You voted and now we continue our countdown of your votes for the top comic book one shots and "done in one" stories!
Enjoy!
20. "Roulette" Daredevil #191 (1982)
Frank Miller finished out his legendary Daredevil run with this one-shot issue (with Terry Austin filling in for Klaus Janson) that featured Daredevil confronting the paralyzed Bullseye following their fight in Daredevil #181 (where Bullseye murdered Elektra and then fell off a telephone wire and refused to allow Daredevil to rescue him). Daredevil tortures the villain by playing Russian Roulette with him.
Along the way, Daredevil tells him a tragic story involving a young boy stripped of his innocence...
It's bleak and unsettling with just the right amount of hope mixed in there. It was a perfect way for Miller to say goodbye to the character.
19. "Second Genesis" Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975)
While Miller was saying goodbye to Daredevil, in this issue, we said hello to the All-New, All-Different X-Men! Len Wein and Dave Cockrum (with a little help from Chris Claremont) introduce a brand-new international team of X-Men and after giving each of the new heroes a great introduction (even Wolverine, who had already been introduced by Wein in his Incredible Hulk run), they were thrown right into battle...
This is the comic that ultimately saved the X-Men as a franchise.
18. "Even an Android Can Cry" Avengers #58 (1968)
After being introduced as a villain in the previous issue, the Vision turned on his master, Ultron, and sided with the Avengers. Now, an issue later, the heroes gathered together to determine whether the Vision should be allowed to join the Avengers (Roy Thomas, John Buscema and George Klein were the creative team for the story).
After a quick rundown of the Vision's own story...
The Avengers told other stories about the past of the team until they ultimately decide to let the Vision join and he shocks the reader by showing more emotion than expected...
The Vision and his pursuit of human emotion made for a great journey in the Avengers.
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17. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Sandman #19 (1990)
In this classic tale by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, we learn that Morpheus (Dream) has cut a deal with William Shakespeare. Dream will make sure that his plays will be forever remembered but in exchange, Shakespeare will write two plays about dreams for him. Shakespeare unveils the debut of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in a field in England and the audience turns out to be actual faeries, including those who the play is written about!
As you might expect, Puck causes some mischief. It is a beautiful testament to the power of story.
16. "X-Aminations" X-Factor #87 (1992)
In this classic one-shot by Peter David, Joe Quesada and Al Milgrom, the X-Factor team are sent to go see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist is not revealed until the end of the comic (but come on, there's, like, two psychiatrists in the entire Marvel Universe and one of them happened to be appearing in another comic book that Peter David was writing at the time, so come on), but the issue introduces more insights into the characters that you could shake a stick at (why you would want to shake a stick at them is beyond me, but you know what I mean).
The most famous exchange is when Peter David defines Quicksilver so well that this very scene has been homaged (or just flat out stolen) a number of times since to describe super fast characters...
It's a shame that the David/Quesada run was so short. They did a lot of good stuff together while they were both on the series.