Best Superhero Comics Ever?

[ShinDangaioh]

JulianPerez you are mixing two things up.

Independant Comics and Melodramatics.

What you are railing against are the people who think that the only good stories are those with no humor and a bunch of angst.  The Tavicats with Reality Check! is completely different than Elfquest.  Both are Indy comics.  One just accepts that humor is part of life(I'm only fifteen.  I won't be ready to admit anything about myself for ten years).  That's one of the reasons I went to Heroic Publishing and their characters.  They have fun with some of the stuff they do.
Psyche: Mister President.  In my time, I've dealt with wizards, demons, and costumed maniacs, but politicians?  That would be a new low.

The President: Oh well.  Anyone for tennis?


There are good Indy comics out there, you just have to figure out what the author was really trying to do.  Those that are enjoyable for you, would be ones who took their characters and said that they wanted to keep the rights to them and not let DC or Marvel get their claws into them.  Go! Girl falls into that category.

[Klar Ken T5477]

Prez? First Teen president?! :lol:

Im confuzzled by this entire thread frankly.

[Super Monkey]

Bringing it all back to on-topic

Instead of listing every great superhero comic ever, I will only list my favorite RUNS on a on-going comic book series.

Mort Weisinger as editor Sliver Age Superman run - My favorite era of Superman and the best IMHO. Lots of great writers were a part of this era, and the Mighty Curt Swan, king of Superman Artists.

Superman's post Golden Age pre-Sliver Age run. Big Beefy sci-fi Superman. My second favorite version of Superman.

Julius Schwartz's as Superman's editor. 3rd favorite Superman era.

Otto Binder's Captain Marvel run as writer - Holy Moly! No one ever GOT Captain Marvel better, 1941 to 1953 - wow, one of greatest Golden Age Superhero series. The C.C. Beck issues , wow what a combo!

Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's run of The Fantastic Four - One of the most creative and inventive runs of all time.

Jack Cole's Plastic Man - One of the greatest Golden Age Superhero series ever, IMHO.

Basil Wolverton's Spacehawk - Basil Wolverton = Comic book god.  Kind of a Buck Rogers for teenagers and adults. Lots of creepy, weird, too cool for words monsters and ideas.

Basil Wolverton's Powerhouse Pepper - The best humorous hero comic ever? Super classic, super silly, super pointless, I love it.

Jack Kirby's Fourth World - all of them, Kirby just went wild on this series. Jack Kriby is just amazing, what an imagination!

Gardner Fox's run on the Justice League. So many of the greatest DC ideas came from this comic run.

Frank Miller's Daredevil run. Best martial arts comic ever, IMHO.

Walt Simonson's Thor. For my money this was the best version of Thor ever.

Curt Swan's Jimmy Olsen run. Yes, the weirdest and most surreal comic book run ever. The stories were so far out there and so cartoonly, yet  Curt drew it straight and realistic and that is what made it so great.

Wally Wood's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents - It's Wally Wood, no list would be complete without him. The best Sliver Age comic NOT made by DC or Marvel.

[TELLE]

Superhero comics are inherently for children. By their very nature as a type of story.

This is not to say that the medium of comics is inherently for children, but that what makes a SUPERHERO story specifically operate are elements that only appeal to a childlike mentality: fantasy elements, strange powers, keeping secrets, dressing strangely, monsters, robots, and secret treehouse bases.

Julian, you've just described the life of many adult artists and writers, punk rockers, scientists, politicians, and soldiers (not to mention my romantic life !).  

I consider the basic idea of the superhero stroy very similar to stories like the Greek Myths, the Bible, etc.  Just for adults or for a childlike mentality?  Let's let Dr. Freud sort it out.

I'm sorry, but the things that appealed to me in superhero comics when I was 13 only do it for me under very specific circumstances now that my teens are well behind me.  Although I would argue that even most superhero comics were not targeted solely at children (at least until the Comic Code), I have to admit that a large part of what appeals to me is a sense of nostalgia coupled with an almost pathological escapist urge.  I am constantly seeking out the same sensations I experienced as a child every time I crack open a Superman comic or enter the good old Fortress of Solitude.  Usually I am rewarded by something that appeals to the (slightly) less childish side of myself as well.

Top 5 Kids Superhero Comics

Silver Age Superman family
Kirby and Lee's Fantastic Four
Ditko and Lee's Spiderman
Asterix
Beck and Binder's Capt Marvel

In retrospect, it is hard to see that any good children's superhero comics were published after Micronauts #7 (c. 1979).

[Klar Ken T5477]

Ok now that the parameters have been clearly defined.

Silver age Superman family
Silver Age World's Finest by Hamilton & Swan
Silver Age FF by Lee & Kirby
Silver Age Legion of Super Heroes (Forte baby!)
Silver Age Batman, Flash, Green Lantern - anything by Broome, Fox, Infantino & Gil Kane

Star Spangled War Stories with dinosaurs battling GIs -  well those GIs had to be more than regular joes if youre gunning for Tyrannos that just ate your sub and your only pal is Kong sized white ape!  

I also like Joe Kubert's run on Tarzan and the back up John Cater of Mars which was drawn by Murphy Anderson.

Gene Colan on Dr Strange.

Am I supposed to stop at 5? NUTS!

[Klar Ken T5477]

Mixed doibles.

Herbie the Fat Fury? The Inferior Five?

[JulianPerez]

Curse you, SuperMonkey! Curse your impeccable taste. There's really not a single comic that you mentioned that I really disagree with.   Though as great and terrific as Frank Miller was in the beginning of his run, as soon as the Ninjas started being everywhere and not really killing anybody or getting anything done like evil Ninjas should...this was really the moment the otherwise awesome Miller Daredevil jumped the shark.

Mort Weisinger as editor Sliver Age Superman run - My favorite era of Superman and the best IMHO. Lots of great writers were a part of this era, and the Mighty Curt Swan, king of Superman Artists.

Superman's post Golden Age pre-Sliver Age run. Big Beefy sci-fi Superman. My second favorite version of Superman.

Julius Schwartz's as Superman's editor. 3rd favorite Superman era.

Otto Binder's Captain Marvel run as writer - Holy Moly! No one ever GOT Captain Marvel better, 1941 to 1953 - wow, one of greatest Golden Age Superhero series. The C.C. Beck issues , wow what a combo!

Seconded - the acid trip brilliance of the Marvel Family comics is second to none. And who doesn't love Mr. Tawny, the Talking Tiger? It makes me wish someone (hear that, Alan Moore? SOMEONE!) would be able to do SHAZAM! again, this time with the same imaginative brilliance that C.C. Beck brought, but with none of the downsides of reading the Marvel Family corrected: for instance, the unconscious racial caricatures that were employed, particularly with characters like Nippo, and that evil communist Korean genius whose name escapes me at the moment. No disrespect intended to the SHAZAM! of Jerry Ordway, but somebody needs to bring back the millions of forgotten, great concepts: the evil crocodile men from Punkus, Beautia and Magnificus, and so on. As it is, Captain Marvel feels like any other superhero character.

 Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's run of The Fantastic Four - One of the most creative and inventive runs of all time.

Jack Cole's Plastic Man - One of the greatest Golden Age Superhero series ever, IMHO.

Maybe this a compliment and maybe this isn't, but I've read tons of Plastic Mans, especially his run in ADVENTURE COMICS back in the eighties, and to be perfectly honest, I can't remember the plot of a single one. There's a very dreamlike quality about this work...

One of the best Plastic Man appearances post-Golden Age was in the 1981 SUPER-FRIENDS SPECIAL NO. 1 (no, seriously), written by E. Nelson Bridwell. It had Plas go after a crook, only to be impeded each time by the SuperFriends. If perhaps for no other reason than it had "Matches" Malone and Eel O'Brien team-up!

Basil Wolverton's Spacehawk - Basil Wolverton = Comic book god.  Kind of a Buck Rogers for teenagers and adults. Lots of creepy, weird, too cool for words monsters and ideas.

Basil Wolverton's Powerhouse Pepper - The best humorous hero comic ever? Super classic, super silly, super pointless, I love it.

Jack Kirby's Fourth World - all of them, Kirby just went wild on this series. Jack Kriby is just amazing, what an imagination!

Gardner Fox's run on the Justice League. So many of the greatest DC ideas came from this comic run.

Frank Miller's Daredevil run. Best martial arts comic ever, IMHO.

Walt Simonson's Thor. For my money this was the best version of Thor ever.

Curt Swan's Jimmy Olsen run. Yes, the weirdest and most surreal comic book run ever. The stories were so far out there and so cartoonly, yet  Curt drew it straight and realistic and that is what made it so great.

Wally Wood's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents - It's Wally Wood, no list would be complete without him. The best Sliver Age comic NOT made by DC or Marvel.

What, no love for my boys Steve Englehart and Alan Brennart?  :wink:

Silver Age Legion of Super Heroes (Forte baby!)

More a Jimmy Shooter and Cary Bates fan myself (as evidenced by my personal list), but who cares, if you've got either Curt Swan or Kchaffenberger art?  

Silver Age World's Finest by Hamilton & Swan

Here's one I haven't seen yet - and a good choice too. Why would you consider it one of the best comics ever?

Gene Colan on Dr Strange.

Good choice. Personally, I really loved the Steve Englehart DR. STRANGE which I feel like kicking myself for leaving off my list; particularly the absolutely mindblowing race to the dawn of time where he discovered that the world's "true" history had lots of heroes that were villainous and villains that were heroic, and don't forget the part where Eternity destroyed the entire earth and then recreated it down to the last kid and blade of grass, and nobody knows this except Doctor Strange.

Another Steve Englehart I'd put on the list is Stainless Steve's tragically brief eight issue stint writing JUSTICE LEAGUE. But don't take my word for it! He only did eight issues, YET, one of them (the Manhunter robot story) became the plot for the very first regular issues of the Justice League television cartooN. He did only a few stories and one of them became the one they immediately did for the show right off the bat. You can't buy an advertisement like that. Sort of reminds me how Alan Brennart only has written 5 Batman stories, but TWO of them are in the GREATEST BATMAN STORIES EVER TOLD.

[nightwing]

It's not surprising you don't remember the plots from Plas stories in "Adventure Comics."  They were pretty unremarkable.

As for Cole, it's not so much specific plots as a general sense of madness and constant inventiveness that sticks with me.  That said, there was this one story from very early on, reprinted in Volume 1 of the Archives.  It's not really typical of the mood of later Plas tales, but it shows how creative (and whacked out) Cole's mind could be:

An inventor in the 1700s has an experiment go wrong and his lab blows up.  His body is dead but his brain lives on, concious through his burial (!) and over a hundred years in the grave (!!!!).  In WWII, an American pilot crashes his plane into the grave and his head is split open.  Medics find the pilot and the old brain, and mistakenly put the brain of the scientist in the young man's head.  The scientist/pilot is paralyzed from the waist down, but launches evil schemes anyway.  At one point, he takes a potion to make himself a giant and smash through the countryside.  But remember, he's paralyzed, so here's this evil giant, with ugly stitches from his brain surgery, walking around the countryside on his hands, cackling madly and squishing anyone and everyone who gets in his way.  Until Plastic Man goes down his throat and swells up like a balloon, choking the guy to death.

What was Cole smoking!!!!???  :lol:

I don't know if it's even possible to list my favorite individual stories, there are so many.  But my favorite extended runs and concepts, off the top of my head and in no particular order:

- Silver Age Superman (natch)
- Lee and Kirby's FF (approx. issues 40 - 60)
- Binder/Beck/Costanza era Captain Marvel
- Lee and Ditko's Dr. Strange
- Simonson's Thor
- Englehart/Rogers' Detective Comics
- Shooter/Swan's LSH
- Goodwin/Simonson's Manhunter
- Cole's Plastic Man


I also have tremendous fondness for these classics:

- vintage Robotman tales (esp. drawn by Jimmy Johnson)
- Bridwell/Orlando/Esposito's Inferior Five http://www.pjfarmer.com/secret/marvelous/inferior.htm
- Those 80s Green Lantern annuals with tales of alien Lanterns in their various sectors (many by Alan Moore)
- 70s "Invaders" comics
- Haney/Aparo Brave and the Bold (at least through the 70s)
- Kirby's Jimmy Olsen
- Steranko's Nick Fury
- Mantlo/Golden's Micronauts (first 12 issues anyway)
- Stern and Byrne (!) on Captain America
- Englehart/Rogers Dr. Strange
- Claremont/Byrne X-Men

...please note I'm limiting my list to superhero fare only.  It's interesting to me, personally, to note two things: 1, there's a lot more stuff I like than I thought and 2, a lot of stuff I used to be crazy for, like Wolfman and Perez' Titans, doesn't make my list any more.