By [ad_1]
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!
68. “Demon Bear Saga” by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz (New Mutants #18-21) – 164 points (1 first place vote)
Now, I consider myself to be a Sal Buscema fan. I think that he is a fine artist. He has always had a strong grasp of sequential storytelling and it really comes out in his work. He always makes sure to serve the story. However, despite Buscema’s talents, there is very rarely such a dramatic change in a comic book series than going from Sal Buscema as the artist on New Mutants to Bill Sienkiewicz as the artist on New Mutants in 1983. Sienkiewicz, who had broken into comics drawing in the traditional Neal Adams style that was so popular in superhero comics of the late 1970s/early 1980s, had begun to experiment with his work on the series Moon Knight that he worked out with writer Doug Moench (in an interesting twist, Sienkiewicz was set to be the artist on John Byrne’s Fantastic Four run, but because Marvel had then just recently expanded their comic book page counts per issue by roughly 30%, Sienkiewicz suddenly could not draw two regular comic book series at the same time, so he dropped Fantastic Four and concentrated on Moon Knight – the extra time presumably led to him spending more time on his art and trying new things with his work). Sienkiewicz’s new style transcended our traditional views of what a superhero comic book would look like. It made Moon Knight a critical darling. However, Moon Knight was still, you know, Moon Knight. When given a chance to show off his style on what was, at the time, the second highest-selling comic book series that Marvel had, the X-Men spin-off, the New Mutants, Sienkiewicz went for it.
He joined writer Chris Claremont, who was a great admirer of Sienkiewicz’s work. Claremont is famous for being a guy who wants to collaborate with his artist, not simply dictate to him what he should do, and that came out in the pages of New Mutants. Their first issue together, New Mutants #18, kick-started what is now known as the “Demon Bear Saga.”
Dani Moonstar has been hunted by a ghostly demon bear ever since her grandfather died (back in the introduction of the New Mutants). She tried to hunt it down and kill it and she thought that she had succeeded (in a stunning series of panels by Sienkiewicz) but she failed and it badly wounded her. Her teammates rushed the teenager to the hospital, where they are met by a local cop, Tom Corsi, and a friendly nurse named Sharon Friedlander. However, the Demon Bear has followed Dani and it soon spreads out its influence – it wants to take over the world and Dani was what was holding it back. The New Mutants, using the magical abilities of their teammate, Magik, travel to the Demon Bear’s dimension to fight it, while in the real world, surgeons try to save Dani’s life while the New Mutants save her soul. The Demon Bear transforms Corsi and Friendlander into its servants.
Check out this sequence to see just how stunningly creative Sienkiewicz was (and heck, still is)…
Ultimately, the New Mutants save the day and Dani is then given further healing by the Morlock Healer so that she could walk again. This leads into a classic epilogue issue where the girls of the New Mutants have a slumber party and the New Mutants meet an alien mutant known as Warlock.
It’s difficult to understand just how revolutionary Sienkiewicz’s work was at the time. It was like a true shock to the senses. Amusingly enough, by the way, years later, Sienkiewicz and Buscema actually became a team of sorts, with Sienkiewicz inking Buscema (it was really odd, but it also really worked well).
67. “Deus ex Machina” by Grant Morrison, Chas Truog, Doug Hazlewood, Mark Farmer and a few other artists (Animal Man #18-26) – 166 points (3 first place votes)
Grant Morrison concluded their run on Animal Man with this amazing final story arc, where Morrison plays with the very fabric of reality as Animal Man discovers his nature as a fictional character while tripping in the desert…
How awesome is that?
The story goes even further than that as Animal Man’s life becomes a living hell and Morrison acknowledges the way that an author’s life can affect what happens to the characters on the page. The whole thing is a bit of a meditation on the proliferation of grim and gritty comics during this time period. With his life in ruins, Animal Man finds himself on a journey to comic book limbo, where he meets the various characters “erased” by the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
This all leads to Animal Man meeting none other than Grant Morrison, as the two talk about life and comic books and Morrison leaves the book with a touching gift for Buddy Baker.
This storyline holds up well to this day (especially the final meeting between Morrison and Animal Man), but at the time, when meta-fictional narratives were relatively rare, this was a really groundbreaking work.
66. “Ultron Unlimited” by Kurt Busiek, George Perez and Al Vey (Avengers #19-22) – 169 points (1 first place vote)
The concept of the storyline (written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by George Perez and Al Vey) is that Ultron IX has decided that he does not want to simply wipe out humans from Earth – he wants to repopulate the world with his own people: robots. He begins this attempt in horrific fashion as he enters the small European country of Slorenia and proceeds to slaughter the entire human population in three hours. He sends a message to the horrified public watching at home – do not come into this county or suffer the same fate.
Meanwhile, he has also kidnapped the Avengers that he considers “family” and intends to use their brainwaves to base his new world population of robots on, much like the way he earlier based his intended robot bride Jocasta on Wasp’s brainwaves, the android Vision on the brainwaves of Wonder Man and the robot Alkhema on the brainwaves of Mockingbird.
It is during this story that we learn for the first time something that probably should have been evident to readers earlier (it’s somewhat surprising it took decades until Busiek came up the concept), which is that Ultron’s mind was based on the brainwaves of his creator, Hank Pym, who happens to be among the Avengers kidnapped by Ultron.
The Avengers ultimately decide to invade Slorenia, resulting in many interesting battles within the country as the small band of heroes seem to be overmatched by Ultron’s apparently unending supply of robot drones (hence the “Unlimited” part of the story’s title). During the course of this war, the Avengers have to face off against all the earlier Ultrons, each of whom was enough to fight them to a standstill in previous years.
Ultron is quite confident that his minions are more than enough to defeat the Avengers. That same confidence leads to one of the coolest dramatic entrances ever (and winner of a Wizard Award that year for Best Moment) when the Avengers burst into Ultron’s lair, looking quite ragged, with Thor speaking for the entire team when he declares “Ultron, we would have words with thee!”
Very cool.
65. “The Age of Apocalypse” by Scott Lobdell, Mark Waid, Fabian Nicieza, Andy Kubert, Joe Madureira, Steve Epting, Roger Cruz and a pile of other artists and writers (X-Men: Alpha #1, Amazing X-Men #1-4, Astonishing X-Men #1-4, X-Men: Omega #1 plus a bunch of tie-ins) – 171 points (2 first place votes)
In this alternate universe storyline, Charles Xavier’s crazed yet powerful son, Legion, went back in time to kill Magneto, figuring that he’d put a stop to the Magneto/Professor X feud before it ever started. A group of X-Men went back in time to stop him, including the X-Men’s resident time-traveler, Bishop. They fail to stop Legion but young Charles Xavier DOES stop Legion, but only by sacrificing himself to save Magneto. This, as you might imagine, throws the whole timeline out of whack.
First of all, no Xavier. Second of all, Magneto now has to vow to take up Xavier’s dream for himself. Third, and perhaps most importantly, this big mutant battle years before mutants were supposed to be up and around at this level woke up Apocalypse earlier than the world was ready for. So Apocalypse proceeds to pretty much take over the world, as no superheroes were yet around to stop him. Magneto, for his part, puts together a ragtag group of mutants known as the X-Men (I think Xavier can cut the BS about the team being named after their X-tra powers when it turns out it is named after him even with him dead) to fight against Apocalypse.
Sott Lobdell, Mark Waid, Fabian Nicieza, Andy Kubert, Joe Madureira, Steve Epting, Roger Cruz and a pile of other artists and writers show the adventures of the X-Men as well as every other X-related character, with the titles of each book being changed for four months (X-Factor became Factor-X, X-Men became Amazing X-Men, Excalibur became X-Calibre, X-Force naturally became…Gambit and the X-Ternals?! Okay, not all changes made sense). Bishop, being out of time already, retained his memory of the changes and he eventually helped the X-Men to get him back in time to put right what once went wrong. This was a tremendously fun and very well-coordinated crossover and the idea of actually stopping all of the books for four months (and then return them to normal) was a shocking move at the time, especially because most of the books ended on some dramatic cliffhanger before the timeline shifted (Wolverine had just popped a third claw into Sabretooth’s brain, Rogue had just kissed that slimy Gambit, etc.)
Magneto even gets to see his world end with his wife and child (after first taking care of some much-delayed business)…
Daaaaaaaaaaamn, Magneto!!!
About The Author
[ad_2]
