Well, I asked about the top 5 monthly comics, and the top 5 writers, now I want to know what you think are the top 5 comic book arcs or tradepaperbacks. I know these were probably at least hinted out in other threads, but I want more concrete answers.

I'm slowly getting back into comics, and I'm making sure I only buy those issues with good stories and art. But now I need comparison material.

So, what's the best?

For me:

• Just about any of the Sandman storylines
• "The Judas Contract" during the Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans run.
• The original Dark Knight Returns
• Watchmen
• Guilty pleasure: Crisis on Infinite Earths

This could be the hardest question yet to get a top 5 out of.

Any of the TPB arcs of Sandman, Transmetropolitan, and Preacher
"Death in the Family" from Batman
the original Dark Knight Returns
The two Rising Stars story arcs. Wish Top Cow would stop screwing with JMS so we could get the last two issues.
Watchmen
And for a lengthy run on issues that sadly isn't available in TPB form, Peter David's run on Incredible Hulk was great.

I thought the original Books of Magic mini was incredible.
The Dark Phoenix saga, with the Hellfire Club, was pretty awesome.
A Game of You, and The Wake, were my favorite story arcs from the Sandman comic, but they were all great.
Batman Year One.
Though I didn't get to finish it, what I did read of Kingdom Come was just plain awesome.

If you're interested, here's the list of the Top 100 Graphic Novels that Wizard Magazine did a while back:


1. Maus
2. Watchmen
3. Dark Knight Returns 10th anniv. ed.
4. Sandman vol. 4: Season of Mists
5. Ultimate Spider Man vol. 1: HC
6. Batman: Year One
7. Daredevil: Born Again
8. Marvels
9. Superman: Whatever Happened To the Man of Tomorrow?
10. X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga
11. The Golden Age
12. X-Men: Days of Future Past
13. Swamp Thing vol. 1: Saga of the Swamp Thing
14. Miracleman vol. 3: Olympus
15. New Teen Titans: The Judas Contract
16. Top 10 Book 1
17. Magnus, Robot Fighter: Steel Nation
18. Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller vol. 2
19. Hawkworld
20. Preacher vol. 3: Proud Americans
21. The Books of Magic
22. Squadron Supreme
23. Superman: For All Seasons
24. Death: The High Cost of Living
25. Fantastic Four: The Trial of Galactus
26. Solar, Man of the Atom: Alpha and Omega
27. Sin City: That Yellow Bastard
28. Spider Man: Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut
29. Daredevil: Yellow
30. Astro City vol. 3: Confessions
31. Torso
32. Bone vol 2: The Great Cow Race
33. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
34. 300
35. Pedro and Me
36. Sin City: A Dame To Kill For
37. Planetary vol. 2: The Fourth Man
38. Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days
39. Banner
40. Kingdom Come
41. Akira vol. 1
42. 100 Bullets vol. 3: Hang Up On the Down Low
43. Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne
44. Usagi Yojimbo Book 6
45. X-Men: E Is For Extinction
46. Hellblazer: Hard Time
47. Thor Visionaries: Walt Simonson
48. Hellboy: The Chained Coffin and Others
49. Stormwatch vol. 4: A Finer World
50. The Power of Iron Man
51. The Authority vol. 2: Under New Management
52. Box Office Poison
53. Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits
54. Animal Man
55. Strangers In Paradise col. 2: I Dream Of You
56. Legion of Super Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga
57. Dr. Strange/Dr. Doom: Triumph and Torment
58. JLA: New World Order
59. Earth X
60. Infinity Gauntlet
61. Justice League: A New Beginning
62. X-Force: A New Beginning
63. Jinx: The Definitive Collection
64. X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills
65. Silver Surfer: The Rebirth of Thanos
66. Avengers: Under Siege
67. Daredevil: The Man Without Fear
68. Captain America: War and Remembrance
69. Wolverine
70. Fortune and Glory
71. Goldfish
72. Powers vol. 1: who Killed Retro Girl?
73. Punisher: Circle of Blood
74. Whiteout
75. Doom Patrol: Crawling From the Wreckage
76. Batman: The Long Halloween
77. TMNT: The Collected Book vol. 1
78. JLA: Earth 2
79. Avengers: Ultron Unlimited
80. Crisis On Infinite Earths
81. Obergeist: Director's Cut
82. Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn
83. Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood
84. The Coffin
85. Nightwing vol. 4
86. Batman: Dark Victory
87. Ultimate X-Men vol. 1: The Tomorrow People
88. Incredible Hulk: Ground Zero
89. Batman: Arkham Asylum
90. American Flagg! vol. 1: Hard Times
91. Wolverine: Blood Debt
92. Cerebus vol. 2: High Society
93. The Adventures of Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey
94. Batman: Haunted Knight
95. X-Men: From the Ashes
96. The Complete Concrete
97. Spider Man vs. Venom
98. Batman: Red Rain
99. The Red Star
100. Batman: Faces

Strangers in Paradise - I Dream of You. I love that book.

B2K I cannot stress enough to stay away from all things Wizard related as that list above is that somebody posted (although that is probably one of their better lists). Everything they write, review, & rank has hidden agendas behind it. For proof of that just look at there #5 choice.

Sure, Wizard isn't the most objective place for information, but are you really saying to stay away from Maus, Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Sandman, Batman Year One, Dark Phoenix Saga, and Judas Contract?

It's just a guideline, for pity's sake.

Nope, I never said to stay away from those. But I know B2K is just getting back into comics & he me want to pick up Wizard b/c it's a comic book magazine. When in fact it is truly terrible publication that literally makes up comic book news stories to fill space & pretty much only recommends titles in which the creator gives the magazine interviews & exclusives. That above list is probably the best list they ever did, but my warning was for the magazine in general.

That Wizard list is actually not too shabby. There's some questionable stuff on there (Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood? Spider Man vs. Venom? Give me a break!), but all in all, a decent list. I agree with Sessa, though, that the magazine in general is 98% junk. Here are some tips from me:

* Alan Moore. Anything the man touches is pure gold. Watchmen gets a lot of press, but V for Vendetta absolutely floors me every time I read it, Top 10 is a visual treat, Promethea is a head trip, and From Hell will leave you passed out on the floor.

* Marvel's Essential series. These are monstrously thick books full of the good stuff. Primarily early stuff, from back when Stan Lee was writing everything and Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were drawing most of it, but they've also put out 4 volumes of Claremont's X-Men, Gerber's Howard the Duck (totally different and much better than the movie), Wolfman & Colan's Tomb of Dracula (great stuff!). Oh yeah -- and Wolverine.

* Bone. There's 8 or 9 volumes of this. Part Disney movie, part Lord of the Rings. It's really entertaining stuff, and my description doesn't do it justice. Pick up the first volume. Trust me.

* Preacher. Indiana Jones with a Quentin Tarantino sensibility. And it's got a real story, with a begining, a middle, and an end. The series starts off specatcular, drops down to very good by the middle, and ends up excellent.

* Kurt Busiek's Astro City. Superheroes viewed through a real-world sensibility, but in a totally different way from the manner in which Moore did it in Watchmen. Another one that's indescribable, but if you like superheroes, you'll like this.

Fair enough!

And I agree with the recommendation for Preacher and Astro City.

I agree with a lot of the sentiments above.

Stay away from Wizard.

Almost anything by Alan Moore or Frank Miller is great.

My personal top 10 as memory serves at the moment:

Watchmen
Dark Knight (original)
Sandman (all of it)
Bone (all of it)
Daredevil Born Again
Crisis on Infinite Earths (as Chew said, a bit of a guilty pleasure, as I'm a huge 70s DC fan)
V for Vendetta
Miracleman
Concrete
Flaming Carrot (total guilty pleasure)

Like this?

Joking aside, I would actually recommend this book for
1) Excellent storytelling
2) Offbeat type of stories. It's not your typical superhero book.
3) It's out of print, but should be fairly easy to find. Get it while you can. However, the title of this book is a misnomer; there are several other collections of Concrete single stories and mini-series, but I'd recommend this one to start.

And more books for the same reasons above:
Dave Steven's Rocketeer books (not the movie adaption, the original series)
Mark Schultz's Xenozoic Tales (Cadillacs & Dinosaurs)

Plus, I'd highly recommend Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics to anyone who enjoys comics to any degree. It isn't a series, but an essay about comics as an art form, presented in a comic book style. No matter what level of comics hobbist you are, you'll learn something and appreciate comics more.

The entire Bone series (one could argue that it's all one story arc)
Death: The Time of Your Life
X-Men: Xtinction Agenda
Generation X (the first 20 issues with Chris Bachalo, awesome stuff)
Daredevil: Man Without Fear

Wow, the drooling elitist fanboys come out to bash Wizard again.

Bishop, ignore the raving. The kids think they're cool because they read the "underground" stuff think it's cool to bash Wizard and anyone else that dares to like stuff from the big 2.

Couldn't be farther from the truth. I read very little underground stuff & almost every single one of my favorite comics is published by "the big 2" & the X-men is my all-time favorite comic which is as Wizard-friendly as you can get. I can provide (& have provided) numerous reasons why Wizard is absolutely garbage & the worste thing for someone getting back into comics after a long absence. I know B2K's taste & he has enjoyed pretty much all of my recommendations (which are all books that Wizard does not promote or write about yet they are NOT indy books & are pusblished by the "big 2). I'm a retailer, know people that have worked for Wizard & that still work for Wizard. Wizard often makes up rumors & news to fill-in pages & columns. They promote the same books & the same creators every single month, NEVER criticizing their works because these same creators give Wizard exclusives & interviews. They rank Top Ten artists & writers that haven't put out work in months or put out 1 or 2 comics a year, & their price guide is determined but what creators & comics they are doing stories on over the next 2 months & they give you release dates for books that are constantly wrong & not even verified. And there are PLENTY of more reaons why Wizard is complete crap. But if you enjoy it more power to you, I bashed Wizard not the people that read it.

<small></small>I doubt that anyone wants this place to turn into VideoGame Talk, so.... play nice.



Benedict
Moderator, Book Talk

I just wanted to add support for my two favorite Batman arcs:

- Year One
- The Dark Knight Returns

Frank Miller!

Note that Frank Miller recently put out a sequel to The Dark Knight Retruns entitled The Dark Knight Strikes Again. Some people liked it, some people thought it was very, very stinky, but everyone agrees it wasn't in the same league as the two stories Ralph Wiggum mentions above.

I'm not a big fan of Frank Miller's stuff for the past decade or stuff, but his work on Batman and Daredevil in the 1980s -- wow!

I usually read the tv forum and haven't been to the book forum in awhile and then tonight I come here and see a bunch of comic book threads. I didn't know where to start and then I saw this comment.

What's the hidden agenda behind their ranking of USM? I don't really want to continue arguments about Wizard, but I consider USM to be the best traditional superhero comic I've ever read. By traditional I mean not deconstructionist like Watchmen or DKR.

I don't know enough about Wizard to defend it, but there does seem to be an unreasonable amount of criticism focused on Wizard. I think that top 100 list is a nice reference although there will always be crazy entries on any top 100 list.

As for the topic, I don't have a top 5 arc/trades list, but I think I'll go do the other top 5 threads.

Once you get past the initial distaste for what is essentially the comic book equivalent of a remake, it's not a bad book. What some people (including me) take issue with is its high rank on the list. Can you honestly say that Ultimate Spider-Man (ranked #5) is better than Dardevil: Born Again (#7)? Alan Moore's Swamp Ting (highest rank: #13)? Preacher (highest rank: #20)? Marvels (#8)? Stern and Buscema's Siege of Avengers Mansion (#66)? The Great Darkness Saga (#56)? V for Vendetta (not even on the list!!!)? For that matter, is it really better than Lee & Ditko's version -- so much better that neither the Masterworks nor the Essentials reprinting of the Lee/Ditko version makes the list while Ultimate Spidey is #5?

I'm not saying Bendis and Bagley haven't turned out a great comic. They have. They've taken very familiar material and put a great fresh spin on it. But is it the 5th best comic of all time? Not hardly.

Wow, I can only name 5? There are so many. I'll give it a shot:

1. Batman Year One
2. Watchmen
3. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
4. Sandman--pick one
5. Kingdom Come

For my money, and this is coming from a longtime Spidey fan, yes. I was re-reading the old Lee-Ditko stuff recently, and while some of it still has its charms, I find most of it corny and hard to sit through, at least in terms of story. Ditko's art I can take or leave. I had to laugh at the moment in Amazing 500 recently, when Spidey goes back to his first battle with the Sandman and the whole "vacuum him up" bit. Even as a kid, I thought that was the dumbest thing I had ever seen. Anyway, I think USM is simply better written, but the art is so-so.

As for some good collected storylines, I really like the Milligan/Allred X-Force and X-Statix stuff, which is available in hardback and TPB. And for Spider-Man fans, Loeb and Sale's Spider-Man: Blue is simply excellent. Same goes for their Batman work, Long Halloween and the other whose name I forget. Powers is well-worth reading also, and has the first three or four arcs available in TPB.

For a realllllly long arc, Lone Wolf and Cub is awesome, but 28 books may be more than most folks want to get into. As for the Wizard list, Maus and Watchmen, enough said there. Great books.

Even as someone who thinks Ditko's Spidey is overrated, I disagree with you -- I think Lee/Ditko beats Bendis/Bagley any day of the week. Bendis's work may appeal more to current sensibilities, but there's a timelessness to the Lee/Ditko run. Check back in 20 years, and Bendis/Bagley will seem just as dated as Lee/Ditko, and without that handicap, I think Lee/Ditko will win.

But for my money, there is no better run of superhero comics than that first year-to-year-and-a-half of John Romita Sr.'s run on Spidey. Starting with the Green Goblin unmasking Spidey, you get the intro of Mary Jane, Peter starting to feel a little more comfortable in his own skin, battles with John Jameson, the Rhino, Kraven, the Lizard, and the Vulture, the introduction of the Shocker, that great battle between the original Vulture and his would-be replacement, all culminating in that incredible "Spider-Man No More" shot of Peter walking away from the Spider-Man costume, which he has discarded in a trash can.

Maybe it's because those were some of the first stories I read (no, I'm not that old; I read them when they were reprionted in Marvel Tales in the early-to-mid-80s), but I love those stories.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah -- Spider-Man: Blue. I've thought Loeb & Sale were a great team since I read their Challengers of the Unknown 15-or-so years ago. I love Long Halloween, and their Marvel stuff is awesome, too. Spider-Man: Blue was a lot of fun, and since it's an examination of the stories I love most, I think it resonates with me more than anything else they've done. And I absolutely love the fact that they didn't return to the Ditko stories that so many other writers and artists are drawn to. I mean, those are great, but given the fact that they are drawn upon so much, I think there's more richness to be drawn from the Romita stories at this point.

By the way, the other Loeb & Sale work you referenced is either Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (a collection of 3 or 4 Halloween themed one-shots they did prior to Long Halloween); Batman: Dark Victory (a sequel to Long Halloween); Daredevil: Yellow (a re-examination of Daredevil's earliest adventures); or Hulk: Grey (which I haven't read yet, but I assume to be a re-examination of the Hulk's earliest adventures.

In no particular order:

1. The Invisibles (W: Grant Morrison, 7 volumes)
2. Preacher (W: Garth Ennis, A:Steve Dillon, 9 volumes)
3. Sandman (W:Neil Gaiman, 10 volumes)
4. From Hell (W: Alan Moore, A:Eddie Campbell, 1 volume)
5. Love and Rockets (Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez, 15 volumes)