My Top 10 Comic Book Collections

I already have a whole bunch of lists on this blog, so it seemed appropriate to do some more. This subject is particularly apropos because Megan has been after me to give her more early birthday present ideas. So, looking at just my collection on shelf (as opposed to things I've read from other sources, or would just like to own)...

Top 10 Marvel Comics

1. Fantastic Four. From Lee & Kirby's literally fantastic 102-issue run to John Byrne's equally remarkable 64-isssue run, to also-great runs like Englehart & Pollard's or Walt Simonson's -- this is the comic book that has always been the brain of the Marvel Universe.

2. Amazing Spider-Man. Lee & Ditko's 38-issue initial run has never been eclipsed, though Stern & Romita's 29-issue run came close. Micheline's long run with McFarlane and then Larsen is an also-great. Spider-Man has always been the heart of the Marvel Universe.

3. Avengers. The Avengers was always a whirlwind of fun but, at its best -- like the 20-issue run of Thomas & Buscema, and virtually every issue from 1977 to 1988 by various combinations of writers and artists -- this was an epic saga.

4. Incredible Iron Man. From David Micheline's 41-issue run, to John Byrne's 20-issue run, followed by Len Kaminski's 42-issue run -- all with various artists -- Iron Man has always emphasized the writing.

5. Mighty Thor. Walt Simonson's 30-issue magnum opus. DeFalco & Frenz aping Lee & Kirby for 5 years. Thor has been a grand epic almost as big and as long as the Avengers.

6. Incredible Hulk. Peter David's magnum opus.

7. West Coast Avengers. Englehart, reminding Marvel how to make comics fun.

8. Alpha Flight. John Byrne's superhero-soap opera mash-up masterpiece.

9. Silver Surfer. Englehart again, this time doing Marvel's best space opera ever.

10. Captain America. The aborted Stern & Byrne run set the bar too high to top, but Mark Gruenwald spent 10 years trying very hard and sometimes coming very close.

Top 10 DC Comics

1. Superman. Siegel & Shuster. The superhero genre at its most basic and primal. Pure magic in the making.

2. Batman. Not the dark and gritty stuff, but the joking, smiling Batman, and his pal Robin, of the 1940s. Pure fun.

3. Flash. Mark Waid's amazing, definitive run of the Wally West Flash.

4. Justice Society. Kaminski & Parobeck's canceled WAY-too soon 10-issue masterpiece.

5. Batman Adventures. The magic of the Animated Series, captured on paper by various hands, but principally Mike Parobeck.

6. Power of Shazam. The best use of Captain Marvel by DC, ever. Jerry Ordway's magnum opus.

7. Legion of Super-Heroes/Legionnaires. From the reboot. No, not that reboot, the one after that. No, no...more to the left. That's it. Mainly the ones Roger Stern wrote.

8. Kingdom Come. I know, I know. It's hardly fair to include this if Marvels didn't make my top 10 Marvel list. But this is still amazing stuff.

9. Tom Strong. Alan Moore's best/least cynical/most inventive work ever.

10. JSA. Geoff Johns' celebration of a multi-generational superhero community that feels like one big family.

Top 10 Independents

1. Bone. Couldn't be anything else.

2. Usagi Yojimbo. Such a remarkably intelligent, well-researched epic for one man to have produced monthly.

3. Thieves & Kings. Mark Oakley's fascinating (and hugely inspirational to me) fantasy series.

4. Kurt Busiek's Astro City. Kurt's continuing love letter to the superhero genre.

5. Akiko. Mark Crilley's amazingly inventive sci fi/comedy series.

6. Knights of the Dinner Table. Simply the best comic about D&D ever. Even better than mine!

7. Big Bang Comics. Uneven, but sometimes brilliant homage to the superhero genre.

8. Groo the Wanderer. Maybe should have gone on the Marvel list, but Aragones & Evanier's comic masterpiece had to be one of these lists somewhere. Mulch!

9. Radioactive Man. A brilliant and funny homage/parody of the superhero genre. Too few issues to rate higher.

10. Scott Pilgrim. A beautifully absurd look at the world through the eyes of an unreliable narrator, obsessed with teen-oriented popular culture. Or a gonzo superhero love story. Or both.

Top 10 Comic Book Acquisitions from the 2013 Free Comic Book Day

I have to say "acquisitions" this year because instead of picking up free comics at my library, I went to Keith's Komix in Schaumburg and picked up some 50-cent comics in the bargain bins in addition to the free ones.  And Keith was extra generous with the free comics, as you'll see below.

10.  Project Superpowers: Chapter Two #0
Selling for a dollar back in 2009, I picked this one up for 50 cents.  I greatly dislike the anti-government focus of the series, but the art is pretty and it's a lot of fun trying to identify all the characters, not all of whom get introductory captions.

9.  Infinity
No, it didn't make my top 10 for the prelude to the latest Thanos snoozefest or the really banal sneak peek at Warren Ellis trying to write the Avengers -- it made the cut for a rare reprint of a Drax the Destroyer adventure from Logan's Run #6 (1977)!

8.  Bongo Comics Free-For-All 2013
Lots of fun, as always, from Bongo.  The best story is "Model Citizen Simpson", but the real treat is the one page filler by Sergio Aragones.

7.  Paul Chadwick's Concrete #5
From the 50-cent bin, I picked up another solid issue of Concrete, though not one of his best.

6.  Classic X-Men #2
From the 50-cent bin...ooo, I got distracted looking at that Art Adams cover art.  Was I writing something?

5.  Avatar: the Last Airbender
Nickelodeon and Dark Horse are putting out some really good stories continuing the Avatar TV series. In this free issue we learn more about Mai than I ever did from the TV show, though I'm confused when and how she broke up with Zuko.  The Star Wars back-up feature is gorgeous, but slight.  The Captain Midnight flashback is pretty good, but the framing device in the present is boring and doesn't bode well for the series.

4.  The Smurfs
No, I'm not suddenly a Smurfs fan!  They still annoy the bejeebers out of me and the Annoying Orange back-up feature is terrible, but the real treat here is a wonderful short called Ariol about an animal-boy (an aardvark?) missing out on real life because he's got his face buried in a comic book.  Ah, if only kids were still like that today, but instead it's now video games!

3.  Kaboom! Summer Blast!
I hate the Adventure Time TV show so I had to force myself to read this, but the "choose your own adventure" concept was original and brilliantly done in comic book form.  I have looked at Kaboom's Peanuts series before and was disappointed, but this little back-up feature of Charlie Brown showing you how to draw Linus packs a surprising amount of character study into its 5 pages.  You learn a lot more about Charlie Brown's obsession with baseball than you learn about drawing Linus!  The return of Herobear should have been the most satisfying feature, as I loved his mini-series a few years back, but this preview is nothing but pretty pictures.  The Regular Show, Garfield, and Ice Age previews are descendingly bad.   

2.  The Tick
I haven't been following the Tick since his cartoon was cancelled, but it's good to see the character still has *ahem* legs.  My favorite part is, of course, the 3-page backup feature "Dewey Decibel System" with the Tick in a library learning about the Internet.  "...You have a phone?" was the funniest line in the whole book.

1.  Kirby Genesis #0
This comic book was selling for a dollar in 2011, but this year Keith was giving his leftover issues away for free.  It is so good, so gorgeous, and so ...awesome in scope, I can't understand how he still had copies to give away!  Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross, and Jackson Herbert build a unified universe for all of Jack Kirby's diverse post-Marvel, post-DC creations.  Now I have to track down all the issues I missed!