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Today, we continue our countdown of your picks for the greatest comic book storylines of all-time with #68-65.
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!
64. “From Hell” by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell (From Hell #1-11) – 173 points (3 first place votes)
From Hell is Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s brilliantly detailed historical fiction based on the Jack the Ripper murders in London in the late 1880s.
Besides the fictional aspect of the story, where Moore hazards a guess as to who the actual murderer was, the rest of the story is explicitly researched recitation of the true crime story of the Ripper.
For a story that is filled with historical details and footnotes, it is amazing how impressive of a narrative that Moore is able to weave with this story.
The tale is a truly engrossing one, with cameos from all sorts of engaging characters, made all the more interesting because of their basis in reality. This is basically a precursor to Moore’s brilliant League of Extraordinary Gentlemen work, bringing all these various personalities (like the Elephant Man) into one cohesive narrative. One of my favorite bits is how they actually investigated Buffalo Bill Cody’s traveling Wild West Show!
Campbell is asked to do a TON of detailed, tiny drawings as Moore packs so much information in this story that it’s simply staggering – Campbell must have had carpal tunnel by the time this baby finished! But he does beautiful work.
This is an amazing work in how COMPLETE of a story it is – Moore leaves nothing out but makes it all work. Just remarkable.
63. “The Man of Steel” by John Byrne and Dick Giordano (The Man of Steel #1-6) – 176 (1 first place vote)
John Byrne and Dick Giordano relaunched the Superman mythos in this excellent mini-series that re-establishes the entire Superman mythos ahead of the Superman titles all relaunching with a new status quo. What was so shocking about Byrne’s reboot was how much he kept the same. When you think about the reaction to Byrne’s changes at the time and then look at the 2011 Superman reboot? It’s like apples and oranges! Superman and his supporting cast were largely the same, with the biggest changed being Lex Luthor now as a respected businessman. There was never a Superboy, Krypton was a cold and desolate place, Superman was no longer “born” until he landed on Earth and Jonathan and Martha Kent still being alive with Clark as an adult. Clark Kent, I suppose, also saw a change as he was no longer so mild-mannered but there Byrne was more about returning to the original Clark Kent, who was not quite as mild-mannered as later interpretations would have him become. In each of the six issues, Byrne re-established some part of the Superman status quo. #1 saw Clark gaining his powers for the first time, #2 introduced us to Lois Lane, #3 has Superman and Batman meet for the first time, #4 introduced us to Lex Luthor, #5 gave us Bizarro and #6 had Clark learn about his Kryptonian heritage.
Since it goes all over the place, it is hard to find a spotlight page, since each issue is so different, but I’ll just pick one of my favorite pages, where Lois Lane goes to extraordinary lengths to get an interview with Superman, only to find that she’s been scooped by a new Daily Planet staffer…
62. “Tower of Babel” by Mark Waid, Howard Porter, Steve Scott, Drew Geraci and Mark Propst (JLA #43-46) – 178 points (1 first place vote)
How do you follow up Grant Morrison’s epic JLA run? In Mark Waid’s case, it was to take a concept that Morrison had teased since the beginning of his run and bring it into play. From the start of Morrison’s run, Batman had been treated pretty much like Batgod, and the feeling soon was that Batman would be able to defeat ANYone. This idea soon expanded to, “Well, if Batman could beat anyone, could he beat the rest of the JLA then?” Morrison gave an interview where they came up with a possible scenario where it could happen, using the notion that Batman being Batman means that he would likely have plans in place to take out any hero who went rogue. The fans were into the idea and when Waid took over the title, his first arc has Ra’s Al Ghul discovering Batman’s plans and using them on the JLA, all the while distracting Batman from seeing what is going on by distracting him with an audacious plot – stealing the corpses of his parents! Thus, by the time that Batman realized that the theft of his parents’ corpses was a distraction, it was too late to warn his teammates and boy, did they need the warning!!
Al Ghul’s plan involved ridding the world of all language (and failing that, to then start a war in the Middle East to cause unrest in the world) but really, the heart and soul of this storyline is the rest of the League dealing with the fact that Batman had, in his own way, betrayed them all. What a way for Waid to begin his run!
61. “Red Son” by Mark Millar, Dave Johnson, Kilian Plunkett, Andrew Robinson and Walden Wong (Red Son #1-3) – 181 points (1 first place vote)
One of the all-time great “high concept” comic books was definitely Red Son, which was built around the idea of what if Superman landed not in Smallville but in the Soviet Union, instead. Superman grows up to become the hero of the Communist government, the personal disciple of Stalin. Meanwhile, in the United States, Lex Luthor is a brilliant scientist tasked with finding ways to kill the Soviet Superman, while Lex’s wife, Lois, can’t help but be interested in the Man of Steel.
When Stalin dies, Superman is enlisted into being his successor, but he doesn’t want the job. However, even in this alternate universe, he is still Superman, so he manages to see how he could help change the world for the better…
However, he has a lot of people in his way who want to stop him, including Luthor, who decides to become a rogue villain after his Bizarro Superman failed to stop Superman. He informs his wife of their impending divorce over the phone – the interaction is priceless.
Eventually, Superman can’t help but become a despot himself, and so the Soviet version of Batman is formed to try to take Superman down, leading to one of the best Batman/Superman fights in this or any other reality.
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