Today, we continue our countdown of your picks for the greatest comic book storylines of all-time with #60-57.
You voted (over 1,000 ballots cast and a little bit more than the last time we did this countdown) and you all sent in ballots ranking your favorite storylines from #1 (10 points) to #10 (1 point). I added up all of the points and here we are!
60. "House of M" by Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel and Tim Townsend (House of M #1-8) - 184 points (1 first place vote)
After the effects of Avengers: Disassembled, Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, is being held by her father, Magneto, in the ruins of Genosha. Naturally, someone who just, well, you know, disassembled the Avengers (by way of killing off a few of them and destroying their home) was considered way too dangerous to just let the former leader of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants decide what to do with her, so the newly re-formed Avengers and the all-old, no longer different X-Men got together and decided to hash out a plan to deal with Wanda.
Some of the group felt that with someone this powerful and this unhinged, perhaps death was the only option. Most of the others disagreed vehemently. However, when news of their arrival in Genosha spread to Wanda's family, she was pushed to warp reality once again.
This time, she changed the world so that rather than being persecuted, mutants were the ruling class of Earth, and Magneto was effectively the King of the United States. "The House of M" was literally The House of Magnus - the Royal Family, if you would.
What was particularly shocking was that, for a lot of people, this reality was a lot better than their old reality. Ms. Marvel was known as Captain Marvel, and she was really well-respected (that never could happen, right?). Wolverine was the Head of SHIELD. Spider-Man was a famous celebrity with a beautiful wife named Gwen.
However, due to his memory issues being fixed, Wolverine remembers everything...even the past reality! So he slowly gets the gang back together again (and he learns that there is a Homo Sapien Resistance Movement, so it's not like EVERYone is happier in this reality) and they take the fight to Magneto.
It is during this battle that Wanda freaks out once again and decides to "solve" the problem by eliminating ALL mutants in the world - only Doctor Strange's magical powers kept a certain amount of mutants still mutants.
Olivier Coipel's artwork in this series is amazing.
This was Brian Michael Bendis' first major company-wide crossover, and it set the tone and style of the crossovers that followed (including the whole "mini-series to tie in rather than tying in the ongoing titles" - I believe this was the first time this particular approach was taken with a company-wide crossover).
59. "Runaways Volume 1" by Brian K. Vaughan, Adrian Alphona, Craig Yeung, Takeshi Miyazawa, David Nebold and Christina Strain (Runaways #1-18) – 186 points (4 first place votes)
Along with penciler Adrian Alphona, inkers David Newbold and Craig Yeung and colorist Christina Strain, Brian K. Vaughan introduced a fascinating group of young heroes. The heroes of the Runaways are all the sons and daughters of a group of Los Angeles-based super criminals known as the Pride (their kids don’t know this, of course). The parents get together once a year (ostensibly for a charity event) and when they do, their kids awkwardly hang out with each other. This year, though, they discover their parents murdering an innocent girl as part of a yearly sacrifice to some ancient gods. The kids go on the run (hence Runaways), each taking with them some aspect of their parents’ abilities (for one, futuristic technology, for another, alien abilities, for another, mutant powers, for another, magic powers and for another, a sharp tactical mind). They decided to band together to take their parents down and perhaps do a little good as well along the way. Here we see them choose their new names…
Vaughan is masterful at developing interesting personalities very quickly and by the end of the series, we have grown to know and love these characters. Oh wait, did I say “know,” well, that turns out to be a bit of a stretch as the final storyline reveals that one of the Runaways is not all together, well, non-evil.
The final conflict is brutally bittersweet.
The artwork, as you can see, is gorgeous.
58. "Brief Lives" by Neil Gaiman, Jill Thompson, Vince Locke and Dick Giordano (Sandman #41-49) - 189 points (2 first place votes)
In "Brief Lives," Morpheus (Dream of the Endless) is at a bit of a crossroads in his life. He has just had a bad break-up with the witch Thessaily and he (and his Dream Kingdom) is feeling the ill effects. Into this strange point in his life comes his sister, Delirium of the Endless (the Endless are a group of brothers and sisters who embody powerful aspects of the universe – the others are Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair and Destruction). Delirium wishes to track down their brother, Destruction, who disappeared 300 years ago. Perhaps touched by his sister’s frustrations, perhaps just looking for something to occupy his time, Dream agrees to go on this journey.
The pair then travel through the waking world in a series of interesting adventures while the people who know Destruction coincidentally seem to end up dead (or IS it a coincidence?). Here’s a fascinating sequence where Dream and Delirium fly on an airplane and encounter a young girl...
and Dream probably tells her TOO much truth...
The storyline is filled with great little vignettes like that. Gaiman had a remarkable run of excellent storylines on Sandman, didn’t he?
In the end, they do, in fact, discover their brother but they are surprised to learn what he has planned for his life. Their exchange with their brother leads to a dramatic change in Dream’s life, as he decides to try to undo something he felt was a mistake in his life (the not-quite-death of his son, Orpheus, whose story was told in the brilliant Sandman Special soon before this storyline was released).
57. “Confession” by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson and Will Blyberg (Kurt Busiek’s Astro City #4-9) – 191 points (4 first place votes)
Confession was a major departure for Kurt Busiek’s Astro City. Up until this point, the book was mostly high quality stories on the lighter side of superheroes – not “the lighter side” like humorous, but in the sense that they were more traditional superheroes – the Supermans and the Fantastic Fours of the world. The bright kind of heroes.
In Confession, Busiek and artist Brent Anderson turn their eye to the dark side of Astro City- the dark alleys and the people who inhabit the night.
It is here that we meet Brian Kinney, a young man who longs to be a superhero. Before too long, he is the sidekick to the Batman analogue, The Confessor, and Kinney becomes his sidekick...
known as Altar Boy...
Throughout the rest of the arc, we see Brian grow as a hero but also see that there is something seriously messed up with The Confessor’s origin story – what it is is the major twist of the story.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot else going on, as there is, with a superhero registration act debate and heroes seemingly acting as villains, this is a packed storyline, but one that, like all of Busiek’s Astro City stories, is based on the complex personalities of the characters involved.