Top Comic Book Runs: 80-76

You voted, and now, after over 1,050 ballots were cast (but less than 1,100 ballots), here are the results of your votes for your favorite comic book creator runs of all-time (this is the FIFTH time we’ve done this countdown. We’re on an every four-year schedule)! I’ll post the installments more or less daily through the middle of December!

To recap, you all sent in ballots ranking your favorite runs from #1 (10 points) to #10 (1 point). I added up all the points and here we are!

80. Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo – 132 points (8 first place votes)

Usagi Yojimbo #1-38 (Fantagraphics), #1-16 (Mirage), #1-172 (Dark Horse), #1-current (IDW)

Usagi Yojimbo is the brainchild of Stan Sakai, who uses his anthropomorphic bunny character to tell brilliant stories about Japan, specifically its history and its folklore. It stars an anthropomorphic rabbit named Miyamoto Usagi (“Yojimbo” loosely translates to “bodyguard,” as Usagi often sells his services as a mercenary as a bodyguard. Due to Usagi’s appearances on the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series, a whole generation likely thinks that the character’s name IS Usagi Yojimbo. It is not).

The series is for all-ages, and it is one of the few works that is truly all ages, as everyone can appreciate Sakai’s detailed artwork, and the stories are educational to readers from 8 to 88 (at 89, you stop liking Usagi Yojimbo, I am afraid).

The series was such a fascinating and informative look into Japanese history and culture that it actually won a special Parent’s Choice Award in 1990 as a celebration of how educational Sakai’s work was.

There is a lot of action, but for the most part, the book is character-based. You easily become invested in the main character, and, of course, all of the fascinating pieces of Japanese history.

After many years at Dark Horse, Sakai took the book to IDW, doing the book in color for a change, but he has since returned to Dark Horse.

79. Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers – 133 points (3 first place votes)

Avengers #500-503, New Avengers #1-64, Mighty Avengers #1-20, Dark Avengers #1-16, Avengers (Volume 4) #1-34, New Avengers (Volume 2) #1-34, Avengers Assemble #1-8, countless mini-series, one-shots and crossovers

One of the fascinating aspects of Brian Michael Bendis’ eight-year run on the Avengers franchise is how much he “put the pieces back together” before he left. Among the many changes he made to characters, almost all of them were reversed by the time he finished his run.

Instead, when Bendis left the titles, it was mostly his ADDITIONS that will be remembered, like the way that he transformed one of Marvel’s mid-level books into the biggest franchise in the entire company. It is fitting, then, that he left after getting to see the Avengers become one of the biggest comic book movie successes ever, something that would have seemed quite unlikely when he took over the book in 2004.

Bendis essentially blew up the original Avengers with the “Avengers Disassembled” storyline, in which the Scarlet Witch went insane, and attacked her fellow teammates (killing the Vision, Ant-Man, and Hawkeye in the process). The Avengers’ mansion was left in ruins, and the team disbanded in the wake of the tragedy. When the team returned, things were way out of their comfort zone, as Bendis replaced the previous roster with a new team that basically put together the most popular Marvel characters all on one team – Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man and Wolverine, evoking a sort of Marvel approach to the classic “Big Seven” Justice League of America. Sentry, Luke Cage and Spider-Woman rounded out the roster and those last three saw their profiles significantly increased, especially Luke Cage, who Bendis clearly had a special affinity for. The Sentry had been intended as a one-off character, but Bendis brought him into the Marvel Universe as a regular fixture (and hilariously had Sentry’s creator, Paul Jenkins, actually guest-star in the story that brought the Sentry into the fold).

One of Bendis’ major additions to the book was the introduction of the Illuminati, a group of the top Marvel minds (Mr. Fantastic, Iron Man, Professor X, Black Bolt, Namor, Doctor Strange, and then Black Panther) who would meet to help shape the Marvel Universe (this was a retcon, with the big reveal being that the Illuminati HAD been meeting together regularly for years, and helped to shape a number of major Marvel events from behind the scenes)…

That was what Bendis’ Avengers run did. In a nutshell, it shaped the Marvel Universe. Pretty much every major Marvel crossover over the course of his Avengers run centered on the Avengers and Bendis himself wrote many of them (House of M, Secret Invasion, Siege and Avengers versus X-Men). And the ones he didn’t write himself he played a role in shaping (Civil War and Fear Itself).

As the Marvel Universe changed, so, too, did Bendis’ Avengers. After Civil War, which was, of course, based on Iron Man and Captain America leading forces of superheroes against each other over the government getting involved in policing superheroes, Bendis split the Avengers into the Mighty Avengers (the “official” government-sponsored team) and the New Avengers (the rogue team that refused to become “sanctioned” superheroes with the government as part of the Superhuman Registration Act). After Secret Invasion, Bendis saw the Dark Reign come over the Marvel Universe as Norman Osborn rose to power (Bendis would often write one-shot comics tying in to these major turns of events in the comics). Bendis then had Osborn lead the Dark Avengers and hunt down the New Avengers. After Siege, the age of heroes returned and Bendis celebrated with the return of the flagship Avengers title. However, the New Avengers stuck around for more ground-level heroics. Then he launched Avengers Assemble, designed to tie-in with the movie franchise.

Along the way, Bendis has worked with some of Marvel’s hottest artists. David Finch launched the run with him, then Steve McNiven took over, then Frank Cho (who launched Mighty Avengers) and then Mike Deodato. Deodato later launched Dark Avengers and then started drawing New Avengers, as well. Leinil Francis Yu, Stuart Immonen and John Romita Jr. were the other major artists on the main books, but Bendis worked with many other artists on short arcs or in the tie-in miniseries. Greats like Alan Davis, Howard Chaykin, Walter Simonson, Olivier Coipel, it was like a Who’s Who of great comic book artists.

When Bendis’ run came to an end, he left an indelible mark on the entire Marvel Universe. Not something many creators can truly say.

78. John Layman and Rob Guillory’s Chew – 144 points (1 first place vote)

Chew #1-60

Chew is the story of Tony Chu and his various friends and family members. Who’s Tony Chu, you ask? Well, here you go…

In the marvelously strange world that Layman and Guillory created, there are often pages just like that one, as they introduce a new character who has a similar food-related skill. In the Chew universe, the most powerful government agency is the FDA.

Chu’s power usage takes a turn for the surreal in the first issue, as he has to bite a piece of a bad guy to learn about his crimes.

Chu began to work for the FDA and, while solving crimes he also gets caught up in a variety of increasingly outlandish conspiracies.

As you can see from the above page, the highlight of Chew WAS the inventiveness of both Layman and Guillory, as they were always coming up with bold (and often strange) new ideas (and Guillory would also sneak so many cool easter eggs into issues). However, along the way, they also did a wonderful job developing the various supporting cast members that they introduced over the years. By the end of the series, they could easily go through multiple issues without even having Tony in the book and the title was still working. I mean, come on, Agent Poyo alone is worth the price of admission (Agent Poyo was a cyborg kung-fu expert fighting cock who worked for the FDA).

What was really perhaps most impressive was how well the conspiracy angle ended up paying off in the series. That’s hard to do and Layman and Guillory managed to pull it off.

77. Roy Thomas’ initial run on Conan – 145 points (2 first place votes)

Conan the Barbarian #1-115 and Savage Sword of Conan #1-79

Roy Thomas was always a fan of Robert Howard’s sword and sorcery character, Conan, and he fought long and hard to get Marvel to approve of doing a licensed series based on the character. However, Marvel was not willing to spend the top dollar it would have required to have John Buscema draw it, despite this being Buscema’s ideal character to draw (Buscema was so much more interested in sword and sorcery style books that he would literally draw those types of characters on the backs of the pages of the superhero stories that he was forced to draw since those were Marvel’s bread and butter). So, instead, Thomas was “stuck” with a young, up-and-coming artist named Barry Windsor-Smith, and the resulting series was a stunning success for Marvel, as after a bit of a slow start, Conan the Barbarian soon became one of Marvel’s most popular titles (and since Marvel’s deal licensing the character gave them certain rights to the use the character in merchandise, Conan soon became one of the most prominent Marvel characters throughout Marvel’s calendars, posters, stickers, and anything in that realm).

Smith’s detailed artwork and Thomas’ brilliant adaptations of Howard stories (plus new stories inspired by the Howard settings) were a wonderful team.

Two years in, they also introduced an amazing new addition to the Conan mythos, Red Sonja…

When Smith eventually left the series, the book was now popular enough that Thomas was able to bring Buscema in and the two worked together on a number of excellent Conan stories. Conan was essentially Thomas’ baby for years. It was sort of his corner of the Marvel publishing empire. He stayed on it until he left Marvel entirely at the start of the 1980s. He later returned to the book in the 1990s for another run that, while well-regarded, wasn’t quite AS well-regarded as his original run on the series.

76. Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima’s Lone Wolf and Cub – 148 points (2 first place votes)

Lone Wolf & Cub Vols. 1-28

Lone Wolf & Cub (or as it was originally known in Japan, Kozure ÅŒkami) was a straightforward tale.

Ogami Itto’s wife and most of his family was murdered by the Yagyu clan so, along with his young son (the only survivor), Daigoro, he must gain his revenge upon the Yagyu clan, and its evil leader, Yagyu Retsudo. And along the way, hilarity ensues.

So, with such a straightforward tale, for it to be so acclaimed, you know that the story and the art must be great, and it really is.

The late, great Goseki Kojima’s artwork was an inspiration to many artists, with Frank Miller probably being the most notable artist to express a specific influence in his work (and think about it, if you inspired Frank Miller’s style, think of all the artists who were then inspired by Miller, so it’s like a snowball effect of influence…), and his depictions of the stark reality of violence was stunning.

Kazuo Koike’s story was quite impressive, especially the way he shows how evil the circle of violence between the two clans is, leading to the memorable conclusion to the series (which lasted six years, between 1970 and 1976).