I saw John Seavey running with this meme and thought I’d throw in a few myself.
- Steve Ditko
- Watchmen
- Rex Libris
- DP7
- Deadshot, a one-note Batman villain who was perfectly fine-tuned in John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad to a crazed suicidal hitman.
- Leiko Wu, perhaps the first sensitively-fashioned Asian woman in North American comics.
- The moment in the first Black Spectre story from Moon Knight where the Black Spectre is inspired to continue his plans by watching how a black widow spider feeds on its prey.
- All of the Weirdworld stories.
- Ed Brubaker & Matt Fraction’s Immortal Iron Fist.
- Jack Kirby
- Superman: “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”
- Crisis on Infinite Earths, a line-wide crossover that’s actually rather good.
- Mark Gruenwald’s Squadron Supreme
- Dr. Strange: “To Have Loved and Lost.”
- Understanding Comics
- Kurt Busiek’s Astro City: “The Nearness of You.”
- Maus
- Gail Simone’s Poke-Rhino!
- That in the Marvel Universe, Jack Kirby is literally God.
- “They sing no songs in Hel, nor do they celebrate heroes…for silent is that dismal realm and cheerless…but the story of the Gjallerbru and the god who defended it is whispered across the nine worlds…and when a new arrival asks about the one to whom even Hela bows her head…the answer is always the same… He stood alone at Gjallerbru…and that answer is enough.”
- The Dark Phoenix Saga
- John Byrne’s reimagining of Superman as a cosmic immigrant in Man of Steel.
- Bruce Timm’s many animated adaptations of the DC greats.
- Mark Gruenwald
- The Eternals
- Johnny Hiro
- G.I. Joe: “Silent Interlude”
- John Ostrander’s brilliant idea to transform the crippled Barbara Gordon into Oracle.
- “I’m the third Blue Beetle. And I know there will be a fourth. And a fifth. On and on. Some better. Some worse. But the story, the name, the hero? That’ll go on forever past me. Past us all. And I think that’s kind of cool.”
- Street Angel
- Action Philosophers!
- Ego, the Loving Planet
- That Dr. Mid-Nite is one of the only “doctor” heroes who actually practices medicine.
- Daredevil: “Born Again”
- The Interman
- Thor unwittingly crossing paths with his own grandfather.
- The great acronyms like AIM, SHIELD, LMD and MODOK up to ULTIMATUM, HAWK and AUTOFAC; not so much the self-aware parody acronyms of recent years.
- That moment during Infinity Gauntlet when every hero set against Thanos has fallen…except for Captain America.
- James Larner; “never before was a pawn so nobly fallen.”
- The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe
- Quasar meeting the ghost of his atheist father, who refuses to believe in the afterlife and rationalizes his own existence.
- The Silver Surfer fights for Earth!
- Ambush Bug
- The original Armor Wars
- The Avengers “Mansion Siege” story.
- That when Larry Hama was permitted to kill off G.I. Joe characters in later issues he didn’t always play favorites.
- Planet Hulk
- Alan Davis’ Excalibur
- That Alfred Bester wrote the original Green Lantern oath.
- Hannibal King, who was a vampire detective long before the concept was rendered mundane.
