Favorite One Issue Stories

General Discussion Comic Books
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Be sure to let us know what it was!

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22

Nightwing (1996) #25.

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@wilkinswontkins YES!!! That’s it. Thank u. Batman is where I got stuck. I swore it was a Batman title. Awesome job, thanks everybody.

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@wilkinswontkins got it. It was a Nightwing title.

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25

That’s the one I was thinking as well, but I couldn’t find it. Thanks for hunting it down.

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26

Man! You had me looking in all the wrong places. I was google searching Detective Comics “boys.” I was starting to bump into some weird stuff.

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HaHa :joy: my bad. I swore it was boys night out or the boys. That would’ve been a bad one for @ZatannaAndHerSpells’ describe a character poorly thread.

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@capo-mage If the FBI knocks on my door later you better be willing to back me up!

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I gotcha. Delete cookies & history. Then we’ll go to the shredder if necessary.

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So it was Nightwing 25?

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31

Yep. Sure was.

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JMS and Cliff Chiang’s Brave and the Bold 33. Only issue of the JMS run that needs to be read. And if you have no idea what happens, I won’t spoil, just add it to your reading list.

It’s also one of my few purchases from the past decade that actually has resale value. With good reason, my jaw dropped when I read it.

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33

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34

Nightwing 25 (by Chuck Dixon) has Dick and Tim running across a train together. Dick is training Tim. They’re blindfolded. Great issue! Chuck Dixon references this train top training bit in Nightwing Year One with Dick and Jason too. :slight_smile:

My favorite single issue is probably Birds of Prey 8 by Chuck Dixon, although I also love Batgirl 0 by Gail Simone.

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35

BOP #8 is amazing. Blanked on that one. Dixon’s art took me a minute to get used to. Loved it ever since. (2 separate thoughts), love Simone’s work on BOP & anything else I’ve ever read. Love her Secret Six & Wildstorm contributions.

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36

Some single-issue DC comics that come to mind are mostly new ones.

  • A recent Tom King Batman Annual had Alfred describing a week in Batman’s life, a story which served as a concise, entertaining description of the variety of styles of Batman stories. It was very different from so many Batman stories I have read. I believe it was this one…

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  • The Year of the Villain had a pretty nice Sinestro one-shot by Mark Russell. You don’t really have to know or care about the Year of the Villain. That stuff is mostly background and not necessary to understand to appreciate the story.

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  • One I do remember from days gone by is an issue of The Invisibles that just shakes me to the core every time I read it. In the first story arc of The Invisibles, one of the characters is rescued from the clutches of the villainous organization in a special-ops-style raid. Many of the organizations’ flunkies were killed, of course, which didn’t cause me as a reader to even blink. The Invisibles #12 tells the story of one of those flunkies in the moment that his life flashes before his eyes in the moment of his death. The glee I felt at the badassery of King Mob who easily dispatched the flunky in the earlier story arc was overcast with the revelation of the tragic, unsurmountable life of pathos that led this man to become a hired gun for an evil organization. One couldn’t help but think that if someone as easily dismissed as this character could have such an emotionally resonant story, do ALL background characters? This one is a doozy that works all by itself, even if you don’t love The Invisibles like I do.

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37

Okay, I’ve taken some time to think. Here are my favorite single issues (not all of these are technically one-shots, but they stand on their own pretty well):

-All-Star Superman 10
-Mister Miracle (TK/MG) 7
-Mister Miracle (JK) 18
-Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane 20
-Batman: Mad Love
-Selina’s Big Score
-Power Man and Iron Fist (DW/F) 5
-Amazing Spider-Man (SL/SD) 33
-Fantastic Four (SL/JK) 51
-Daredevil (FM) 191
-Superman Adventures (MM/AA) 27
-Saga of the Swamp Thing 21
-Multiversity: Pax Americana
-Young Avengers (KG/JM) 6
-Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man (CZ) 310
-Astro City 1/2
-Jughead 200
-Flash (MW/MW) 91
-Peter Parker: Spider-Man 33
-Superman: American Alien 3
-Superman vs. Muhammad Ali
-EVERY ISSUE OF CHASE
-Superman 156 (THE GREATEST SINGLE ISSUE OF ALL TIME)

There are a bunch more great single issues out there, but these are the ones I love the most. There are probably a good number of Bronze Age Batmans that I’ve forgotten about, for instance.

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I’m going to be honest; I’m not a fan of that issue. Without spoiling anything, the idea that Zatanna (ZATANNA!) and Wonder Woman (WONDER WOMAN!) can’t do anything to stop the… uh… thing just seems so contrived. And the level of emotional manipulation going on is almost unfathomable. It derives all of its emotional weight from making a comic that is insanely tragic as it is more tragic by making sure you know that two of the most powerful people in the DCU knew about it and chose not to do anything. But, eh, it’s not my bag. I don’t think it’s poorly crafted or anything. And, I will say, Cliff Chiang’s art is WONDERFUL.

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Although I’m a Tom King detractor, I have to admit I was very fond of the Elmer Fudd/Batman issue.

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40

Since I’ve mentioned how Rebirth #1 is my favorite single issue a few times already, I’ll throw in some of my other favs: