare, League of Champions, Icestar, etc comics could easily be able to be published in Japan and be available to kids(no nudity taboo in Japan and since there is a lot of ties to Greek Myth....).  Again, the sense of whimsy was there.(the Sparkplug mini-series was a flop due to the extreme diffiulties writning a character like Olga Gottman)

Look at theese covers:
http://www.heroicpub.com/previews/default.php?sid=05083174lq

Especially this one:

http://www.heroicpub.com/previews/fl33.php?sid=05083174lq

Back to the topic at hand:

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents the entire run.

The Mighty Crusaders meetings with Archie and company in Ridgedale

I did forget about Trina Robbins' charming, cute and all-round great GOGIRL. Which is a shame, my gosh, where to even begin on how great that series was. I especially love the cut-out paper dolls in the back with various fashoins, and the humorous asides from the writer which made it feel more like being a part of a community than an actual comic book, a thing unseen since Stan started the Merry Marvel Marching Society. I wouldn't consider it an "independent comic," at least in the model of DAVID BORING or AMERICAN SPLENDOUR because of its sense of play and joy and non-angsty, autobiographical content.



If I have read more of the title I would probably include that on my list too. What little I've read of THUNDER AGENTS is GREAT - the robots it is possible to download one's mind into was an especially nice touch. Wally Wood was an amazing artist and his unfortunate death was a loss to the entire world.

JulianPerez you are mixing two things up.

Independant Comics and Melodramatics.

What you are railing against are the people who think that the only good stories are those with no humor and a bunch of angst.  The Tavicats with Reality Check! is completely different than Elfquest.  Both are Indy comics.  One just accepts that humor is part of life(I'm only fifteen.  I won't be ready to admit anything about myself for ten years).  That's one of the reasons I went to Heroic Publishing and their characters.  They have fun with some of the stuff they do.
Psyche: Mister President.  In my time, I've dealt with wizards, demons, and costumed maniacs, but politicians?  That would be a new low.

The President: Oh well.  Anyone for tennis?


There are good Indy comics out there, you just have to figure out what the author was really trying to do.  Those that are enjoyable for you, would be ones who took their characters and said that they wanted to keep the rights to them and not let DC or Marvel get their claws into them.  Go! Girl falls into that category.

Prez? First Teen president?! :lol:

Im confuzzled by this entire thread frankly.

Bringing it all back to on-topic :)

Instead of listing every great superhero comic ever, I will only list my favorite RUNS on a on-going comic book series.

Mort Weisinger as editor Sliver Age Superman run - My favorite era of Superman and the best IMHO. Lots of great writers were a part of this era, and the Mighty Curt Swan, king of Superman Artists.

Superman's post Golden Age pre-Sliver Age run. Big Beefy sci-fi Superman. My second favorite version of Superman.

Julius Schwartz's as Superman's editor. 3rd favorite Superman era.

Otto Binder's Captain Marvel run as writer - Holy Moly! No one ever GOT Captain Marvel better, 1941 to 1953 - wow, one of greatest Golden Age Superhero series. The C.C. Beck issues , wow what a combo!

Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's run of The Fantastic Four - One of the most creative and inventive runs of all time.

Jack Cole's Plastic Man - One of the greatest Golden Age Superhero series ever, IMHO.

Basil Wolverton's Spacehawk - Basil Wolverton = Comic book god.  Kind of a Buck Rogers for teenagers and adults. Lots of creepy, weird, too cool for words monsters and ideas.

Basil Wolverton's Powerhouse Pepper - The best humorous hero comic ever? Super classic, super silly, super pointless, I love it.

Jack Kirby's Fourth World - all of them, Kirby just went wild on this series. Jack Kriby is just amazing, what an imagination!

Gardner Fox's run on the Justice League. So many of the greatest DC ideas came from this comic run.

Frank Miller's Daredevil run. Best martial arts comic ever, IMHO.

Walt Simonson's Thor. For my money this was the best version of Thor ever.

Curt Swan's Jimmy Olsen run. Yes, the weirdest and most surreal comic book run ever. The stories were so far out there and so cartoonly, yet  Curt drew it straight and realistic and that is what made it so great.

Wally Wood's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents - It's Wally Wood, no list would be complete without him. The best Sliver Age comic NOT made by DC or Marvel.

Julian, you've just described the life of many adult artists and writers, punk rockers, scientists, politicians, and soldiers (not to mention my romantic life :D !).  

I consider the basic idea of the superhero stroy very similar to stories like the Greek Myths, the Bible, etc.  Just for adults or for a childlike mentality?  Let's let Dr. Freud sort it out.

I'm sorry, but the things that appealed to me in superhero comics when I was 13 only do it for me under very specific circumstances now that my teens are well behind me.  Although I would argue that even most superhero comics were not targeted solely at children (at least until the Comic Code), I have to admit that a large part of what appeals to me is a sense of nostalgia coupled with an almost pathological escapist urge.  I am constantly seeking out the same sensations I experienced as a child every time I crack open a Superman comic or enter the good old Fortress of Solitude.  Usually I am rewarded by something that appeals to the (slightly) less childish side of myself as well.

Top 5 Kids Superhero Comics

Silver Age Superman family
Kirby and Lee's Fantastic Four
Ditko and Lee's Spiderman
Asterix
Beck and Binder's Capt Marvel

In retrospect, it is hard to see that any good children's superhero comics were published after Micronauts #7 (c. 1979). :D

Ok now that the parameters have been clearly defined.

Silver age Superman family
Silver Age World's Finest by Hamilton & Swan
Silver Age FF by Lee & Kirby
Silver Age Legion of Super Heroes (Forte baby!)
Silver Age Batman, Flash, Green Lantern - anything by Broome, Fox, Infantino & Gil Kane

Star Spangled War Stories with dinosaurs battling GIs -  well those GIs had to be more than regular joes if youre gunning for Tyrannos that just ate your sub and your only pal is Kong sized white ape!  

I also like Joe Kubert's run on Tarzan and the back up John Cater of Mars which was drawn by Murphy Anderson.

Gene Colan on Dr Strange.

Am I supposed to stop at 5? NUTS!

Mixed doibles.

Herbie the Fat Fury? The Inferior Five?

Curse you, SuperMonkey! Curse your impeccable taste. There's really not a single comic that you mentioned that I really disagree with.  :D Though as great and terrific as Frank Miller was in the beginning of his run, as soon as the Ninjas started being everywhere and not really killing anybody or getting anything done like evil Ninjas should...this was really the moment the otherwise awesome Miller Daredevil jumped the shark.



Seconded - the acid trip brilliance of the Marvel Family comics is second to none. And who doesn't love Mr. Tawny, the Talking Tiger? It makes me wish someone (hear that, Alan Moore? SOMEONE!) would be able to do SHAZAM! again, this time with the same imaginative brilliance that C.C. Beck brought, but with none of the downsides of reading the Marvel Family corrected: for instance, the unconscious racial caricatures that were employed, particularly with characters like Nippo, and that evil communist Korean genius whose name escapes me at the moment. No disrespect intended to the SHAZAM! of Jerry Ordway, but somebody needs to bring back the millions of forgotten, great concepts: the evil crocodile men from Punkus, Beautia and Magnificus, and so on. As it is, Captain Marvel feels like any other superhero character.



Maybe this a compliment and maybe this isn't, but I've read tons of Plastic Mans, especially his run in ADVENTURE COMICS back in the eighties, and to be perfectly honest, I can't remember the plot of a single one. There's a very dreamlike quality about this work...

One of the best Plastic Man appearances post-Golden Age was in the 1981 SUPER-FRIENDS SPECIAL NO. 1 (no, seriously), written by E. Nelson Bridwell. It had Plas go after a crook, only to be impeded each time by the SuperFriends. If perhaps for no other reason than it had "Matches" Malone and Eel O'Brien team-up!



What, no love for my boys Steve Englehart and Alan Brennart?  :wink:



More a Jimmy Shooter and Cary Bates fan myself (as evidenced by my personal list), but who cares, if you've got either Curt Swan or Kchaffenberger art?  :D



Here's one I haven't seen yet - and a good choice too. Why would you consider it one of the best comics ever?



Good choice. Personally, I really loved the Steve Englehart DR. STRANGE which I feel like kicking myself for leaving off my list; particularly the absolutely mindblowing race to the dawn of time where he discovered that the world's "true" history had lots of heroes that were villainous and villains that were heroic, and don't forget the part where Eternity destroyed the entire earth and then recreated it down to the last kid and blade of grass, and nobody knows this except Doctor Strange.

Another Steve Englehart I'd put on the list is Stainless Steve's tragically brief eight issue stint writing JUSTICE LEAGUE. But don't take my word for it! He only did eight issues, YET, one of them (the Manhunter robot story) became the plot for the very first regular issues of the Justice League television cartooN. He did only a few stories and one of them became the one they immediately did for the show right off the bat. You can't buy an advertisement like that. Sort of reminds me how Alan Brennart only has written 5 Batman stories, but TWO of them are in the GREATEST BATMAN STORIES EVER TOLD.

It's not surprising you don't remember the plots from Plas stories in "Adventure Comics."  They were pretty unremarkable.

As for Cole, it's not so much specific plots as a general sense of madness and constant inventiveness that sticks with me.  That said, there was this one story from very early on, reprinted in Volume 1 of the Archives.  It's not really typical of the mood of later Plas tales, but it shows how creative (and whacked out) Cole's mind could be:

An inventor in the 1700s has an experiment go wrong and his lab blows up.  His body is dead but his brain lives on, concious through his burial (!) and over a hundred years in the grave (!!!!).  In WWII, an American pilot crashes his plane into the grave and his head is split open.  Medics find the pilot and the old brain, and mistakenly put the brain of the scientist in the young man's head.  The scientist/pilot is paralyzed from the waist down, but launches evil schemes anyway.  At one point, he takes a potion to make himself a giant and smash through the countryside.  But remember, he's paralyzed, so here's this evil giant, with ugly stitches from his brain surgery, walking around the countryside on his hands, cackling madly and squishing anyone and everyone who gets in his way.  Until Plastic Man goes down his throat and swells up like a balloon, choking the guy to death.

What was Cole smoking!!!!???  :lol:

I don't know if it's even possible to list my favorite individual stories, there are so many.  But my favorite extended runs and concepts, off the top of my head and in no particular order:

- Silver Age Superman (natch)
- Lee and Kirby's FF (approx. issues 40 - 60)
- Binder/Beck/Costanza era Captain Marvel
- Lee and Ditko's Dr. Strange
- Simonson's Thor
- Englehart/Rogers' Detective Comics
- Shooter/Swan's LSH
- Goodwin/Simonson's Manhunter
- Cole's Plastic Man


I also have tremendous fondness for these classics:

- vintage Robotman tales (esp. drawn by Jimmy Johnson)
- Bridwell/Orlando/Esposito's Inferior Five http://www.pjfarmer.com/secret/marvelous/inferior.htm
- Those 80s Green Lantern annuals with tales of alien Lanterns in their various sectors (many by Alan Moore)
- 70s "Invaders" comics
- Haney/Aparo Brave and the Bold (at least through the 70s)
- Kirby's Jimmy Olsen
- Steranko's Nick Fury
- Mantlo/Golden's Micronauts (first 12 issues anyway)
- Stern and Byrne (!) on Captain America
- Englehart/Rogers Dr. Strange
- Claremont/Byrne X-Men

...please note I'm limiting my list to superhero fare only.  It's interesting to me, personally, to note two things: 1, there's a lot more stuff I like than I thought and 2, a lot of stuff I used to be crazy for, like Wolfman and Perez' Titans, doesn't make my list any more.

I think I've written post about this before, but isn't Jerry Siegel the greatest?



People today call Kirby "Mr. Silver Age." Does that mean Roy Thomas was "Mr. Golden Age?"

While generally I like Roy Thomas because of his fascination with details and exploration of comics' rich history, I would not include anything by him on a list of greatest comics ever, with the possible exception of his Dr. Doom story in MARVEL PRESENTS with the art done by Wally Wood, or possibly his CONAN. I don't dislike Roy at all; I think he is very competent and talented (his UNCANNY X-MEN run with Neal Adams in the 1960s was good and sufficient but really nothing special) and I'd rather have Roy Thomas writing a beloved title than say, Mark Waid or Gerry Conway or John Byrne; at least Roy isn't likely to leave a mess behind. But the fact is, the quality on Thomas-written books increases whenever he leaves them. DEFENDERS only gelled as a concept when Roy Thomas left the book and the funny, talented Steve Gerber came on to write (and even Ultron got his definitive story not under his creator Thomas, but under Kurt Busiek). Likewise, while Thomas gave the Marvel Universe the gift of the super-robot Ultron, AVENGERS only stopped being good though uninspired when Steve Englehart signed on, and under him it reached the heights of, arguably, one of the greatest team books ever written.

Thomas has a tendency to indulge in meaningless prose. If Roy the Boy was a teenager today, he'd probably be a Goth. Where else do you get sentences like this one delivered by Hawkgirl in ALL-STAR SQUADRON: "So...Carter is leaving me...to join the army...and he did not TELL me? Our masks hide not only our faces...but our TEARS as well!" I had to burst out laughing here, which I doubt was Thomas's intention. Unlike the punchy, snappy dialogue of Stan Lee and Englehart and Gerber, I honestly can't remember a single funny or witty thing anybody in a Thomas comic has ever said. Characters under Thomas lack specific voices; this is especially apparent in his DEFENDERS, where you have Namor, Silver Surfer, the Hulk and Doctor Strange, and yet somehow characters as diverse as these somehow speak the same Thomas-y way.

Thinking it over, even the comics that Houseroy has done that I view as great are only seen that way because there was no writer to come on afterward and overshadow him totally the way Englehart and Gerber did, which is as much a critique of the hiring policies on books like ALL STAR SQUADRON and INFINITY INC. as it is on Roy Thomas himself. Even his treatment of the JSA is becoming less and less definitive thanks to the current JSA series.

There is a rumor, by its very nature unsubstantiatable, that says that one of the primary reasons that CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS happened was because Roy the Boy wanted to boost sales on INFINITY INC. by setting that comic on Earth-1. If this is true, Roy goes from being a technically good and sufficient writer it is impossible to dislike, to one that earns my undying emnity, destroying instead of creating.



Not that I disagree with you, Nightwing (good choice, in fact, and one underrepresented) but why Kirby's JIMMY OLSEN and not his FOURTH WORLD or KAMANDI?



I loved Claremont/Byrne's X-MEN too, very much, although I wouldn't put this on a BEST OF list. For one thing, Dave Cockrum left halfway through, and it was Cockrum that was in many ways, the definitive X-Artist, not so much Byrne. It was Cockrum's costumes they used (and on a related note, Dave Cockrum ought to design every single superhero costume from now on).

But one of the things I judge comics on is characterization (which is why the characterization-strong Englehart, Busiek and Gerber are some of my favorite writers), and Claremont is frankly, not good at characterization. This is why the action-heavy IRON FIST in many ways is his more interesting work, because in X-MEN he attempts to go into their group dynamic, something he is unequipped to do, whereas he sticks to action plots in IRON FIST. For example, we have scenes where Jean says to Storm, "We've been good friends for some time now, Storm." Yet before that panel we had never seen the two of them together ever before. Also, Claremont had an extensive subplot where Professor X treats the New X-Men like children despite the fact they are adults - but we only know this because that's what Cyclops thinks in his thought bubbles; except Professor X saying something to Wolverine as he enters the Danger Room, he never SHOWS us Professor X doing really anything that could be considered tyrannical; the only sign this subplot is going on is because Cyclops is telling us this in thought bubbles, so consequently, we never really believe it. Another example are Claremont's awkward self-introductions, like when Multiple Man at the first issue of Dark Pheonix says "I'm only a kid from Kansas, so I think I'll stay out of this." Instead of, you know, having Claremont SHOW us that Multiple Man is a hick, by having him say or do something naive and hayseedish.

Also, Claremont was terrible at having powers be so ill-defined they can do just about anything. One of the worst examples of this is in EXCALIBUR #3, where Meggan, a fairy previously stated as having shapechanging powers (which she usually manifests to keep herself beautiful for her co-dependent relationship with Captain Britain), in one battle with Juggernaut, ACTUALLY GROWS TO GIANT SIZE with her shapechanging by "tapping into her connection with the earth to increase her strength" or some such nonsense. Ditto for Marvel Girl, who previously has been stated as being powerful enough to read minds and project her thoughts, suddenly in one X-MEN issue, manifests the ability to steal the ability to pilot a space shuttle.

And the series gave us Wolverine. I can't support that blight on the Marvel Universe in good conscience. I bet it was all Byrne's idea.  :D

JulianPerez writes



Maybe I should list it as a "guilty pleasure." The truth is I'm not a huge fan of Roy's writing style, and I absolutely abhorred Lee Elias' artwork (1977 is a bit late to still be swiping from Milt Caniff, don't you think?).  But there was something about this book that kept me coming back.  The only issue I remember really loving was the Annual that featured art from a Golden Age great (Syd Shores?) on the Cap sequence.  

I'd discount that rumor about Roy wanting the Crisis.  Everything I've ever read indicates he hated the Crisis and the headaches it created for him, culminating in the ultimate headache...every hour of work he'd put into All-Star Squadron with its continuity-mending raison d'etre was made invalid with issue 12 of Crisis.  If he WAS the guy who planted the seed that became Crisis, it has to rate as one of the great Frankenstein stories in comics history.



The truth is I never thought Kirby's DC creations were interesting enough to stand on their own.  With JO, I thought he did what he'd done so well in his glory days on the FF: take a boring central character and populate his world with one fascinating, exciting concept after another.  In my opinion, the Fantastic Four themselves are the least interesting characters in their own book (with the except of Ben Grimm, they are the least compelling personalities in the Marvel stable).  But their world was so interesting!  And so it was with Jimmy, for a while.  But given a whole book of Kirby constructs, without a Jimmy or Kal to be the anchor or centerpoint, and I never really gave a hoot.



Well, you'll note I didn't either.  It went on my list of books I have a fondness for.

All I know is that for a couple years running there, I couldn't wait until the next issue of X-Men came out, and in those pre-Previews days, I actually went to the drug store every week until an issue came out, just in case.  Looking back, the stories don't always hold up so well and Byrne's art, with the benefit of hindsight, wasn't even that amazing even in this, his best period.  But I've gotta love a comic that gave me so many thrills for so long.

As for Claremont, I tend to really dislike his stuff post-Byrne.  I think being co-scripters kept them both in check.  Together, for a time, they made magic.  Apart, I wouldn't give you a plug nickel for either one.

Wolverine I liked for about 15 minutes, but I never thought he was the star.  I liked Cyclops, the dour old stick in the mud.  That's the DC fanboy in me...at Marvel I always went for super-serious (Dr Strange), super-staid (Cyclops) straight arrows (Reed) and icons (Captain America).  The flashy, hip, smart-mouth characters never did anything for me.

I almost snuck Elias's Black Cat into my list (I would if I went beyond 5).  From what I've seen of it, beautiful work.

The Invaders were cool.  I'm nostalgic for this 1970s comic about 1940s superheroes.  Primal memories.  I've read a few recently however and the art doesn't hold up for me --serviceable, mid-70s Marvel scripts.  Not as bad as Roy Thomas would become.

Roy Thomas's period comics are easily his best work, I think, because he so immerses one in details and research that I seriously wonder if there's a butt-cheek groove in a chair at the New York Public Library where Roy Thomas sat, endlessly researching all the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball games in 1941, layouts of Berlin during the Nazi occupation, the life's story of Nicolai Tesla, speeches by FDR, and all the military flight training schools on the East Coast.

He throws so much detail your way that it is really amazing how well one man could "get" the period. Nice touches include guest spots in his ALL-STAR SQUADRON by Etta Candy and Hugo Danner, and guest-appearances by the robot from Metropolis, King Kong, and Indiana Jones. The ALL-STAR SQUADRON's base was in the Trylon and Periasphere from the 1939 World's Fair. One of my favorite moments was from ALL-STAR SQUADRON #7 in a fight with Aztec gods, where Liberty Belle gets her powers - by someone ringing the Liberty Bell of Mexico. My former major is Latin American history, so my surprise to see a guest appearance by 1940s Mexican President Manuel Cardenas showed true esoteric real-world knowledge on the part of Roy Thomas. Say what you like about his writing style, but Thomas had a twenty-pound brain.

Some of Roy Thomas's better work was his later ones, though his crap (e.g. SUPERMAN: METROPOLIS) far exceeds his great works - I would point for instance, as an example the CAPTAIN AMERICA: MEDUSA EFFECT short.

I kind of like those All Star Squadrons as well, especially the historic details (and those Joe Kubert covers!).  I liked the initial team concept of mostly unknowns, shoe-horned-in as replacements for the JSA.  Part of those fresh 80s DC teams.  But a lot of the characterisation was lost with the plethora of guests and the need to keep pace with the war.

Ah Julian by the time Cary Bates & Engelhart were doing comics I had stopped paying attention.

The Edmond Hamilton/Curt Swan's rendition of the World's Finest team had all the earmarks of classic Sillver age goodies - time travels (pawns of the Jousting Master), imaginary stories (Batman Last son of Krypton),
intergalactic gamblers etc.

The best of their out put was the Composite Superman tales which could be found in the comics section here.