Entry tags:

comic books

Good comics that I haven't read: the impossible task!
I like reading comic books. There have been some tremendously great runs by various authors, and some tremendously great stories to come out of comic books. There's just one problem.

I think I read them all.

So here's where you folks come in. I need someone to recommend to me a comic book run, series, or story that I haven't read yet. It must meet the following criteria:

1. It must be good. If you recommend something that sucks, has been written by Jeph Loeb (yes, that's includes his Batman stuff), was drawn by Greg Land, or features ridiculous levels of pornographic violence that would make japanese manga artists cringe (Garth Ennis), then don't bother.

2. The longer the better. I like long runs. The five year arc of Fables was great, although I stopped reading it once the arc was over. Ultimate Spider-Man and Bendis's Daredevil were great. Grant Morrison on just about anything is great.

3. It doesn't all need to be by one author. If the series is good, I'll read even if the author changes.

4. I can't have read it already. This is the hard part. I've read a LOT of comics. I mean a lot. I've read the entire Amazing Spider-Man and Uncanny X-Men runs, save for the dark ages of the 90s where I gave up on X-men. I've read almost everything by Grant Morrison, Bendis, Johns, Kyle and Yost, Brian K. Vaughan, and Peter David, and am in the process of reading the rest.

So below the cut is a list of all the things I've read. If you manage to find something good that's not already on that list, you will gain my very fickle and soon-forgotten gratitude.



Keep in mind that as long as this list is, it's not everything. It's also not necessarily things I like. Just stuff I've read. I'll try to comment on things that are particularly good in my eyes.

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Powers (never finished it)

The Invisibles (in the process of reading)

Pretty much all X-men books (Astonishing, Morrison and Kyle/Yost New X-men being the best)

Pretty much all Spider-Man books

Every Ultimate book (USM and Ultimates being the best)

All-Star Superman

Dark Knight Returns (overrated and not very good)

Batman Year One (just overrated)

Jeph Loeb's Batman stuff, Long Halloween etc (you're remembering it wrong. It sucks. Trust me.)

Superman/Batman

Grant Morrison's JLA followed by Mark Waid's JLA

Geoff Johns' Justice Society (very good)

Geoff Johns' Green Lantern (good)

Almost anything ever related even peripherally to Crisis on Infinite Earths

Geoff Johns' Booster Gold (very good)

Volume 2 of Daredevil from Kevin Smith to the middle of Ed Brubaker's run (Bendis' run being
definitive, as far as I'm concerned)

Captain America volume 5 up until very recently when I finally decided once and for all that I don't like Brubaker.

Fifty-Two (good)

New Avengers (good overall, sometimes wanes a bit)

Mighty Avengers (pretty good)

Annihilation, including Conquest and War of Kings (DnA rock my socks.)

Morrison's Batman, but I purposefully ignore all other incarnations since he's the only one who write Batman perfectly, with Geoff Johns a distant second.

Runaways, but I gave up during Terry Moore's run. (BKV volumes are amazing)

Planet Hulk (Perhaps one of my top 5 favorite comics ever)

World War Hulk (could never live up to Planet Hulk)

Jeph Loeb's Hulk (single handedly ruined Planet Hulk and anything else Hulk related, possibly for all time.)

Incredible Hercules (I am routinely shocked by how much I love this book)

Portions of Peter David's Hulk run

Current incarnation of X-Factor, which I don't consider an X-men book.

Final Crisis, including Superman Beyond WHICH MUST BE READ AS PART OF THAT SERIES, BECAUSE IT IS WHAT MAKES THAT EVENT AWESOME.

Secret Invasion (Meh, with an ugh for Lentil's confusing art.)

Civil War (Meh, bordering on ugh.)

Identity Crisis (Meh, bordering on ugh.)

Kingdom Come (Quite good)

Green Arrow: Year One (Surprisingly good)

Sandman (Overrated at some portions, underrated at others)

Lucifer (Much better than Sandman)

The first 20 issues or so of Hellblazer (I still can't get past Jamie Delano's run to get to all the good authors)

Fables (stopped reading it after the 5 year arc was over)

About six issues of Jack of Fables (Stopped reading because it sucked)

Rising Stars (good but never lived up to potential)

Midnight Nation (Very cool)

JMS' Thor (Slow and now will never really be finished)

About ten issues of Immortal Iron Fist (Kind of okay for a while)

Guardians of the Galaxy current incarnation (Again: DnA rock my socks)

Nova (Ditto)

Ellis's run on the Authority, as well as about half of Millar's run (Good, especially as a proto-Ultimates)

Chosen (ugh)

Kick Ass (ugh again)

Marvel 1985 (meh.)

Wolverine, but not consistently. And Old Man Logan gets an ugh as well.

Invincible (Meh, I felt like it was Ultimate Spider-Man but with fake Superman, and not as good as USM. Then again, what is?)

Walking Dead (Kirkman's best)

Anytime Geoff Johns has written anything Superman related, although boo to James Robinson and New Krypton, for that is ridiculous.

Ex Machina (in the middle of reading it)

Y: The Last Man (BKV's most ambitious, but I like Runaways best)

Pryde of Baghdad (good, if predictable)

Preacher (ugh. Garth Ennnis.)

Maybe eight Garth Ennis Punisher issues before I got tired of watching him come up with ways to torture people.

Dark Tower miniseries (pretty art)

Apocalypse vs Dracula (astonishingly, this is even worse than it sounds)

Ares miniseries (very overrated)

Astonishing X-Men (normally this goes under the heading of "all X-men", but I must point out that Joss Whedon wrote the absolute best Cyclops ever, with props to Grant Morrison for setting him up.)

Various Dr. Strange stuff, including the BKV miniseries and the JMS origin, as well as his original Ditko era stuff.

Superman/Action Comics at random times, but with only the Johns stuff being all that great

Seven Soldiers of Victory (Frankenstein rules!)

Secret War (probably Bendis' best eventish kind of thing, if not the best eventish kind of thing he ever did. Bendis is good at day-to-day comics, not events)

Secret Wars and sequels (confusing, no?)

Batman and Robin (good so far)

Red Robin (okay so far)

Umbrella Academy (never finished it, didn't grab me)

Geoff Johns' Teen Titans run (what alerted me to Geoff Johns in the first place, and shocked me by making me like clone Superboy)

Planetary (Probably Ellis's best, assuming the rumors are true and it actually is finished)

Portions of Doom 2099 (to try and get to the Ellis run. My problem is I have to read the whole series, I can't just pick it up where he starts, so I've never actually gotten to his run. It's the same problem I have with Hellblazer)

Most Marvel Knights stuff

Supreme Power and Squadron Supreme (the JMS versions, with Supreme Power being much better than the watered down Squadron Supreme. The Chaykin version should just be called Ultimate universe version 2.)

Sinestro Corps Wars

Some Wonder Woman stuff, mostly Rucka's run (not that it was very good, it's just what I read)

Ms. Marvel since Civil War (also not very good, and I've since dropped it)

Marvel Vs. DC (or DC Vs. Marvel)

JLA/Avengers (or Avengers/JLA)

All those crappy DC/Aliens or DC/Predator or Aliens/Predator or DC/Aliens/Predator/Terminator crossover books

Death and Return of Superman (ah, the 90s. It's like comic books were purposefully trying to be terrible)

Batman: Knightfall (better than Death and Return of Superman, but that's not saying much)

Batman: No Man's Land

Batman: Wargames or Warcrimes or any shitty series they did with War in the title

Probably other Batman miniseries that I forgot about

Most of the Final Crisis tie ins

Most of the Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, World War Hulk, and Civil War tie ins

Death of the New Gods (ugh. Starlin.)

Infinity Gauntlet and its myriad of myriad myriads (STARLIN! Learn a word besides myriad!)

Marvel Zombies (just the first one. That joke gets old fast)

Gargoyles (considering they release one issue every year, I often forget it exists)

Fray (meh)

Buffy S8 comics (better than S7, but honestly the series lost me when BKV did his Faith arc. I just thought it was completely out of character for everyone involved, and I've only skimmed the series since then)

Angel: After the fall (only the first two or three issues. I plan on giving it another shot though)

Doktor Sleepless (what the fuck is going on?)

Transmetropolitan (couldn't get past two issues. Ellis's biggest work, and the only one of his I can't seem to read)

A few other Ellis Avatar Press books, but they're all so confusing that I don't know what I'm reading

Exiles until Claremont came in and gutted it

House of M and related tie ins (Probably Bendis' second best event, but that doesn't mean much)
Agents of Atlas

NEXTWAVE

Ellis's Thunderbolts

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (s'okay)

Watchmen (epic and groundbreaking, but god is it slow)

Trials of Shazam (meh)

Random attempts to ever read Iron Man (failed attempts, all)

Omega the Unknown (weird and I never quite got it. I don't even recall if I finished the series)

Random attempts to ever read Fantastic Four (failed, with exceptions for Marvel Knights,
Ultimate FF, and possibly Hitch's new run)

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Okay, there's more, but my head hurts and I can't think of any. If you happen to be some kind of super genius who can think of anything that's not on this list that I SHOULD read (not just something that I haven't read. There's plenty of crappy 90s era comics I haven't read and will never read. Same goes for a lot of older stuff. My nostalgia can't power me through old Captain America or Superman stories. Sorry.)

So if you can think of a good comic story, trade, or series that I haven't read, please tell me.

And I'll leave you with this, a list of things I already know about and plan on reading:

The rest of Morrison's catalog of books, notably Doom Patrol
Alan Moore's DC stuff, which I've just never gotten around to
The rest of Powers
The rest of Ex Machina
Possibly Ellis's Stormwatch and other Wildstorm stuff that predates Authority, as well as the current DnA Authority.
Peter David's Fallen Angel


And of course the collection of books I continue to read on a weekly/monthly basis as they come out.

But I need stuff that already exists, preferably in trade form! Help me, nerdlish readers! You're my only hopes!

EDIT: Holy crap! I forgot to put Alias on the list!