Completely Self-absorbed Top 100 Comic Runs You Need to Read

[Barrington Boots]

Good writeup Colin! I read Powerpack as a youngster and wasn't keen at the time - I wanted to read about adult heroes - andit wasn't until I reread it a few years later that I really appreciated how good it is. It's not easy to write good child protagonists but this absolutely nails it.

What's your thoughts on Runaways? I thought the first arc of that was excellent although I gave up soon after that.

[Colin YNWA]

What's your thoughts on Runaways? I thought the first arc of that was excellent although I gave up soon after that.

I've not read Runaways - always meant to as a fan of Brain K Vaughan and this one always looked good and was talked about very positively when I got back into comics. Just never got to it - as I keep saying too damned many comics to read.

As I move away from superhero stuff these days have to be honest not sure I'm likely to get to it now, but you never know.

[Barrington Boots]

Understandable!

I don't like superhero comics but I enjoyed it a very great deal - at least the first arc, which writes its young protagonists really well imo. After that it kind of loses its self-contained universe nature, folds into the Marvel Universe and becomes mediocre.

[Tomwe]

This post makes me want to go buy Power Pack. But I know I own Power Pack in a longbox already. Oh I wonder how much effort it would be to find them. And which I have. Not a complete run I don't think. But enough to stop me spaffing ££ on eBay today that's for sure. The TBPs would have to be complete for me to go that route. No Epics, Marvel? Come on!

[PsychoGoatee]

Cool read, I'll have to check out some Power Pack now! I've been enjoying Claremont X-Men, I'm in the 170s, and Power Pack #27 is coming up in a crossover there. And Louise Simonson sounds cool on podcasts, seems like the 80s was a real high point for Marvel.

[Colin YNWA]

Cool read, I'll have to check out some Power Pack now! I've been enjoying Claremont X-Men, I'm in the 170s, and Power Pack #27 is coming up in a crossover there. And Louise Simonson sounds cool on podcasts, seems like the 80s was a real high point for Marvel.

Ah... you ain't going to like my next post!

This post makes me want to go buy Power Pack. But I know I own Power Pack in a longbox already. Oh I wonder how much effort it would be to find them. And which I have. Not a complete run I don't think. But enough to stop me spaffing ££ on eBay today that's for sure. The TBPs would have to be complete for me to go that route. No Epics, Marvel? Come on!

Oh digging is half the fun surely... or is that just me? Yeah shame there isn't an option beyond the Omnibus really these days. They didn't even get an Essential Collection.

[PsychoGoatee]

Now I am looking forward to it. watch out Claremont!

[Tjm86]

Power Pack was one of my first experiences of Marvel, especially the early Snark's run.  A couple of tidy crossovers with X-men and the Morlocks before the Mutant Massacre but it kind of lost its way after issue 25 when it went bi-monthly.  Think it was always one of those titles that was bumping cheerfully along. 

Prices tend to be a bit all over the shop and, as with so many things, tracking down the last dozen or so issues can be a bit of a challenge.  That said, unless you're an obsessive completionist, they're nowt to write home about.

Early 80's Marvel does seem to be its hey-day.  By the late 80's they seem to have crawled up their own backsides before completely losing the plot in the speculator boom of the 90's. (trillion's of covers, holograms, card covers, die cut covers, cover covers ...)

[Colin YNWA]

Early 80's Marvel does seem to be its hey-day.  By the late 80's they seem to have crawled up their own backsides before completely losing the plot in the speculator boom of the 90's. (trillion's of covers, holograms, card covers, die cut covers, cover covers ...)

I've talked about this elsewhere on the internet recently as it goes and I'm left speculating how much Jim Shooter was such an important creative force for Marvel during his time as Editor in Chief. He gets a lot of bad press for how he handled relationships with the creative talent but there's little denying how he acted as a person during his time in charge Marvel was so much more innovative and brave creatively.

[Barrington Boots]

Early 80's Marvel does seem to be its hey-day.  By the late 80's they seem to have crawled up their own backsides before completely losing the plot in the speculator boom of the 90's. (trillion's of covers, holograms, card covers, die cut covers, cover covers ...)

This is my feeling on Marvel too, although I did wonder if it was nostalgia telling me this. It's nice to see others of this opinion!

[Party-Pom-pom]

Hi,hope no-one minds me putting this here,but if anyone wants to buy or trade for a collection of Powerpack comics then let me know,I have a bunch of them in the attic that will have to go as recycling or charity shop
Thanks
Matt

[Colin YNWA]

Early 80's Marvel does seem to be its hey-day.  By the late 80's they seem to have crawled up their own backsides before completely losing the plot in the speculator boom of the 90's. (trillion's of covers, holograms, card covers, die cut covers, cover covers ...)

This is my feeling on Marvel too, although I did wonder if it was nostalgia telling me this. It's nice to see others of this opinion!

Nostalgia could well be a part of this, but look at what sustains and the quality of experimentation and innovation that fuels any nostaglia and I do reckon there's something there.

Hi,hope no-one minds me putting this here,but if anyone wants to buy or trade for a collection of Powerpack comics then let me know,I have a bunch of them in the attic that will have to go as recycling or charity shop
Thanks
Matt

Obviously with deals etc to consider this is an offer defo worth checkin' out... as I'm about to say why not trade in those old Uncanny comics for something more interesting...

[Colin YNWA]

Part 1 - Not on the list Uncanny X-Men

Not on the list - Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont

While we're talking about 80s Marvel comics let's talk about probably the biggest of them of all and why


Copyright Marvel Comics

Doesn't make the list.

Chris Claremont took over the then recently relaunched Uncanny X-Men (then just X-Men actually. It always surprises me how late the 'Uncanny' was added - actually issue 142 I think) from issue 96 in 1975 and started a 16 year run on the title covering well over 300 issues across all X-titles. I ain't going to try to work out how many issues, there were, like, almost 200 issues of Uncanny and countless Annuals, Specials, minis, spinoff titles and Xavier knows what else! These comics have a very good claim to be the most important in mainstream US comics beyond Action Comics 1, Detective 27 and say FF 1. Let's not get into that debate. Suffice to say this run fundamentally reshaped the comics landscape for Marvel and DC and those that followed in their wake.

His run played heavily into the outsider feeling many comics fans feel. It built a soap opera around the superhero shenanigans in a way that built on what Stan, Jack and Steve did and laid the template for almost all the comics from the 'big two' to follow. He understood how to engage and speak to his teen audience like few others, to appeal to a need for thrills and spills, bolstered by 'real' human stories to connect with his readers.

He did this supported by an astonishing line of artists who define for so many what good comic book art should look like. This run with John Byrne is seminal. He has a short time with Paul Smith that is insanely popular with those in the know. He then moved onto my favourite, John Romita Jr to continue things, before Mark Silvestri and Jim Lee blew fans' minds in the late 80s early 90s. Amongst all that there were numerous other fantastic artists involved. For me most significantly there are some stellar comics by Barry Windsor Smith dotted about, which even today stand out as the highlights of his tenure.

He took newly introduced characters created by others and shaped those rough drafts into some of the biggest superhero names in comics. Wolverine is the obvious one, but everyone who read these comics will have a favourite, Nightcrawler was mine, so many love Storm or Kitty Pryde, a few stand by straight edge Cyclops, I'd guess a few even have Professor X as their fav. All those characters spoke to someone. Not resting on his laurels though he'd go on to create a host of others that would reach similar levels of acclaim and adoration.

[Colin YNWA]

Part 2 - Not on the list Uncanny X-Men

His run worked to a formula and he worked and manipulated that to move with the times that his exceptional run covered. He experimented with ideas and character rosters, restlessly playing with that formula, though never really moving too far from it. As a teenager introduced to his work in the mid 80s these comics spoke to me so much and outside Daredevil, these were my favourite of that time.

Yet now, for all that, I can barely read them these days.

I don't really enjoy these comics as an adult at all. Why is that? Well for me they are so of their time and indeed my time then, but they don't hold up to my older eye. I see the formula, can't read past the cracks and the hookey dialogue. I see that crafted formula exposed so clearly and it isn't for me any more. The fact that they were so perfectly crafted for his audience of the time and age they were, means they simply don't translate to me as the reader I am now. There is no room in them to entertain the different reader I have become.

In my entry for Power Pack I talked about how I felt the characters there were honest, they felt real and I trusted them and their place in the story. It truly felt like the characters came first, the story developed from there. With Claremont's X-Men I just don't feel that any more, I don't trust the characters as drivers. The craft and skills behind them shows through, but not in a good way. In the way that makes me see what strings they are trying to pull, what aspect of the audience they are playing to. How they are being used to key into some element of teenage life that will make them appeal to the target audience.

I mean it's done brilliantly, it really works and it worked like billio on me when I was that audience. Now however I feel I see behind the curtain and the characters feel almost cynically built to pull certain emotional triggers. A large part of that is possibly the dialogue as well. I find it almost impenetrable these days. It's almost as bad as Stan Lees, it's hyperbolic and there's just so much of it. But written in a way that feels like it's sculpted to evoke a specific response, rather than feeling natural and evoking that response organically.

Fair to say all dialogue, all story will do this, I just feel with Claremont's work I can now see how he's pulling the strings. As said as well there's just too much of it, so many words, often not saying that much. It feels so written and underlines points which could have better been served by 'show not tell'. I do wonder how good it might have been if John Wagner had been a script editor and just chipped away at things to expose the essence of what was being said, not underline it three or four times.

It's a real shame as one thing Claremont does better than almost any superhero writer is craft combat to do just that. To evoke tension and excitement in very deliberate ways. With his action pieces though he gets away with it much better as he whisks you along at pace, whereas the dialogue drags the character moments back. In the combat sections you genuinely feel our heroes are in danger and the fight is hard and they have to be creative to win the day. Or often not, defeats happened and so the danger in these superhero tussles was palpable. Not so with the character moments where nothing feels earnt, to me at least these days.

I accept I'm very much an outlier on this and folks either see past the cracks that I perceive to glory in the great plotting. Or the stories have such a foundational part in their reading they don't care. OR they see the craft as so good they don't even notice what I perceive as forced characters I don't trust. I mean none of us can ignore the countless dangling plot threads, but they never really mattered, they were part of the fun wondering when some long forgotten idea would spring back to life. 

My not liking Claremont's Uncanny run is another case of the reader bringing different desires to the table and therefore getting a different reaction to what they read. I do completely get what folks see in them, but they are just not for me these days. And for me this one is a case of not just thinking these comics are good, just not that good. Rather I just don't get on with them anymore at all, wonderful art aside.

It doesn't matter how important you are if I don't trust you, you're not getting my vote.