The Web Haunt of Ryan K Lindsay

I was recently charged with coming up with my top ten comic book story arcs. Not done-in-one issues, not titles, but individual stories. It was an interesting journey of discovery on the shoulders of ancient and massive winged beasts where I could finally see the horizon, and beyond. And what lived there appeared to be many recent story arcs, I apologise to any olde school purists. My bad.
Enjoy.

1. Y: The Last Man - Whys and Wherefores - Brian K Vaughan & Pia Guerra

This is the one that wrapped it all up. It contains issue #57, which I would say is possibly the most perfect script ever, where two characters finally come together and the majority of the issue is simply two people talking. The way the words play with and against each other, the way the panels work for and against characters is amazing. Then somehow it is followed up by issue #60 which gives it a run for its money. To wrap up 59 previous issues in one issue that pretty much touches everything is just an amazing feat. This storyline, though obviously built upon the awesomeness of the previous 9 arcs, is simply perfect. How fitting that the finale for the greatest graphic story ever told would actually add up to be the greatest arc ever put into a few issues for trade.

2. Daredevil - Hardcore - Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev

This was Bendis and Maleev’s hardest arc. It’s got Typhoid Mary in a very cool appearance, and I always appreciated Mary, she is an interesting character. It’s got Murdock finally dealing with Bullseye in a very harsh manner. It also set Murdock up as the new Kingpin of Hell’s Kitchen after he kicked Wilson Fisk’s ass. I love Daredevil, and this is the one I would choose for the desert island. It has everything you want from a DD story, everything.

3. Incognito - Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips

I am certain that the more time that passes will only make this series look better. Brubaker and Phillips work so well together, and this is the part, for me, where it all comes together in a symphony under Val Staples’ colours. The super-powered villain in witness relocation, gold. The pulpy feel (I wish this had variants in newsprint), gold. The one word title, gold. I can’t speak highly enough about this 6 issue storyline. If they do a sequel, which they seem to be talking about, I want it to be called Back In Black, for the main big bad, Black Death.

4. The Nightly News - Jonathan Hickman

It’s all about presentation. Hickman brings graphic design to comic art and the story matches it perfectly. Learning about elementary school drug stats while seeing terrorists threatening the country’s media with death is a purely sublime idea. This series is a dense read, and that’s how it should be. It’s the sort of thing that makes you feel pride at comics because they can do so much more. The image shows one great line, and one Hickman says helped him sell the proposal. I agree, well played.

5. The Immortal Iron Fist - The 7 Capital Cities of Heaven - Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction & David Aja

The recent Iron Fist reboot was lauded, and I get the feeling that people hear it all but don’t listen to it. This story, and I just looked back at it, really is so insanely well put together. The new immortal weapons from the other cities, the different fighting styles, the innovation of words and art, not to mention panels and pages. This arc built upon the first, great, arc and just shot in onwards and upwards on a jet-powered, monkey-navigated…well, I could go on, you get it. All because Brubaker looked at an Enter The Dragon poster and realised that the character needed to enter a fight tournament. Gold.

6. Casanova - Luxuria - Matt Fraction & Gabriel Ba

I’m picking the first arc of this series because it set it all up and I’ll forever love it for the job it does. Many praise the second arc, and it is superb with a killer ending, but the start really captured me and said a lot. Casanova Quinn is a fascinating character, but his world is even more alluring. We get helicasinos, three-headed monks melded into one and then replaced with a hot chick’s personality. We have a nasty central family and a great turn of events to set up plenty of future stories. This series packs so much into each page, and issue, especially considering it only needs 16 pages a month. It’s a smart comic, but not too overly smug for it. Close, but not quite.

7. Strange Tales/Doctor Strange - Eternity/Dormammu - Stan Lee & Steve Ditko

I recently bought these Strange Tales issues on eBay and I did not suffer from buyer’s regret. The Nick Fury stories were great, as he battles HYDRA, and I wondered if I could pick it, but it felt more like a bunch of done-in-ones, whereas this one just kept going. Doctor Strange battles against Dormammu and we see Ditko unleash with some crazy cosmic ideas, of which Eternity is a great one. Seeing such psychadelia on the page is mind expanding in the safest way possible. What the actual mind expanders of the time made of it I’ll never know.

8. Captain America - Streets of Poison - Mark Gruenwald & Ron Lim

This choice is for my childhood. My brother had these comics, which I now have, and they are the best Cap story ever, maybe, before Brubaker. After a massive drug explosion, Cap realises he’s just a glorified junkie with his Super Soldier Serum and so goes cold turkey. He then goes up against Red Skull, Kingpin, and Crossbones. These guys work well in a Cap book, and Bullseye bashes his head into conrete just to dislodge a tooth to spit into a cop’s eye. Red Skull and Kingpin fight under a plastic dome, where Skull learns how muscly Kingpin is, especially when under him. Cap pulls on those little ties at the back of Crossbones’ mask, strategic error, and chops him a nice one in the throat. It’s wickedly awesome, and never gets a run. So here it is.

9. Daredevil - Elektra Saga - Frank Miller

This saga is brilliant. Murdock fell for Elektra, lost her, gets her back again, but now she’s an assassin working for his sworn enemy. It’s heartbreaking, brutal, bloody, and has a killer ending that everyone knows for a reason, because Miller nailed it. This hammers over Born Again, and I still don’t see why people go the other way. Elektra isn’t perfect, but it is pretty damn close to what you’d want it to be. If this could include Elektra Lives Again then it would certainly be better.

10. Age of Apocalypse - so many masters, haha

A universe where Professor X was killed years ago and so everything is different. Magneto picks up where he would have gone, and everyone else kind of shows their true colours. Wolvie is still kick ass, but so is Sabretooth, with Wild Child. The Summers brothers suck, but not as much as Colossus, and Beast goes dark. The costumes are crazy, the people are different, and it was only going to last a few months. This was a pretty wicked idea, and worked pretty well. Why they then did House of M I will never know…

I’d advise comic readers to seek out these story lines. If your taste is anything like mine then you’ll have a blast. Some of them will make you think new things, some of them will affect your storytelling, some of them will simply make you sit back and not stop till you’ve enjoyed it all. I’d say any of those reasons is perfect motivation to read. Enjoy.

Posted on November 15th, 2009 by ryan
Filed under: comics