My favorite is Mister Miracle. The best is probably, admittedly Watchmen, at least on a craft level, but it’s not really my thing.
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The “Worst comic book ever?” thread got bumped, so it only seems fair that the “Best comic book ever?” thread should get bumped as well. To be honest, I don’t feel comfortable making a personal selection; I don’t believe I’ve read enough comics yet to adequately assess which one may be the best. However, I’ve compiled a list of comics published by DC and its various imprints that I’ve repeatedly seen mentioned on various best-of lists, videos and posts, such that they may be considered to be the best, universally acclaimed, important or influential, good for new readers, or just frequently mentioned as people’s personal favorites. Looking over the list, it’s astonishing to see just how many of the considered-to-be-best comics ever DC alone has been responsible for. Hopefully, this list will be helpful to those looking for something good to read.
If the comic is available on DC Universe, I’ve provided a link to the page. Otherwise, the link goes to Comic Vine. Please let me know if you think any title shouldn’t be on this list, or if I’ve left any off that should have been included. I’m sure it’s woefully incomplete.
DC
All-Star Superman
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
Batman: Hush
Batman: The Court of Owls
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: The Long Halloween
Batman: Year One
Crisis on Infinite Earths
DC: The New Frontier
Gotham Central
Hitman
Kingdom Come
Mister Miracle (2017)
The New Teen Titans (Wolfman/Pérez run)
Starman (1994)
Superman: Red Son
V for Vendetta
Watchmen
DC/Vertigo
Animal Man (Grant Morrison’s run)
Doom Patrol (Grant Morrison’s run)
The Sandman (1989)
Swamp Thing (Alan Moore’s run)
Vertigo
Astro City
Daytripper
Fables
A History of Violence
Preacher
Road to Perdition
Transmetropolitan
The Unwritten
Y: The Last Man
Wildstorm
The Authority
Ex Machina
Planetary
America’s Best Comics
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Promethea
Terra Obscura
Tom Strong
Top 10
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I think they’re saying it because of how important it is to the dc multiverse, I thought the story was ok but I can see why it’s so important to dc
Very hard question, but if pushed I would say The Great Darkness Rising Darkseid/Legion storyline is my fav-but also have love for Zero Hour, The Dark Phoenix Saga, Death in the Family, Death of Daredevil…could go on for hours
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Almost everything good is listed at this point. I like some stuff (that most consider “okay”) because of the way I personally relate to the work (Azrael by O’Neil) so I don’t recommend those titles, but universal acclaim… I have to recommend The Great Darkness Saga.
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For an actual “in book” run (aka not a mini or maxi series) no doubt that “The Great Darkness Saga” tops my list.
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Worst DC/Marvel/Other
All Star Batman and Robin: The Boy Wonder
Heroes in Crisis
New 52 Superman
Dark Knight Strike Again
Identity Crisis
Superman by Bendis
Border Town
Spider Man: One More Day
Spider Man: Sins Past
The Ultimates: The issue were Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver have sex in the forest
Marvel: Heroes Reborn
Marville
The Life of Captain Marvel
Best DC/Marvel/Other
Watchmen
Saga of the Swamp Thing
Kingdom Come
The New Frountier
Mister Miracle
The Sandman
Black Orchid
Walking Dead
Doom Patrol by Grant Morrison
Animal Man by Grant Morrison
Spider Man: Life Story
Saga
Hellboy
Umbrella Acadamy
Batman by Scott Snyder
The New Teen Titans
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
Wonder Woman by George Perz
Superman by Peter J Tomasi
Whatever Happened to the Man of Tommorrow
V for Vendetta
Dark Knight Returns
Batman The Black Mirror
Superman: Peace on Earth
All Star Superman
The Long Halloween
American Vampire
Y the Last Man
Invincible
The Infinity Gauntlet
Planet/World War Hulk
Thor by Jason Aaron
Captain America by Ed Brubaker
Ms Marvel by Willow Wilson
Spider Man Blue
Daredevil Yellow
Daredevil by Frank Miller
Daredevil by Bendis
The Vision
Hawkeye by Matt Fraction
Immortal Hulk
Planetary
The Flash by Mark Waid
Marvels
Promethia
For The Man Who Has Everything
Fun Home
30 Days of Night
Perceplois
Best Comic Marvel: Spider Man: Life Story
Worst Comic Marvel: Spider Man Sins Past
Best Comic DC: The Sandman
Worst Comic DC: Heroes in Crisis
Best Other: Tie between Saga and Invincible
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I can only comment on what I’ve read.
For DC:
As a series, my favorite is probably DC’s The Shadow Strikes.
“Shaman”, the first arc of Legends of the Dark Knight, is severely underrated.
Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern: Rebirth is the only GL I’ve read but I thought it was great.
Batman: TDKR, Year One, Gotham by Gaslight.
Most of the Wolfman/Perez run of New Teen Titans
And I love the pulpy early Batman stories. Matt Wagner’s retellings of The Monster Men and The Mad Monk are pretty cool, too.
For Marvel, I enjoy Claremont’s run on X-Men/Wolverine (with Miller for that last one).
I also loved their Savage Sword of Conan.
The first volume of Ms. Marvel took me by surprise in how much I loved it.
Outside of the big two, I love Hellboy, The Amazing Screw-On Head (let’s just say almost anything by Mignola, he’s one of my favorite artists), as well as Dave Stevens’ Rocketeer and Steve Purcell’s Sam and Max. Dark Horse also put out some damned good Star Wars comics in the 90’s- my favorites were the Rogue Squadron ones.
For those I’m less hot on, I feel like I’m somehow a dummy for saying it, but I’ve yet to fall in love with anything Grant Morrison (I’ve only read a bit of his Batman work- AA, Gothic, and his longer run from this century) or Alan Moore (I’ve read Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and Killing Joke) wrote. There’s usually aspects I like but it always feels like they’re trying too hard to please a nonexistent audience of people that turn up their nose at comics. On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve enjoyed anything I’ve read that Jim Starlin has written for DC or Marvel.
Also, Ultimatum was such a disaster I didn’t read Marvel again for about five years.
It varies a bit but:
Best short story: Last Daughters
Best event: New Krypton
Best elseworld: Gotham City Garage
Best childrens book: Out of the Bottle
Best moment: Kara’s takedown of the anti-monitor in Into the Silent Night
Best dialogue: Should old aqcuiantance be forgot.
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batman grant morrison
batman doa
batman superman worlds finest
worlds finest
batman legends of the dark knight masks
batman last knight on earth
superman batman
and dark knight returns and under the red hood are the best movies
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For me, Sean Murphy and his White Knight series, have just been an absolute blast. Sadly I doubt I’ll ever get his autograph on any of what I have of his cause I just cant afford to chase him down at the comic cons he attends.
If i was bleeding cash endlessly, I’d go to everyone he is at until I had his signature on everyone of my comics of his. An then I would chase down the other artists.
Death Metal is tied among my faves, then DCeased, DC VS Vampires, and pew pew pew
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Valerian and Laureline in general and consider it to be Science fiction masterpiece.
I don’t think I could call one dc comic the best thing ever. I have favorites and think their have been exceptional and fantastic DC books released both canonized or their own thing like Watchmen. It ain’t impossible but I’m thinking of a consensus not favorites you know.
It also sucks for me because when writing this I was trying to consider books written by female writers here. Not because their is no good female writers who written great DC books, but thinking critically about it, I don’t think DC has a book considered greatest of all time written by a woman yet . Unfortunately we don’t have someone like Marjorie Liu working for the publisher.
If I have to pick, I guess it would be Alex Ross’s Shazam "Power of Hope. Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman and Scott Synder’s Batman: Black Mirror storyline.
For comics about heroes, what comes to mind are JLA by grant morrison and JSA by geoff johns and coincidentally, JLA and JSA came out around the same time period.
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