This is a good list. Marvel really had this incredible run in the '80s where it just let creators fucking sprawl out on their titles. They're intimidating runs, and sometimes you can see the seams of that kind of serialized storytelling ("No, we mean it, THIS time we're gonna tell you who Hobgoblin is!") but it's such…

To be fair, it's not like the companies wrote the lists.

And I mean, Waid's run is centered on the biggest element of Bendis'.

That's fair. And I do appreciate the amount of thought that went into the work (for example, the panel layouts).

Waid's run works *because* it's an intentional break with the rest of the DD franchise. Just like how it's fun to every so often drop Spidey into a noir crime story.

That's a good point, although most of these types of lists usually have Year One or TDKR or Gotham Central.

He's got a very distinct style that some people loathe, and most of his work boils down to him trying to make peace with modern comics.

It's not *literally* the "original woman in a refrigerator", but Babs' trauma is nothing but a tool to show how noble Jim Gordon is. And Jim Gordon is great! I like him as a character more than Bruce Wayne. But c'mon, Moore, don't treat Babs like that.

One of the problems with the Watchmen movie was that super-hero stories on the big screen simply hadn't existed long enough to have deconstruct-able tropes, so it kinda became like that old quote about dancing about architecture.

I don't think so- remember, the first issue resolves a cliffhanger from the previous creative team, and the whole first story arc is a retcon of Swampie's previous origin. It's great, but it can't be your first rodeo.

I've really fallen out of love with Miller's DD. I appreciate it's place in comics history, but it's got way too many of Miller's typical bugaboos- Matt Murdock is the ONLY HONEST MAN in this BROKEN WORLD, and also, WOMEN, AM I RIGHT?!

I mean, yeah, Claremont had the Shi-Ar and the Brood and a lot of stuff that doesn't fit the "world fears and hates them" theme, but he also had DoFP, Rachel Summers, Nimrod, etc. The years after Byrne left actually had a pretty wonderful air of slight dread about them, the X-Men were never sure if they were one step…

Hard to legitimately say that the X-Men aren't a priority for Marvel when they put their top writer and one of their top artists on the franchise. The problem is that Bendis isn't great at team books, and he has reached his Final Form, where he is impervious to editing.

It was the exact opposite of the solution Marvel needed to the X-Franchise at that point. You didn't need to cut the in-continuity number of mutants. The very premise *demands* that there be a lot of mutants in the world! You needed to cut the number of mutants *focused on in monthly comic books*, because that was…

Kinda weird that there's only 1 in-continuity DC pick, but I guess that's how it goes when they have multiple hard reboots.

Yeah, unlike Galt's Gulch, the world wasn't exactly falling apart without the supers. In fact, they seemed to remain unnecessary until Syndrome tried to join the club.

They don't vote on many of their lefty issues, though.

"having to get an ID and prove that you're a citizen of this country is not voter suppression"

It's kind of part-and-parcell of a big trend in super-hero stories (and action/SF movies). The good guys used to be rag-tag outsiders, now they're The Man. The Avengers are backed up by a global military authorized by the UN (though it actually looks like that's changing).

I bet we can still confront racism without flying a symbol that celebrates racism. Let's just try it. If, in a year, things are back to where they were in 1963, we can put it back up.