100 Best Comics

THE 100 BEST COMICS: STREAMING VISIONS By Gene Phillips

Here, sans any explanatory preamble, is my list for the best comic book serials of the 20th and 21st centuries so far. Justifications, aesthetic statements and suchlike will appear separately, except to note that everything is arranged alphabetically because I don’t believe in assigning aesthetic works numbered places. I’ve included rough dates to denote the periods in which these visions were “streaming forth.” Whenever I denote a serial comic as concluding by a specific date, it will mean either that there were no more (as with Golden Age Batman, which ends with the Golden Age) or because I’m only concerned with that period (as with the ELFQUEST series that spanned from the 1970s through the 1980s), and am discounting continuations in other decades. A question mark at the period’s end indicates that it seems to me feasible that the serial might continue into other decades and still be of significant quality.

ADAM STRANGE (1960s-- Fox/Infantino)

AMERICAN FLAGG (1980s--Chaykin)

ANIMAL-MAN (1990s--Morrison/Truog)

ATOMIC KNIGHTS (1960s--Broome/Anderson)

BADGER (1980s-1990s--Baron et al)

BATMAN (1940s-1950s--Golden Age)

BATMAN (early 1970s-- O’Neil/Adams/Novick et al)

BATMAN (late 1970s--Englehart/Rogers)

BERLIN CITY OF STONES (2000s--Lutes)

BLACK PANTHER (1970s--McGregor et al)

BLACKHAWK (1940s-1950s--Eisner/Crandall et al)

BLUE BEETLE (1960s-- Ditko)

BLUE MONDAY (2000s-?--Clugston-Majors)

BONE (1990s-2000s-- J. Smith)

BOOKS OF MAGIC (1990s—Gaiman/Vess et al)

BOYS RANCH (1950s-- Simon & Kirby)

CAGES (1990s-- McKean)

CAPTAIN AMERICA (1940s-- Simon & Kirby)

CAPTAIN AMERICA (1970s-- Englehart/Buscema et al)

CAPTAIN MARVEL (1940s-1950s-- Golden Age)

CAPTAIN MARVEL (1970s-- Starlin)

CEREBUS (1970s-2000s-- Sim)

CONAN (1970s-- Thomas/B. Smith et al)

DAREDEVIL (1970s-1980s-- Miller et al)

DEFENDERS (1970s-- Gerber/ S. Buscema)

DEN (1970s-1980s-- Corben)

DONALD DUCK “family” (1950s-1970s-- Barks).

DOOM PATROL (1960s-- Drake/Premiani)

DOOM PATROL (1980s-1990s-- Morrison/Quitely)

DR. STRANGE (1960s-- Lee/Ditko)

EC “NEW TREND” CRIME & SUSPENSE (1950s)

EC “NEW TREND” HORROR (1950s)

EC “NEW TREND” SCIENCE FICTION (1950s)

EC “NEW TREND” WAR & HISTORICAL (1950s)

ELFQUEST (1970s-1980s-- Pini)

EVIL EYE (1990s-- Sala)

FABULOUS FURRY FREAK BROTHERS (1960s-?-- Shelton et al)

FANTASTIC FOUR (1960s-- Lee/Kirby)

FLAMING CARROT (1980s-2000s-- Burden)

FLASH (1960s-- Broome/Infantino)

FLEX MENTALLO (1990s-- Morrison/Quitely)

FOURTH WORLD (1970s-- Kirby)

FROM HELL (1990s-- A. Moore/Campbell)

GREEN LANTERN (1950s-1960s-- Broome/Kane)

GREEN LANTERN (late 1960s-- O’Neil/Adams)

GROO THE WANDERER (1980s-?—Aragones/Evanier)

HELLBLAZER (1980s-?-- Ennis et al)

HOWARD THE DUCK (1970s-- Gerber/Colan et al)

INVISIBLES (1990s-- Morrison et al)

JOHNNY DYNAMITE (1950s-- Masuli)

JOURNEY (1980s-- Loebs)

JUDGE DREDD (1970s—1990s-- Grant/Bolland et al)

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA (1960s-- Fox/Sekowsky)

KILLRAVEN (1970s-- Conway/McGregor/Russell et al)

LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN (1990s-?--A. Moore/O’Neill)

LITTLE LULU (1950s-1960s-- Stanley)

LOCAS (1980s-?-- J. Hernandez)

MAD (1950s-- Kurtzman et al)

MAGE (1980s-?-- Wagner)

MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER (1960s-- Manning)

MAN-THING (1970s-- Gerber/Ploog et al)

MARSHAL LAW (1980s-1990s-- O’Neill)

MARTIAN MANHUNTER (1990s-- Jones/Barretto)

MARVELS (1990s-- Busiek/Ross)

MASTER OF KUNG FU (1970s-1980s-- Moench/Gulacy et al)

MAUS (1980s-- Spiegelman)

MISTER MONSTER (1980s-2000s--Gilbert)

NICK FURY AGENT OF SHIELD (1960s-- Lee/Kirby/Steranko)

PALOMAR (1980s-?-- G. Hernandez)

PLASTIC MAN (1940s-1950s--Cole et al)

PROMETHEA (1990s-2000s--A. Moore/Williams)

QUESTION (1960s-- Ditko)

SANDMAN (1990s-- Gaiman et al)

SERGEANT ROCK (1950s-1970s-- Kanigher/Kubert)

SHADE THE CHANGING MAN (1970s-- Ditko et al)

SIN CITY (1990s-- Miller)

SPECTRE (1990s-- Ostrander/Mandrake et al)

SPIDER-MAN (1960s-- Lee/Ditko/Romita)

SPIRIT (1940s-1950s-- Eisner et al)

STARMAN (1990s-- Robinson et al)

STRANGERS IN PARADISE (1990s-2000s--T. Moore)

SUGAR AND SPIKE (1950s-1970s-- Mayer)

SUPERMAN (1940s-- Siegel/Schuster)

SUPERMAN “family” (1950s-1960s--Siegel/Binder/Swan et al)

SWAMP THING (1980s--A. Moore/Bissette/Veitch et al)

SWAMP THING (1970s-- Wein/Wrightson)

TARZAN (1960s-- Manning)

THOR (1960s-- Lee/Kirby)

TOMB OF DRACULA (1970s-- Wolfman/Colan)

TRASHMAN (1970s--Spain)

WARLOCK (1970s--Starlin)

WATCHMEN (1980s-- A. Moore/Gibbons)

WIZARD KING (1970s--Wood)

WONDER WOMAN (1940s-- Marston/Peter)

XENOZOIC TALES (1980s-1990s-- Schulz)

X-MEN (1970s-1980s-- Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne)

YOUNG ROMANCE (1940s-1950s-- Simon & Kirby)

YUMMY FUR (1980s—Brown)

ZORRO (1960s-- Toth)

Gene would love to have feedback on this topic and so there will be a thread on the IF Forum which you can put you comments! Let's try to get some thought provoking conversations going on here! Will be putting up a link on the forum!