Top Five Amazing Moments in Comics
Top Five is a show where the hosts categorize, rank, compare, and stratify everything… from cars to gadgets to people and movies. From stuff that is hot, and things that are not nearly as interesting – it’s Top Five.
Sometimes stories BIF! BAM! POW! their way into your heart, and other times comics are simply amazing. This week, Rodrigo, Ashley, Matthew and Stephen present their top five amazing moments in comics.
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Because I hate you; Mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha delivers his finale revenge on the murderous Max Bubba in the end of Strontium Dog: Rage.
I want you to remember Clark in all the years to come the one man who beat you; Batman giving the man of steel a good kicking and making the Dark Knight Returns a legendary comic.
City of the damned let chaos reign!; Judge Dredd and Anderson witness the long prophesied downfall of Mega-City One at the hands of the terrifying and powerful Mutant in Judge Dredd: City of the Damned.
YEARRRG! The sudden and completely shocking death of Wolverine making X-Men: Days of Future Past one of the few comics to deliver on the promise of it’s cover.
JEAN! Jean Grey makes the ultimate sacrifice to stop her evil alter ego at the end of the Dark Phoenix Saga.
Two of my comic selections I got for my birthday and three I got on my own in the days when you had to chance upon them at a gas station or grocery store.
5) Rom #6. This is the first Rom comic I ever read, which I got it for my 9th birthday. I didn’t understand totally what was going on, because I had not read the previous 5 issues and I have yet to get all the comics, although I have most of them. I am excited IDW pulled off the impossible and will be bringing Rom back in 2016!
4) Godzilla #20. I received this comic on my 8th birthday. I knew who Godzilla was and I knew who the Fantastic Four were, and I was excited to get both in one comic! I have since read the Marvel Essentials B&W version and have almost finished collecting the single issues.
Amazing Spider-Man #308. I bought this comic because of the cover. Mary Jane is missing, and Spider-Man has this uncharacteristic seriousness about the situation. I knew about Spider-Man from Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, but had never read the comics. I have since collected a few issues around it, but want to get the volumes starting with #1.
Raiders of the Lost Ark Collector’s Edition. I got this when I was 11 back in the days when you could only rewatch movies through comics and novel adaptations. I would read this over and over again, which was just like watching the movie. Even after I got the movie when it was released on video, I would still read the comic.
Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #7. This is the first comic I made an effort to collect in series. I would ride my bike down to the Western Avenue Meat Market and try to find the issues. This comic hooked me from the beginning because, after the story, there were “classified” origin files of each member of the Zoo Crew. I am going to pester DC Comics until they start a new volume of these characters with new stories.
Oops, I forgot my honorable mention. (I’m so stupid, stupid, stupid!)
Dark Knight Over Metropolis: Action Comics Annual #1, Adventures of Superman #466, Action Comics #653, Superman #44, Adventures of Superman #467 & Action Comics #654. This was my first effort to collect a crossover story arc. I found Action Comics #653, Superman #44, Adventures of Superman #467 & Action Comics #654, because there was a title above each issues which read: Dark Knight Over Metropolis, but I had never known about The First three: Action Comics Annual #1, Adventures of Superman #466 & Action Comics #653. I have recently purchased the first three and will reread the arc with the addition of these.
Fantastic Four #588- Donald Blake and Bruce Banner meet Ben Grimm in the desert to give him hologram of Johny Storm. Grimm loses it with grief because of the loss of Johny in the previous issue and hits both Blake and Banner causing them to transform into their respective hero alter egos. But as Thor is coming in to deliver a big hit to Grimm, Hulk puts a hand up to stop him. Allowing him to get his anger out. And it silent issue so not a single word needs to be said to get the emotion across.
Preacher #66- Jesse and Tulip ride off into the sunset and finally get their happily ever after. This one stands out to me because throughout the series Jesse goes through so much never feeling he deserves to be happy, but when all is said and done he gets his happy ending with the woman he loves.
Thor #3- After Thor returns to Midgard after being dead for years he finds that during the events of Civil War Tony Stark had cloned Thor. A decision that lead to the clone killing Goliath. So when Stark confronts the God of Thunder to ask him to register with the government Thor proceeds to beatdown Iron Man to the point that his armor is utterly destroyed. And to top it off Thor promises to find him again at later date to finish the “conversation”.
Y the Last Man # 58- Yorrick spends years traveling across the planet to find his girlfriend only to realize that she was about to break up with him before the plague hit. this helps Yorrick to realize that he is actually in love with Agent 355 who has been escorting and protecting him on his trip. So he rushes back to the hotel and confesses his feelings for Agent 355, feelings she shares. But just when you think there will be a happily ever after a sniper shot hits 355 right between the eyes. It is an emotional moment that brings the reader back to the reality that life doesn’t always work the way you want it to.
Death of Superman- This is more the cover image than an event in the series. But the image of Lois holding the beaten body of Superman with the remnants of his torn cape hanging like a flag in the background. It is one of the most iconic images there is in comics.
5 – “Stupid, stupid rat creatures” – Bone #2 – This is the buy-in moment for the Bone series. Issue 1 was okay, but the comic timing of this moment of Phone Bone’s introduction to the fauna of this strange new valley he’d entered made this a must buy series.
4 – “Understanding Comics” – Scott McCloud’s opus on how comics work as a medium, told in the comics medium. Where Eisner’s “Comics and Sequential Art” feels a bit arcane and in some ways reads like “How to Draw the Tick,”* “Understanding Comics” is a wonderfully approachable work. It’s the only comic I’ve ever bought multiple copies of just so that I’d always have a copy available to loan out.
(*”How to Draw the Tick” paraphrased: “(1) Draw and oval; (2) Draw a line bisecting that oval; (3) Draw the Tick holding the oval with the line through it. See, wasn’t that easy?”)
3 – “Roxxas Strikes” – Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 4, #10 – There’s this effete space pirate that decides to take out the LSH. And he’s doing it pretty damn effectively despite being somewhat off, mentally speaking. And then Jo Nah takes him down. Hard. This guy that was “only one power at a time” makes Roxxas use his big weapon on him (“Now I’ve got nothing left to use against the Daxamite.”) I didn’t know anything about the LSH before starting in at the beginning of this five-year-later run, and at this point I didn’t even know what the significance of “Daxamite” was. I just knew that some serious $#!@ had just hit the fan, and Jo was the biggest, baddest one of the bunch. (Turns out Roxxas sent Jo back through time, kicking off a story where Jo fights his way back through the centuries 20+ years before Darseid did the same to Batman.)
2 – Kitty Pryde vs. Loki – X-men Annual #9 – This tale of mutants in Asgard, starting in New Mutants Special Edition #1, drawn in stunning fashion by the team of Art Adams and Terry Austin, is perhaps my favorite swashbuckling epic in comics form. And when Loki and the Enchantress seem about to reign victorious, Kitty Pryde uses her brains and wits to confront Loki and win the day with words and threats rather than power and brute force. This is one of three Chris Claremont moments that come to mind where Kitty Pryde shows that her true strength is her wits, not her mutant power. The only reason it doesn’t make my #1 is because one of the other two does.
1 – Kitty Pryde addresses the student body – New Mutants #45 – This stand-alone tale really sums up what made Claremont’s take on mutants in Marvel so affecting. In the twenty-plus pages of this issue we touch on themes of bullying, racism, and intolerance as we follow the story of Larry Bodine. Larry is new in his school, and having trouble fitting in; his parents are too caught up in their own things to notice what’s going on with him; and he’s discovering that he’s a mutant. His school in Westchester has a mixer dance with neighboring Xavier’s Academy, and we get a roller-coaster of near misses where we hope that things will “click” with his new friends from Xavier’s. (SPOILER: they don’t, for bitterly sad reasons) The issue culminates with Kitty Pryde addressing the assembled student body of Larry’s school in a memorial for Larry, who’s committed suicide. Her speech anchors in language that’s understandable and resonant with readers, tying in the fictional plight of mutants with real-world stereotyping and marginalization. And it’s a speech that’s designed to bridge the gaps between people and bring them together, rather than to aggressively distance people from one another along polarizing prejudicial lines.