When I first heard that we were making our very own personal list of our top ten comic books that we love to read I was super excited. There are so many great books that I have read over the years and making a list of ten was exciting and hard. Still, l I managed to dwindle it down to my personal ten favorite comic books. I hope you all enjoy my selections.
10. Iron Man #282 -
I selected this book because this was the first comic book I ever read and it
was also were my love for Ironman and War Machine came. The story was written by Len Kaminski and in
this book we are revealed War Machine for the first time. It introduced Rhodes as his own hero and a
hero that is completely different from Tony Stark. While Tony is a more of a strategic
hero, War Machine is a hero of no talk all guns. Although the story for this issue was not
great it definitely gave me a reason to love comics, Rhodes as War Machine and Iron
Man.
9. Thor: Secret Invasion – If there was anything I enjoyed out of Secret Invasion it was definitely the tie in book in Thor. In this three part story it is all about Thor and Beta Ray Bill. Ahh… Beta Ray Bill, one of my favorite characters of Marvel that doesn’t get enough run. In this story, Thor heals Beta Ray Bill who had bean severely beaten and leaves Mjolnir in the Hands of Bill. With Bill leading the charge, the Asgardians ensue on an epic battle to save their home. What I enjoyed most of this book was Beta Ray Bill taking charge of the battle and going toe to toe to with the person who stole Stormbreaker. Although he doesn’t manage to beat the Skrull by himself as Thor had to step in to help, his fight against the Skrull made me happy because Marvel gave this character some run. The panels were Thor and Bill fought together side by side against the Skrull makes me all giddy.
8. Thor #3 - Another great issue of the Thor story arc from J.M. Straczynski. In this issue, Thor and Iron Man duke it out. Thor is basically mad at Iron Man for creating a cloned of him during the Civil War and now Thor wants retribution for Tony’s action. The book for me was memorable because I had always wanted to see a fight between Iron Man and Thor and I wanted to see who would win. My assumption had always been Thor could beat Iron Man in a fight and basically my assumption was correct Thor is just a complete bad ass and no one should ever make the God of Thunder angry and try and fight him in his fury.
7. Captain America #25 - Edward Brubaker’s Captain America takes a spot for the killing of one of Marvels most beloved and most respected heroes. This issue was one of anger at first but then one of total respect for the way Brubaker killed this character. I was angry at first because I thought that Brubaker and Marvel were taking a total poo poo on the character but after rereading it again my view point changed completely. Brubaker showed that even as the media, people and the government portrayed this guy as a traitor, Rogers always did what he thought was the right thing; even if the right thing meant his life. By Brubaker killing him it immortalize him in the people eyes as a Patriot and it also undid some of what Civil War had establish. This book is truly one of my favorite reads just for the respect that Brubaker had for Captain America.
6. Iron Man: Most Wanted – Matt Fraction on Iron Man has had an incredible run and has made Iron Man into one of the most interesting and fun characters to read about in Marvel. In the Most Wanted Story Arc Tony is being labeled as an enemy of the State by Norman Osborne. Tony has the only remaining copy of the heroes identity in his brain and Osborne is coming after him for the information. Tony in an act of desperation gives himself a memory wipe, by doing this he is slowly becoming less capable of using his armor so he has to downgrade to older armor just to defend himself against Osborne and his methods of attack. This book is amazing. It introduced a new armor in Rescue. A suit designed just for Pepper. The suit is not a fighting suit like War Machine, it’s more of a rescue and defense armor. The book also does a great job in bringing back nostalgia to me. From Mark 1 to the classic gold and red he uses them all; he even uses the Crimson Dynamo armor, an armor that I enjoy a lot in the Iron Man universe. There something about a Mark 1 Iron Man armor versus Iron Patriot that really gave me goose bumps while reading this story.
5. I Kill Giants – This miniseries from Image comics is probably one of the best comics I have read that didn’t have to do with capes. The story is about a little girl named Barbara Thompson, a troubled young girl who is considered an outcast at school. She is so caught up in her own world that she thinks that she can actually kill giants. Her imagination is so vivid that you almost feel that she is really in that universe. What I like about this book is that it’s not a story about capes. It’s a story about her imagination and how she uses her imagination to escape from her real life problems. In some cases the Giants represented her real problems and she would try to take them down. It’s a brilliant book that is clever and at points pulls at your heart strings.
4. The Uncanny X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga - This series is probably the best X-men story to be written of all time and I consider this book to be Chris Claremont and John Byrn best work. I am sure every comic book reader has read this and it is probably on a lot of people list but I had to mention it myself as well because it is a fun and very in depth comic on the X-men. It finally lets Jean Grey be known as one of the most powerful mutants in the entire X-men Universe. The Phoenix is so powerful that not even Charles was able to control her for long. The book has a lot of cool things. We are introduced to the Hellfire Club and how they played an important part in releasing the Dark Phoenix. There is a very cool moment when Wolverine is fighting all the Hellfire Clubs men in the basement and we are also introduced to Dazzler and Kitty Pryde. But what I think that this book did the most was go more in depth in character development something that in those days was not that very common.
3. Mouseguard: Fall 1152 – This book came out of nowhere
for me. Mouseguard has become one of my
favorite reads in all of comics. This
indie book created by David Petersen is a modern day masterpiece and is a great
book for all ages. The book takes places
in olden time were a group of mice are looking to protect their lands from
larger predators. The book is more than
just an epic fantasy. It talks about
corruption, and betrayal within their kingdom and how the group of mice has to
stop a civil war to occur in their kingdom. This book is really special to me
because just like I Kill Giants, it finally got out of the super hero side of
comics. It showed me that there stuff
out there that is better than the superhero stories. And what is best about this book is that the
book is creator own. In every page you
can feel the love and hard work that Petersen puts into this book. Whenever anyone asks me that they want to
read something that is not from the tights and capes department I always
recommend this book first because it is a book that will definitely be worth
your time.
2. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller Classic tale of
Old Man Batman is one of the best stories I have read from Batman. The story takes place in the future and
Batman is now over his 50’s and retired from the business of crime fighting. He is brought back to the swing of things
because crime is up to his highest levels since Batman disappears. Batman in his advance age takes it upon
himself to take back the streets of Gotham.
The real cool twist in this comic is that Batman is since been known as a
vigilante and a terror to the city and should be stopped. Why I like this book so much is because it
was one of the first books I read were our favorite heroes were put in the
future and it showed that once they were long gone who else is going to be in their
place and even when they get old could they be able to stop the younger and
more violent villains they might face.
The book shows you if he could or not.
Also one of the best moments in the book has to be the Superman vs
Batman fight and who would ultimately win.
The result to that fight was surprising to me.
1. The Ultimates: Season 1 - When it comes to the Ultimate line of Marvel people usually think of Ultimate Spiderman, not for this guy, when I first think of the Ultimate line I think The Ultimates. This twelve issue run of the first Ultimate story which is supposed to be Marvel heroes living in the real world and it give some old Marvel Property a new spin on their origins. This line was responsible to bringing me back into comics and because of that it has a special place in my list. The first twelve issues were written by Mark Millar and art by the great Steve McNiven. In these first twelve issues book gives you great retelling and reimaging of some Marvel classic characters, while still keeping some of the magic from the classic character. The series also gave some great stories in which the team fights against Ultimate Hulk which instead of being green he was the super awesome gray one. And you also got the Ultimate battling an alien race called the Chitauri who were creepy, clever and evil. One of my favorite quotes from that series came from Captain America were he is fighting with Kleiser and Cap fights back and says: “Surrender? Surrender? You think this letter on my head stands for France!?” One of my favorite comic book moments ever!
Some honorable mentions that I wish I could add to this list are: Siniestro Corp War, Skeleton Story, and Robocop. Well that’s my list. What is yours? Tell us about of your top ten comic books at our forums at playeraffinity.com I hope to see you all there!