I'm sure this topic has been beat to death already, but, what the hell, I like Top Ten lists!

Gentlement, let 'er rip!

Well, having read only Marvel and DC and that's all I WILL read...

1. Dark Knight returns
2. Infinity Gauntlet
3. Contest of Champions
4. Captain America:War and remembrance
5. Secret Wars
6. Doctor Strange: Master of mystic arts
7. Knightfall one
8. Knightfall two
9. Knightfall three
10.Iron Man the armor wars

Heh, heh. Since I hardly read ANYTHING from Marvel or DC these days, we obviously have different tastes (even if I restricted myself to ONLY stuff by Marvel & DC, my copy of The Essential Dr. Strange would be the only place where we're even close to an agreement, which probably wasn't exactly the same Dr. Strange you were referring to since you've elsewhere badmouthed the Essentials series).

My initial list had 28 books. I separated out the positives from the maybes and the positives still had 13. I managed to get rid of one of them, but I refuse to drop it below twelve. So here's my top dozen, in alphabetical order. Some of them are multi-volume stories that I consider to be all one big "novel" -- in those cases I've indicated how many volumes it is (I pretended Cerebus is complete, since it's almost done) and mentioned a single book that is either the best or at least a good place to start. I have two "Love and Rockets" books, one from each of the "main" Hernandez brothers (Mario didn't do much, but without him there never would have been a "Love and Rockets").

And without further ado:
Adolph (5 volumes - A Tale of the Twentieth Century
Alec: Three Piece Suit
Blood of Palomar
Cages
Cerebus (16 volumes - High Society)
Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood
From Hell
Jimmy Corigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
Kabuki (?? volumes - Metamorphosis)
Safe Area Goradze
Sandman (10 volumes - Dream Country)
Wigwam Bam

Some of my runners-up include: Stuck Rubber Baby, Berlin, Bone, The Tale of One Bad Rat, The Cowboy Wally Show, and more.

Watchmen and Marvels were the only books featuring superheroes that made my initial list of 28 -- even counting the fact that those 28 actually represent 80 or 90 current volumes with some of the series still going.

And just to show you that I don't choose this way simply out of snobbery, I own about 4,000 "comic books" (in the traditional definition), of which over half feature superheroes, and about 400-500 graphic novels, at least a third of which feature superheroes. I like superheroes.

I like murder mysteries and spy novels, too, but that doesn't delude me into thinking that "Goldfinger" is on the same level as "Moby Dick."

LordJulius,

I think you have me confused with someone else. I OWN all of the Essentials. I wish they would make more. Go to my thread of "only two more to go."

Ooops. Sorry. So were you talking about the Essential Dr. Strange or is there some other book collection of those? If you were, and if I restricted myself to DC/Marvel (and especially if I didn't count Vertigo or ABC as DC), then we would agree on one book at least. My Marvel/DC books would be (a dozen again, since I did a dozen of the other:

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Batman: Year One
The Essential Conan
The Essential Dr. Strange
The Essential Fantastic Four: Volume One
The Essential Fantastic Four: Volume Two
The Essential Fantastic Four: Volume Three
The Essential Spider-Man: Volume One
The Essential Spider-Man: Volume Two
The Essential Spider-Man: Volume Three
Marvels
Watchmen

Closer runner ups would be "Batman: The Killing Joke," "Enemy Ace: Wary Idyll" (which actually made the above list of 28, but isn't superhero), The Essential X-Men: Volume 2 (Dark Phoenix saga). The fact that I grew up with the early FF & Spidey is one of the main reasons they together account for about half the list (and I was tempted to put the other two Spideys on there, but I had to leave room for something else), but it ain't all just nostalgia. I've reread all this stuff since buying it, and despite its obvious flaws I think it stacks up very well against the vast majority of post-Watchmen superhero stuff.

Of course, by restricting it to Marvel/DC I left out some of my favorite superhero stories, like Miracleman and Astro City . . .

My Top Ten favorites (most loved to merely loved):

Promethea
League Extraordinary Men
Tom Strong
Top Ten
Greyshirt
Tomorrow Stories

Wait ... that's not the "top ten" you were looking for? Heh heh, -s

LordJulius,

The Dr.Strange book I mentioned is NOT the Essential but it basically is as well. It was a book done in the 70's reprinting alot of the Ditko issues in color. I got that along with Bring on the Bad Guys and Sons of Origins way back when.

Well... let's see if I can do my list. (In NO particular order.) This is total personal preference, and in no way based on any facts.

Chester Square by Jaime Hernandez

From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

Cowboy Wally Show by Kyle Baker (close to a tie with Why I Hate Saturn)

Abe: Wrong for All the Right Reasons by Glenn Dakin

Champs by Steven Weismann

Hate by Peter Bagge (6 vols.)

Phoenix: A Tale of the Future by Osamu Tezuka

Usagi Yojimbo: Grasscutter by Stan Sakai

Paul Auster's City of Glass by David Mazzuchielli (sp?)

Dragonball Z by Akira Toriyama (42 vols.) (There goes my snooty badge. )

I'm sure I'll now spend the rest of the day thinking, "wait, crap, I should have put _____!"

Maus
Our Cancer Year
Stuck Rubber Baby
From Hell
Nowhere/Summer of Love
I Never Liked You
Cages
Jar of Fools
It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken
Pastil/Pastil 2/Pastille

If I can't get away with my cheat on that last entry, then Jar and Life get bumped off the list.

Matthew

In no particular order:

From Hell
Watchmen
Dark Knight Returns
Maus
Signal to Noise
Sandman: Kindly Ones
Jimmy Corrigan
Understanding Comics
Skreemer
Doom Patrol: Crawling from the Wreckage
Why I Hate Saturn