…I actually think Delano’s Hellblazer is one of my least favorite runs in that series…
But, to each their own. It’s not bad, I just wasn’t super into it. And, y’know, then Garth Ennis and Mike Carey blew my mind on it.
Would you like to start another Topic? Cause I’d like to see if other think the same. No One would argue with Ennis being amoung if not the best Constantine writer but I think most would agree Denise Mina was a waste of 12 issues… Open the topic and Tag me, we can talk about John all night! 
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I didn’t think of New Frontier but that would definitely be a good introduction to a lot of the big name characters and that Cooke art is just so perfect. It had a huge impact on me when I was younger which fits what @KeyFamily said.
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Having Watchmen suggested early on when I was getting into comics nearly made me quit reading comics. It’s not a great thing to read early unless they’re a very specific kind of reader. It’s like Citizen Kane with films- it’s “great” in that it moved the medium forward a lot, but it’s a slog to actually get through and isn’t particularly exciting or entertaining.
It’s one of those cases where it collapses under its own hype and a lot of times it would be helpful for the person recommending it to let the reader know what they’re getting into.
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Kelly Jones knightfall…done!
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Listen, I appreciate your concern, but we’re both speaking anecdotally. I know what my friends are into and can handle and Watchmen has worked great. I was sharing my method, not the best one.
And once again, I don’t give it to them as the intro to comics, I give it to them as an intro to SUPERHEROS. There’s a stigma around all the main heroes and series and superheros in general that they’re shallow and surface level stories. If I hand someone with this bias a great Superman comic, they’re still gonna dismiss it because they have that stigma which is hard to ignore. So if I hand them a comic like Watchmen, a superhero comic full of great writing and incredible art and depth, which isn’t as huge brand outside of comic fans; they’re far more likely to give the superhero concept a chance.
But, as I’ve already stated and can’t stress enough, this is after introducing them to great comics that aren’t related to superheros. This isn’t their introduction to comics.
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That’s fair, and like all art it’s subjective, but my chief criticism of Watchmen is that it doesn’t really offer what’s advertised- the great writing (I found it to be overwritten, something I tend to find is just something you can’t avoid with Moore) or art (Gibbons is serviceable but I think the 9-panel formatting limited what he could do and I didn’t find his art to have the energy I see from someone like George Perez, but it’s dreary art to match a dreary narrative, I suppose).
It’s a 35 year old comic with baggage from the hype it’s built up and for a lot of new readers today the Cold War setting is something that’s going to make it feel quaint and dated (it did for me; I was born in 1988 and don’t remember the era at all). There are readers today too young to remember 9/11 let alone the Reagan era.
I feel like in the decades since there are better, less immediately dated ways to bridge people that aren’t initially interested in capes to Superhero comics. The Umbrella Academy, for example.
While events are limited to their decade, emotions are timeless. We can all sympathize and engage with the same emotions and certainly still need to address many of the same issues presented for the era. As far as the art being limited by the 9 panel lay out, I wholeheartedly disagree. I’m not trying to steer this thread away from the intended purpose, but I’ll just briefly say that the 9 panel layout is ingenious in the way it paces the comic and it can only be presented in this way through the format of comics. The art is perfectly accented with the color spectrum choices and I think overall is a phenomenal. There’s a great video essay by KaptainKristian on the subject which I encourage you to check out. Anyways, enough of my Watchmen gabbing. I feel like I’ve kind of defended my points all I really need to. I appreciate your perspectives and do think options such as Umbrella Academy are good too. We’ll probably just need to agree to disagree on this one! 
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I guess it depends. I would tend to lean towards less modern comics (Aka…we’ve g u tat be dark and gritty fuzz…you know…we are serious) and more towards the fun and fantastical.
If they are into SciFi and/or fantasy, I’d go with Camelot 3000.
If they like spectacle and mythology, Kirby’s New Gods.
If they want an intro to superhero comics, I’d give them The Great Darkness Saga. It’s superheroes but being so far in the future, it’s a bit insulating.
If they want the superhero crash course. Explain to them what a multiverse is and hand them Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Those are all classics that have stood the test of time and are also touchstones of various types of comics.
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