Comic books are one of the greatest forms of entertainment ever. Over the years, comic readers have experienced some of the best stories in fiction. Marvel and DC Comics have given readers characters that have stood the test of time, and those characters have changed the way fiction works ever since. Comics are a very fruitful art form; the reader interacts with comics in ways they don’t with other pieces of fiction. The histories are in our head; we give the context to the stories. We control the flow of time in the comics. We put together the words and images to make the stories work. These factors have allowed creators to tell stories that they couldn’t in other types of media. Comics have proven to be an amazing way to tell all kinds of stories, bringing new life to horror, fantasy, and sci-fi.
Over the years, all kinds of comics have been put out. The quality of anything is, of course, subjective. However, there are some comics that everyone agree are among the best of all-time. These ten comics are the best of the best, stories that have stood the test of time and showed why comics are the best artistic medium ever (that’s right, I said it).
Most lists would have Watchmen as the the number one spot on this list, and for good reason. Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, is a monumental work. There’s a comic book industry before Watchmen and one after Watchmen. It’s a story that truly lives up to its reputation. Comic book fans are obsessed with Watchmen, the sheer craft of the story making it something special. Watchmen basically has everything a great comic needs — a meticulously crafted plot, deep characters, and visuals that took the whole thing to the next level. Watchmen has stood the test of time, and even though it can get tiring always having to talk about it, the fact that we’re still talking about it forty years later says everything about how great it is.
The Sandman is somewhat verboten nowadays because of the accusations against Neil Gaiman. However, that doesn’t change just how straight up amazing it as a comic. The Sandman is a story about stories, following His Darkness Dream of the Endless as he deals with the scars left by being imprisoned for nearly a century. The Sandman was created as part of DC’s British Invasion, and has gone down as its most popular creation. The Sandman was a book that had a wide range of readers, from traditional superhero comic fans to the “cool” people who usually wouldn’t be caught dead in a comic store. A lot is made of The Sandman‘s writing, but the art has always been a huge part of the series’ appeal. Artists Sam Keith, Mike Dringenberg, Kelley Jones, Michael Zulli, P. Craig Russell, Shawn McManus, Jill Thompson, Colleen Doran, and Marc Hempel (along with J.H. Williams III on The Sandman: Overture, a six issues series that’s somehow a prequel and a sequel at the same time) drew the majority of The Sandman, along with inker Malcolm Jones III, colorist Danny Vozzo, and letterer Todd Klein, and were able to bring this comic about dreams, stories, life, death, love, and everything in between to life. There are some imagery that will stay with readers for a lifetime in the book — Sam Keith’s rendering of the demons in Hell, Dringenberg’s dream vortex pages (Dringenberg is seriously one of the most underrated artists ever and his work on The Sandman should be taught in schools), Zulli’s giant sea serpent and the end of Morpheus’s funeral, Thompson’s Starry Night pastiche with Dream, Destruction, and Delirium, Williams III’s insane page layouts, and many more — and the book’s artists played a key role in making the book special. It remains one the greatest works in the comic medium.
Squadron Supreme, by Mark Gruenwald, Bob Hall, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, and Paul Ryan, is one of comics’ great unsung masterpieces. Squadron Supreme was a 12 issue maxiseries from 1985 — beating Watchmen to the mature superhero story game — that revolved around Marvel’s Justice League pastiche deciding that the only way to save the world was to take it over. What follows is a story unlike anything readers in 1985 had ever experienced. Squadron Supreme is more of a straight superhero book than something like Watchmen — drawn by some of Marvel’s most venerable talent — and that’s possibly why it doesn’t get the same attention as that storied volume. However, Squadron Supreme deserves its place at the head of the superhero deconstruction line. Many older superhero comics don’t stand up — they are often too much of their time or depend on knowing a lot about the industry when they were coming out — but Squadron Supreme remains excellent. It’s easily among the best Marvel comics of all time, a different kind of superhero story from an age where getting anything different was a novelty.
Planetary is a book much like The Sandman — writer Warren Ellis has some accusations about his treatment of female creators and fans that has made him persona non grata among many fans — but that doesn’t change how amazing it is. Ellis and the late great artist John Cassaday created a story that paid homage to the fiction of the 20th century, combining superheroes, sci-fi, martial arts stories, ghost stories, jungle adventures, the goth mature readers comics of the ’90s, monster movies, and nearly everything else you can think of in its 26 issue run. Planetary is a comic that is best described as addictive. It pulls readers in with its brilliant characters, and keeps them there with stories that practically force you to turn the page to see what’s going to happen next. The story of Elijah Snow and Planetary’s — a group of adventurers and scientists acting as archeologists of the secrets of the 20th century — war against the Four, an evil version of the Fantastic Four, will take readers to places they have never been before, digging deep into the tropes of its constituent genres to find new ways of looking at old ideas. Cassaday’s art is breathtaking throughout, taking the various visual ideas associated with the stories that Planetary is homaging and putting them on another level. Planetary is something special.
Writer Chris Claremont became the writer of X-Men — it wouldn’t become Uncanny X-Men until the very early ’80s — with #94 and stayed on the book until issue #279, closing up his run with X-Men (Vol. 2) #1-3, taking a team that was on the chopping block and making them into comics’ most popular team. Claremont wrote the book for 17 years, and most people point at masterpieces like “The Dark Phoenix Saga”, “Days of Future Past”, “The Brood Saga”, “Mutant Massacre”, “Inferno”, and “X-Tinction Agenda” as the reasons it’s so good, and there’s a lot to that. However, getting into the minutiae of the run, those stories that aren’t on every best of X-Men list, shows a comic that was ahead of its time. Claremont was able to create all-new icons with Uncanny X-Men/X-Men, making them into fully fleshed out characters. Claremont also had the privilege of working with some of the greatest artists of all time. Artists like Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, Paul Smith, John Romita Jr., Marc Silvestri, Barry Windsor-Smith, Rick Leonardi, Jim Lee, Andy Kubert, and Whilce Potracio did more than draw the book, helping Claremont plot the comic throughout his run. Claremont’s run on Uncanny X-Men/X-Men is a masterpiece of soap opera character drama, superhero adventure, and sci-fi goodness that’s pretty much always a good read, whether it be one of the monumental stories or a random single issue.
Crisis on Infinite Earths, by Marv Wolfman, George Perez, and Jerry Ordway, is the most important event comic of all time. When it was published in 1985, event comics had existed for two years, with Marvel Comics Superheroes: Secret War being the standard bearer for what we would call modern comic events. However, Crisis on Infinite Earths went much further than the original Secret Wars even did. Not only did it kill icons like Barry Allen and Supergirl, but multiple other characters as well. It was created to destroy the old DC Multiverse and replace it, marking the first time an event comic would have the kinds of stakes that Crisis. Crisis touched on nearly every corner of DC history, showing the breadth of the DC Multiverse from the caveman days to the far future, and gave readers a ride unlike they had never experienced before. Crisis on Infinite Earths is spectacle of the highest order, a meticulously planned and perfectly executed superhero opus that still makes its event comic descendants look like kids’ stuff.
Alan Moore has some brilliant works, and honestly this entire list could be Moore stories. He was that good as a writer, creating stories that pushed what could be done with comic books. Many people would put Swamp Thing on the list, and Swamp Thing is amazing, but there’s a better Moore story, one that took a new look at an old mystery — From Hell, with artist Eddie Campbell. From Hell is a retelling of the Jack the Ripper murders, with Moore positing that the royal surgeon Sir William Gull was Jack, killing a group of prostitutes who knew about the Crown Prince’s sexual dalliances. It’s a story that redefined what dark could be, its black and white art creating the perfect atmosphere for this murder mystery. Moore and Campbell don’t set out to blown the mystery of Jack Ripper wide open with an all-new suspect; a big part of the story is about the end of the Victorian era and the beginning of the 20th century, and what role the Ripper played in all of that. This is Moore taking things to the next level with a story that’s nearly perfect.
Grant Morrison is one of the comic industry’s most beloved writers, their work in the American comic industry making them a legend. There are lots of amazing Morrison stories out there — an argument can be made that Animal Man or Final Crisis or JLA or Doom Patrol should be here (and you should definitely read all of those). However, as great as they are, there’s one Morrison work that stands above the rest — All-Star Superman, with their frequent artistic collaborator Frank Quitely. All-Star Superman follows Superman after Lex Luthor is able to give him overdose of solar radiation. With his death on the way, Superman sets out to make the world a better place than it was. All-Star Superman is basically everything good about Superman comics rolled into one amazing volume, giving readers heart-pounding suspense, amazing action, wonderful character drama, and a sense of humor that is completely unexpected. All-Star Superman is the greatest Superman story, and it’s honestly probably the greatest superhero story, a masterwork that seems like it will never be matched.
The Invisibles is Morrison’s ’90s opus. The simplest way to describe the book is that it follows the adventures of a cell of the terrorist group known as the Invisibles — King Mob, Lord Fanny, Ragged Robin, Boy, and Jack Frost — as they fight against the Outer Church, a nightmare universe of terrible order ruled by Lovecraftian monsters and the true power behind every government on Earth. Over its three volume run, The Invisibles is basically the ’90s boiled down to its perfect essence, combining everything Morrison was interested in during the decade — hallucinogens, dance music, fashion, sex, and magic — into a heady brew. The Invisibles is full of ideas unlike anything most readers have ever experienced, but what truly makes it sing are the characters. Morrison introduces a veritable army of characters, all linked by the blank badge of the invisible, throwing brilliant plot after brilliant plot at the reader. Morrison works with some amazing artists over the book’s run, with artists Jill Thompson, Steve Yeowell, Chris Weston, and Phil Jimenez drawing the lion’s share of the book, each issue brimming with artwork that brings everything to life brilliantly. The Invisibles is magic, both literally and figuratively (Morrison is a chaos magician who used the book and its characters for his sigil-based magic), a book that rewards re-reads with new facets every time they pick it up.
Alan Moore began working on Miracleman in the UK — where it was known as Marvelman — before he started working for DC Comics. Moore worked with artists Gary Leach, Alan Davis, Rick Veitch, Chuck Austen, and John Totleben on the book, crafting what is considered the first superhero deconstruction story. Marvelman was a ’50s British superhero based on Captain Marvel, and Moore took that idea and brought it into the modern day. Miracleman is the story of Mike Moran, who learns that he was once the superhero known as Miracleman, and has to deal with the fact that he’s basically a god on earth. Miracleman is the ultimate word on superheroes, a story that deals with superheroes in a realistic way. It was a book that was ahead of its time, and still reads like it even today. It’s all capped off with “Olympus”, a story that shows the terrible toll superhumans would take in their battles — Totleben’s double page spread of London after the superpowered rampage of Kid Miracleman, Miracleman’s former partner and insane superhuman, is a chilling and beautiful work of art. Miracleman was nearly impossible to find for decades, but now is available from Marvel. Every comic fan owes it to themselves to check it out.
What do you think the best comics are? Sound off in the comments below.
Comic books are one of the greatest forms of entertainment ever. Over the years, comic readers have experienced some of the best stories in fiction. Marvel and DC Comics have given readers characters that have stood the test of time, and those characters have changed the way fiction works ever since. Comics are a very Read More