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Today, we continue our countdown of your picks for the greatest comic book storylines of all-time with #32-29.
You voted (over 1,000 ballots cast and a little bit more than the last time we did this countdown) and you all sent in ballots ranking your favorite storylines from #1 (10 points) to #10 (1 point). I added up all of the points and here we are!
32. “Batman R.I.P.” by Grant Morrison, Tony Daniel and Sandu Florea (Batman #676-681) – 345 points (4 first place votes)
Batman R.I.P. is the conclusion of Grant Morrison’s initial Batman run, and it basically is as straightforward of a “Good” versus “Evil” story as there is out there (which is particularly interesting seeing as how it came out concurrent with another major Good vs. Evil story, Final Crisis).
Batman has been fighting against the criminal organization the Black Glove, but by the beginning of Batman RIP, the Black Glove has struck at Batman through various methods, some physical but mostly psychological, all designed to destroy Batman’s virtue (like arguing that Bruce Wayne’s father was still alive and had, in fact, planned the murder of Martha Wayne).
Then Batman essentially goes insane, becoming a twisted form of himself…but is that REALLY what’s going on?
Morrison teases the reader with the question – could anyone go through the events that Batman has gone through over the last 60 plus years and NOT go insane (that was one of the major twists in Morrison’s run, the revelation that everything that had ever happened to Batman in the comics has actually occurred, even the outlandish stuff from the 1950s – it just did not necessarily actually occur to him in person, but rather some of it might have happened to him while he was testing himself in isolation)? That is the question posed to Batman by his girlfriend, Jezebel Jet, who becomes close enough to Bruce Wayne that he reveals his secrets to her and she, in turn, tells him of her concerns over his sanity. Her seemingly legitimate concerns lend a great deal of dramatic tension to Batman’s seeming insanity, especially when he transforms into the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh (the aforementioned twisted version of himself).
But really, R.I.P. is basically a love letter to Morrison’s view of Batman as “Batgod,” as when the bad guys think that they have broken Batman mentally and physically…well, they forgot one thing…
And that one thing?
And that leads to Batman freeing himself from being buried alive…
The whole story turns on its head when you realize just HOW prepared Batman is. I love that the story even forces you to go back nearly twenty issues and see exactly when Batman figured out one part of the plan. It’s all there in the story.
31. “The Elektra Saga” by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson (Daredevil #168, 174-182, 187-190) – 355 points (1 first place vote)
Elektra was introduced in the first issue of Daredevil fully written by Frank Miller, as a former “love of Matt Murdock’s life” in college who, after her father (a Greek ambassador)’s assassination, moved away from New York only to return years later as an assassin herself.
Throughout much of the next 14 issues Matt Murdock has to deal with Elektra’s return, both in his personal life as Matt Murdock (seeing his first real love again after years apart) and in his superhero life as Daredevil as Elektra was, you know, an assassin, and Daredevil doesn’t take kindly to assassins.
This duality came into play pretty early on, as the pair alternated between teaming up and fighting each other, as you could never tell whether Daredevil’s goodness would rub off on Elektra (who, by the way, had her name misspelled on her first comic book cover!) or whether Elektra’s darkness would rub off on Daredevil.
Things changed, however, when Elektra was chosen personally by Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime, to become his chief assassin.
There is a particularly brilliant sequence where she is sent to silence reporter Ben Urich. First by killing an informant leaking him a story about the Kingpin…
And then to kill Urich himself. Although, she notably “only” stabs him in the issue and does not kill him (a trademark aspect of Elektra’s famous weapons, the sais, is that they would puncture people’s bodies but would somehow always get stopped by the clothing of the victim on the other side – obviously, this was just a conceit designed to appease the Comics Code Authority, which wouldn’t want people to show weapons bursting out of people’s chests, but it makes for a striking visual, honestly).
Now Elektra and Matt were definitively at odds – although when she was assigned to murder Foggy Nelson’s, Matt’s law partner (and former college roommate), she could not go through with it when Foggy recognized her, showing that there was still some good in her.
However, this epiphany did not last long, as her rival assassin, Bullseye, chose to prove himself to Kingpin by taking Elektra out, which led to one of the most iconic deaths in Marvel history. He and Elektra are evenly matched as they battle in the streets of New York City. However, as Bullseye notes, as good as Elektra is, he was “magic” and he proceeded to then use a playing card to slice her throat open. Dazzled by the almost certainly fatal wound, Elektra stumbles long enough for Bullseye to come up on her and the rest is one of the most famous images in Marvel Comics history…
She somehow managed to crawl from even that wound and drag herself to Matt Murdock’s front door, where she dies in his arms. Her death had a profound impact upon Matt, as did her later attempted resurrection by the ninja group, the Hand.
This was Miller’s first ongoing series as writer and artist, and it was quite impressive to see how adept he was at creating engaging, memorable characters with strong interpersonal relationships. Elektra evolved from basically a riff on an old Will Eisner Spirit issue to a fully developed, fascinating character.
The great Klaus Janson began to share the art duties with Miller as the series went along (first just as inker, but as time went by, Janson would take over more and more of the art on the title).
30. “Return of Barry Allen” by Mark Waid, Greg Larocque and Roy Richardson (Flash Vol. 2 #73-79) – 362 points (5 first place votes)
Wally West is the Flash, the fastest man alive. In this classic Mark Waid tale, Wally’s greatest dream turns into a nightmare as his uncle, Barry Allen, the Flash before Wally, returns to life. Only thing are not what they seem, and soon Wally is forced to collect a group of speedsters to confront Barry, who has returned…different. This storyline introduced Max Mercury to the title and really began the whole “Speed Force” idea that became such a major part of the title. In any event, while Wally gets help from the other speedsters, he soon learns that it ultimately comes down to him and his own fears of replacing his uncle to win the day. Waid planned it this way, to show that the only way for Wally to truly be accepted as a Flash by the fans is for Wally to accept HIMSELF as the Flash.
Greg LaRocque drew this arc, in his swan song on the title, after a long run as penciler.
29. “Secret Wars” by Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck, Bob Layton, John Beatty and a host of other inkers (Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars #1-12) – 371 points (2 first place votes)
In possibly the greatest comic book event series written to tie in with a toy line, Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars is designed like the ultimate fan dream – nearly all of the major Marvel heroes of the time and nearly all the major Marvel villains of the time are thrown together on to a distant planet and forced to fight each other at the behest of a seemingly omnipotent being.
Sounds simple enough, right? But writer Jim Shooter elevates the story a bit beyond that (“beyond” that. Get it?) by showing the interesting strategies the various characters decide to employ. For instance, rather than forming a unified front, the heroes splinter into two groups, the X-Men and everyone else. The villains, similarly, are not uniform in their approach. While plenty of them are thrilled to just attack the heroes, others, like Doctor Doom, try to think of the situation more strategically.
After a series of battles (including a fight between Spider-Man and the X-Men, of all people, and a sequence that ended with a mountain falling on the heroes, with only the Hulk preventing them from being crushed) Doctor Doom flips the battle field by taking control of the power of the mysterious being who brought them here. He offers a truce with the heroes. But can they truly work with him? The heroes decide…
and Doom’s response is…fiery…
Man, this series had some killer cliffhangers!
Mike Zeck and John Beatty were at the top of their game at the time of this series. They really excelled (and Bob Layton did a great job as a fill-in artist).
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