Best comic storyline

[Mallus]

Claremont’s X-Men run.
Grant Morrison’s run on Doom Patrol.
”The Doll’s House” and “Season of Mists” from Gaiman’s Sandman.
The first dozen or so issues of Stray Bullets.
Most of Milligan’s Shade the Changing Man.
All of Ellis’s Transmetropolitan.

Can you tell when I was really into comics?

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Claremont’s X-Men run.
Grant Morrison’s run on Doom Patrol.
”The Doll’s House” and “Season of Mists” from Gaiman’s Sandman.
The first dozen or so issues of Stray Bullets.
Most of Milligan’s Shade the Changing Man.
All of Ellis’s Transmetropolitan.

Can you tell when I was really into comics?

Oh yeah, Stray Bullets.

Spoiler: Stray Bullets spoiler

I think this is a fact: the first issue is/was the furthest forward by date? Every EVERY other issue was a flashback leading up to the first issue. Man, I wish he'd get back to that story and let us know

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Claremont’s X-Men run.
Grant Morrison’s run on Doom Patrol.
”The Doll’s House” and “Season of Mists” from Gaiman’s Sandman.
The first dozen or so issues of Stray Bullets.
Most of Milligan’s Shade the Changing Man.
All of Ellis’s Transmetropolitan.

Can you tell when I was really into comics?

Yeah. Along with Grendel, the first issues of Strangers in Paradise, the first series of Bone - the 90's was a great time for comics. GREAT TIME. That said, there are good comics coming out now too

For example, Kill Six Billion Demons is So. Good.

 

[MGibster]

This is a weird one, but I'm going to nominate the Democracy storyline from Judge Dredd. And the reason it's a weird one is because the stories were spread out over a few years, 1986 to 1991, rather than being told in consecutive issues as we're used to. It started with "A Letter from a Democrat" where a woman writes her husband explaining why she's taking part in a terrorist plot to take over a television studio. Her letter serves to narrate the comic, and paints us a picture of the average citizen of Megacity One having very little control over their own lives and living in fear of the judges. The narrator describes a time when she was having a picnic at the park with her husband and toddler and a judge threatened to arrest them when her toddler accidentally tossed a ball and hit him in the head. Anyway, Dredd ends up killing the narrator and telling everyone, "Democracy is not for the people."

The next story came a few years later with "The Democratic March." A bunch of people inspired by the "terrorist" at the television studio have formed a group that is demanding a democratic government in Megacity One. They organize a march, and since the Judges don't want to overtly break it up, Dredd is given permission to work outside the law and stop the march any way he can. He fabricates evidence and blackmails leaders, messes with the weather control of Megacity One to make it rain and keep people from joining, arrests one of its leaders, forces him to stand all night, and puts him in the march knowing he won't be able to complete it thus making him look weak, he's got undercover judges in the march agitating and causing violence giving Dredd the excuse to call in the riot squad and arrest people. It's really an interesting look at the dirty tricks real governemts use to squash dissent.

A few years later we get "A Letter to Judge Dredd" written from the perspective of a school kid learning about the Judge system. In it, he points out a bunch of problems with the system and mentions his neighbor, who had been experiencing mental problems ever since a judge hit him upside the head with his daystick (nightstick or billy club). The kid never mailed his letter, he was murdered by that neighbor on the way to the post and Dredd read it at the crime scene.

In "Tales of a Dead Man," Dredd loses his mentor Judge Morphy who is killed during a routine traffic stop. Dredd almost murders the man who killed Morphy, but at the last moment the judge-in-training Dredd had been hanging with urged him to follow the law. Dredd announced he was resigning effectively immediately and would take the Long Walk. The Long Walk is when a judge retires and brings law & order to the lawless living outside the walls of Megacity One. Before he leaves, Dredd frees all of the Democracy protesters he had arrested a few years earlier.

And finally we get to "Democracy Referedum" where Dredd is out out of retirement and the democratic movement finally gets their wish as Megacity One is scheduled to vote on whether they want to abandon the Judge system for democracy. Some corrupt judges are convinced they'll lose in a landslide and attempt to hold power via assassinations, but they're stopped by Dredd. Another march is organized, but the people don't vote for democracy because utlimately most of them don't care. Fearing a riot might take place, Dredd faces the marches by himself and tells them they lost the election.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

One thing this thread has me reflecting on is how many arcs should have been just left alone, but comics always gotta go back and tinker, resurrect, etc. Has anything subsequently done with Jean Grey come close to matching the Dark Phoenix saga? How much richer would her story be if Marvel had let her have her perfect ending? Comics gotta learn to just walk away. Make something new, instead.

I think a lot about how comics weren't originally intended to be decades-spanning stories. Villains would come and go, but on the whole the stories were more episodic. Now you have continuity that spans generations of readers. Endings are revised and revisited and rewritten over and over. The strongest stories are overwritten for the shock value.

 

[Greg K]

Daredevil: Born Again
Daredevil: Fall From Grace
Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt
New Mutants: Demon Bear Saga (I liked all of New Mutants until Louise Simonson took over)
X-Men: Pheonix Saga (I liked pretty much all of Claremont's Uncanny X-Men until they went to Australia)
Batman: Year One
Crisis on Infinite Earth's
Green Lantern (/Green Arrow): "Snow Birds Don't Fly" by Denny O'Neil and Adam's. Actually, their entire run was great.
Neil Gaiman's Sandman: "Doll's House", "Season of Mists"
New Teen Titan's "Judas Contract"

If talking entire runs, Some that I like include:
Alan Moore: Miracle Man, Swamp Thing
Kurt Busiek: Astro City, his work on Avengers
David Mack: Kabuki
Denny O'Neil" Batman, Green Lantern (as mentioned above)
Grant Morrison: Animal Man, Doom Patrol (Suprisingly, I disliked his JLA and X-Men work)
Marv Wolfman and George Perez: New Teen Titans
Neil Gaiman: Book of Magic, Sandman, Death: The High Cost of Living

 

[kigmatzomat]

Mine would be kind of obscure: Rom Space Knight #48-65 "War" (1983-1985).

This is when the male shape-shifting technologist Wraiths are exterminated by the brain-drinking, sorcerous females. It was pretty much pure horror, which was surprising in Marvel.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

X-Men: Pheonix Saga (I liked pretty much all of Claremont's Uncanny X-Men until they went to Australia)

S'truth!