You are the first person, aside from myself, that I have ever seen say anything positive about Shadowline Saga. I loved those books. The absolutely egregious treatment of Doctor Zero in Secret Wars dropped me right back out of Marvel when that Alex Ross cover image with Zero and St. George had reeled me back in.
I missed that cover and issue. I'll have to track them down some day, even if those characters are mistreated.
As for the original series, just looking at the Sienkiewicz, Morrow, and Zaffino artwork was more than worth the price of admission back in the day. When I had the chance, I had to get a Sienkiewicz Dr. Zero.
John Byrne era Superman : since those were the first issues I remember picking up as a little kid, I have a big soft spot for these issues
Ultimate Spider-Man from Bendis and Bagley. I collected and read this series in trade format, so once I started reading a volume, I couldn't put it down. It was also refreshing to have such a long run of issues from the same creative team.
The Mighty Thor from Walt Simonson When a creator can write and draw as imaginatively as Simonson did, and build upon the Thor mythos as much as he did during his 5 years by creating new characters and using all the ancillary characters as well as he did, it doesn't get much better then that. Walts take on Thor is still my favourite.
Green Lantern from Geoff Johns This is rarified air. Taking a beloved, yet often under appreciated character like Hal Jordan and making his title one of the best in all comics for as long as he was on it is a great feat. It seems a lot more common today, but Johns made it his calling card.
Invincible by Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley Possibly the best superhero comic ever
3. Hickmans Avengers/new avengers, FF, and Secret warriors are all awesome too. Secret warriors was a great story, and I'm always down to re read it to catch things I missed. With Hickman, he basically told one long story throughout FF, Ultimates, and then the Avengers/new avengers stuff. All the buildup was awesome for secret wars, especially the FF story line.
Reading his Avengers books during Infinity was fantastic. If a person skipped reading them it was like missing a huge chunk of the Infinity story.
Secret Warriors was great and I'd tie his SHIELD story in there as well. You can read everything he did at Marvel and find connecting threads. Amazing.
John Byrne era Superman : since those were the first issues I remember picking up as a little kid, I have a big soft spot for these issues
Ultimate Spider-Man from Bendis and Bagley. I collected and read this series in trade format, so once I started reading a volume, I couldn't put it down. It was also refreshing to have such a long run of issues from the same creative team.
The Mighty Thor from Walt Simonson When a creator can write and draw as imaginatively as Simonson did, and build upon the Thor mythos as much as he did during his 5 years by creating new characters and using all the ancillary characters as well as he did, it doesn't get much better then that. Walts take on Thor is still my favourite.
Green Lantern from Geoff Johns This is rarified air. Taking a beloved, yet often under appreciated character like Hal Jordan and making his title one of the best in all comics for as long as he was on it is a great feat. It seems a lot more common today, but Johns made it his calling card.
Invincible by Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley Possibly the best superhero comic ever
Great topic- I've been away from the forums for a bit but this is the kind of topic that gets me commenting again here.. A lot of mine have been mentioned:
- Morrison's Batman run- I just re-read this a few weeks ago. I'm not a Morrison disciple, but I'm firmly in the camp that loved this run, and it's very rewarding when I return to it. - Frank Miller's DD runs- an obvious choice, and still holds up tremendously of course.. Essential, cornerstone of my collection stuff. - Simonson's Thor run- @Eternal_E put it better than I could. One of my favorite runs ever. - Jim Owsley's, (aka Christopher Priest under his given name) run on Conan the Barbarian - I've banged the drums for this run before. Similar in some ways to Simonson's Thor. He builds a great cast of supporting characters for Conan to play off of, and dangles larger plots through individual adventures month to month, really building up the drama. Great art by John Buscema (of course) and later, Val Semeiks inked by Geof Isherwood (which had a sort of Simonson/John Byrne-esque quality to it, also great). It was a great take on the character and breathed new life into the book at the time (Roy Thomas had long since departed by the time Owsley took over the book). This is a run that holds up well and is a hell of a lot of fun. I'd even put it out there for a capes lover as a possible gateway drug to Conan.
And I've only recently acquired and read Byrne's FF & Alpha Flight runs, but I know I will return to both of them- I really liked both runs a lot despite being a total Byrne newbie.
Bronze Age Marvel, all of it...thats a huge chunk of comfort and good memories that I go back to time and time again.
More specificly:
Perez/Wolfman's New Teen Titans IDW's Transformers - They've had some stinkers, but I read the hardcover collections about once year and keep up on the ongoing titles. Any and all things Terry Moore Byrne's FF Simonson's Thor
Supreme is a great read... the art is a mixed bag, bouncing from awful Leifieldesque Image-bro art, to Rick Vietch's perfect flashback silver age art, and finally landing Chris Sprouse, which is, of course, beautiful.
Moore's writing, and his love for silver-age Superman tropes pulls it all together, though. Checker Publishing printed two trade paperbacks a few years ago, which is how I was exposed to it.
Comments
As for the original series, just looking at the Sienkiewicz, Morrow, and Zaffino artwork was more than worth the price of admission back in the day. When I had the chance, I had to get a Sienkiewicz Dr. Zero.
John Byrne era Superman :
since those were the first issues I remember picking up as a little kid, I have a big soft spot for these issues
Ultimate Spider-Man from Bendis and Bagley.
I collected and read this series in trade format, so once I started reading a volume, I couldn't put it down. It was also refreshing to have such a long run of issues from the same creative team.
The Mighty Thor from Walt Simonson
When a creator can write and draw as imaginatively as Simonson did, and build upon the Thor mythos as much as he did during his 5 years by creating new characters and using all the ancillary characters as well as he did, it doesn't get much better then that. Walts take on Thor is still my favourite.
Green Lantern from Geoff Johns
This is rarified air. Taking a beloved, yet often under appreciated character like Hal Jordan and making his title one of the best in all comics for as long as he was on it is a great feat. It seems a lot more common today, but Johns made it his calling card.
Invincible by Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley
Possibly the best superhero comic ever
- Morrison's Batman run- I just re-read this a few weeks ago. I'm not a Morrison disciple, but I'm firmly in the camp that loved this run, and it's very rewarding when I return to it.
- Frank Miller's DD runs- an obvious choice, and still holds up tremendously of course.. Essential, cornerstone of my collection stuff.
- Simonson's Thor run- @Eternal_E put it better than I could. One of my favorite runs ever.
- Jim Owsley's, (aka Christopher Priest under his given name) run on Conan the Barbarian - I've banged the drums for this run before. Similar in some ways to Simonson's Thor. He builds a great cast of supporting characters for Conan to play off of, and dangles larger plots through individual adventures month to month, really building up the drama. Great art by John Buscema (of course) and later, Val Semeiks inked by Geof Isherwood (which had a sort of Simonson/John Byrne-esque quality to it, also great). It was a great take on the character and breathed new life into the book at the time (Roy Thomas had long since departed by the time Owsley took over the book). This is a run that holds up well and is a hell of a lot of fun. I'd even put it out there for a capes lover as a possible gateway drug to Conan.
And I've only recently acquired and read Byrne's FF & Alpha Flight runs, but I know I will return to both of them- I really liked both runs a lot despite being a total Byrne newbie.
More specificly:
Perez/Wolfman's New Teen Titans
IDW's Transformers - They've had some stinkers, but I read the hardcover collections about once year and keep up on the ongoing titles.
Any and all things Terry Moore
Byrne's FF
Simonson's Thor
Moore's writing, and his love for silver-age Superman tropes pulls it all together, though. Checker Publishing printed two trade paperbacks a few years ago, which is how I was exposed to it.