You voted, and now, after over 1,050 ballots (but less than 1,100 ballots), here are the results of your votes for your favorite comic book creator series of all time (this is the FIFTH time that we are doing this countdown (We are on a schedule every four years)! I will post installments more or less daily until mid-December!
To recap, you all sent in ballots ranking your favorite races from #1 (10 points) to #10 (1 point). I added up all the points and here we are!
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55. Daredevil by Mark Waid – 231 points (3 votes for first place)
Daredevil (Vol.3) #1-36, Daredevil (Vol.4) #1-18
Matt Murdock has faced many inner demons over the years, but none as demonic as the ones that haunted him at the end of the crossover event, Umber. His life had taken so many strange and dark turns that the only way for him to come out of it was to embrace the light, even if it was just him trying to convince himself that everything was okay.
That of Mark Waid DaredeviI was, in many ways, a throwback series, but who KNEW it was a throwback series, a book about a man trying to embrace his past life all trying to ignore the darkness within.
Waid was joined in this series by a series of amazing artists, including the original art team of Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin (who swapped issues), and then Chris Samnee, who was so strong on the book that I Really should have listed it. like “Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s Daredevil”, but since the run hit the Top 100 years ago when Samnee’s tenure had just begun, I think that does a disservice to how popular this first year was on the book (when Rivera and Martin were the artists).
In fact, it was a Rivera number (written by his father, Joe Rivera) that won the book the Eisner Award for Best Single Number, as Matt Murdock took a group of blind children to a winter retreat in the Catskills when their bus crashed and the bus driver was killed. Trapped in the wilderness, Matt Murdock must do everything he can to save the children.
During his collaboration with Samnee, the creators introduced a new villain named Ikari who had powers like Daredevil, but with a slight twist…
Waid is always excellent with character-driven work, and that’s exactly what his Daredevil was, while also experiencing over-the-top superhero adventures.
He and Samnee took Daredevil to San Francisco for a new volume which ended after 18 issues. They then worked on Black widow And Captain America together as well, and we are currently doing excellent work Batman and Robin: Year One series (following a The Best in the World: Teen Titans mini-series together).
54. Squirrel Girl by Ryan North and Erica Henderson – 246 points (3 votes for first place)
Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (Vol.1) #1-8, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (Vol.2) #1-50
In her very first appearance, in a story by Will Murray and Steve Ditko, Squirrel Girl defeated Doctor Doom. That was it for Squirrel Girl for about ten years, before Dan Slott made her join the Great Lakes Avengers and Slott took the whole “beating Doctor Doom” aspect of her story and made it so she can very quietly beat up just about anyone (there’s a whole hilarious riff where she defeated Thanos and the Watcher came to insist that the Thanos she defeated was definitely the real Thanos, but Slott has Next revealed in She-Hulk that Thanos was capable of creating clones that could fool even the Watcher – they’re circles within circles!). So when Ryan North began formulating the first ongoing series for Squirrel Girl, that was the main problem he faced, she was “unbeatable”. Working with Erica Henderson and Rico Renzi, North decided to explore the rest of Doreen Green’s life as she decided to go to college.
Of course, she’s an obvious superhero who TALKS TO SQUIRRELS, so North and Henderson have a lot of fun with the absurdity of the whole secret identity game with Squirrel Girl.
One of the things that’s a little difficult to translate on a computer screen like this are the little notes that North puts at the bottom of each page. These are hilarious little nods to history.
One of the funniest things about the show is that it was firmly rooted in the Marvel Universe, but North took a very close view of continuity. He explained his position to CBR: “That’s part of the idea, to have this really accessible version of the Marvel universe. I actually took a lot of inspiration from the LEGO Marvel video games, which you can jump into completely cold, but if you have a feel for these characters and their history, there’s a lot to enjoy. The Marvel Universe has so much history, it’d be crazy not to exploit it when you can. The trick is to do it like this! way, if someone is new, it doesn’t feel like they’re missing anything I always feel like the captions that say “Check out issue 224 for the origin of this character!! “are a bit of a cop-out, especially when I was a kid and couldn’t afford the number 224, even if I could find it.”
The original Unbeatable Squirrel Girl The series was cut short by Secret Wars, but when it was rebooted, the whole gang returned. Eventually, Henderson left the show and was replaced by Derek Charm, who is an excellent performer in his own right. The second series ended after 50 issues, giving North a roughly six-year stint depicting the hilarious adventures of Squirrel Girl and her friends.
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Best Comic Series: 65-61
You’ve voted, and we continue to reveal your picks for the 100 Best Comic Series of All Time! Here are your choices for numbers 65-61!
53. Jack Kirby and Thor by Stan Lee – 247 points (5 votes for first place)
Journey into mystery #97-125, Thor #126-177 179
As great a creator as Jack Kirby was, he was best when he felt a specific interest in the work he was doing, so readers of Journey into mystery And Thor We were very lucky that Kirby definitely seemed interested in the idea of the gods of Asgard!
Neither Lee nor Kirby even worked on most of the early Thor stories in Journey into mysterybut both slowly returned to comics, and starting with issue #97, they worked on every issue together for about eighty issues, in total.
In their very first issue together, they began what they are probably best known for during their run, their classic backup “Tales of Asgard”, which allowed them to expand the mythology of Thor and Asgard. All the work Walt Simonson did on “Thor” would have been in vain if Lee and Kirby hadn’t established all the great characters and situations they experienced along their journey.
Here is an example of one of those great stories from “Tales of Asgard”…
The run ended when Kirby left to lay the groundwork for a whole NEW generation of gods, the New Gods of the Fourth World.
52. Detective Comics by Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin – 253 points (4 first place votes)
Detective comics #469-479
For whatever reason, Steve Englehart decided to leave Marvel in the late ’70s and quickly found work at DC, a perfect fit for hiring one of Marvel’s most prominent writers. Englehart began an acclaimed series on Justice League of Americaand an equally acclaimed race on Detective comics (I guess since only ONE of these races is on this list, I guess I should say a MORE acclaimed race on Detective comics), with the number 469.
Working initially with Walter Simonson, but ultimately with Marshall Rogers, Englehart’s Batman series was in many ways based on a similar structure to Jeph Loeb’s later “Hush” series, in that Englehart attempted to incorporate as many major Batman villains as possible in his story. , including the reintroduction of two early Batman foes that had fallen out of favor. Both villains, Hugo Strange and Deadshot, were rejuvenated by the use of Englehart and subsequently made significant appearances in later stories. Deadshot, in particular, was an extremely minor villain who saw his cool factor jump 736% when Marshall Rogers gave him one of the coolest costumes you’ve ever seen (years later, this is what cool costume that piqued John Ostrander’s interest and got Deadshot a spot on the Suicide Squad).
Englehart had a good Penguin story, he had a good story involving Robin (he wanted at least one issue to involve Robin) and in Laughing Fish he had one of the best Joker stories of all time (the Joker tries to obtain a federal trademark on the fish which he modified to have his Joker smile).
Englehart introduced a crime boss named Rupert Thorne who became a notable part of the Bat mythos, as well as Silver St. Cloud, one of the best love interests Batman has ever had.
In one issue, Englehart even did some metafictional stuff by having Batman fight Deadshot on giant typewriters (evoking 1950s Batman comics) and in the fight, Silver realizes that few people ever had done before…
Rogers stayed on the book for three more issues as Len Wein came in to wrap up all the loose ends of Engelhart’s run, including writing Silver out of the book (people mostly treated Silver St. Cloud as Englehart’s baby, and usually only he writes to him). Wein and Rogers also introduced a new Clayface.
Englehart and Rogers would return to Batman for an acclaimed sequel to their 2005 run, Batman: Dark Detective. Tragically, Rogers died in 2007 before they could make a third series together.
51. Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Charles Adlard – 259 points (3 votes for first place)
The Walking Dead #1-193
The selling point of The Walking Dead it was basically that this is what happens in a zombie movie after the closing credits end. What to do in a world invaded by zombies? How do you manage to form some measure of society in a situation like that?
This was the problem Rick Grimes faced when he woke up from a coma to find that the world had changed a lot since he was shot as a police officer. He managed to find his wife and son who had joined some sort of collective, led by Rick’s former partner. The group was tight-knit, with an interesting mix of personalities. Rick quickly took over as leader of the group, which led to conflict.
Tony Moore drew the initial six-issue storyline, but Charles Adlard took over with issue #7 and drew the rest of the series (with Stefano Gaudiano joining later).
The show was mostly about Rick’s attempts to find some sort of life for his family and for his people, even as tons and tons of shit were dumped on them. Not just zombies themselves, but also villains who use the zombie apocalypse to become tyrants. What can a good man do against such growing terror? And at what point does he cease to be a good man if he must constantly lower himself to the level of his enemies?
As you probably saw in the TV series, there were a number of particularly endearing personalities in the book, like the group’s scavenger, Glenn, or the former lawyer turned sniper, Andrea, or old shriveled man, Dale, or perhaps escape. character in the book (other than Rick, of course), Michonne, a normal woman who has adapted to the evil Assery in a way unlike many others.
Here’s a great scene where Rick and Tyresse (another father Rick bonded with) talk about the crazy state the world is in right now.
After a shocking start in the run-up to The Walking Dead #100, Negan became the book’s most memorable villain (spoofing the Governor), but then became an intriguing player in his own right later. Robert Kirkman shocked the comics world by abruptly ending the series at issue #193 without any fanfare (especially concealment his intention to finish the book when he did). He left behind quite a zombie story.