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Message: [QUOTE="Mr. Daddy, post: 143298, member: 250953"] [CENTER]Alright I think I've largely collected my thoughts for my top ten comics. I will be including a few comic strips here, because I like them enough that it would just feel wrong of me to leave them out or to include them in an honorable mention or something. [IMG size="1000x998"]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61ykEc8r-fL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg[/IMG] 10. Life in Hell: I have always been fascinated by works that are such pure looks into the minds of their creators, and I don't think anything represents that better for Matt Groening than Life in Hell does, or at least, did. I imagine he's likely grown and changed as a person since making this strip. This comic just oozes pure self-published comics rebellion. This strip can also give you some tonal whiplash, because one strip might just be some cute humor surrounding Bongo (the little rabbit guy in the middle), and the next would be a detailed analysis of everything Matt Groening thought was wrong with being an adult in the 80s, only to be followed up by a humorous argument between Akbar and Jeff (the guys on the far left and right) that in actuality was a thinly-veiled representation of some argument Groening had in real life. [IMG width="485px" size="900x1213"]https://www.metropoliscomics.com/coverimages/gallery/gre1.239a.jpg[/IMG] Golden Age Alan Scott: I can't really just pick one line when his stories are spread around a handful of different lines, but I am particularly talking about his stories in All-American Comics and Green Lantern Vol. 1. When I saw this man see that his powers couldn't work and have the absolute balls to decide to fist fight Solomon Grundy, I knew I likely had a new favorite on my hands. Alan Scott stories are particularly great for me from this era, because while he has a lot of the same appeal that Superman does, the underlying fact that without that ring he is just a relatively intelligent and practical person is brought up regularly, and I absolutely adore the degree to which he is just willing to give everything for the right cause, especially because he goes far, far beyond the level that most heroes are willing to go. [IMG size="1000x795"]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91JGJEP+gXL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg[/IMG] 8. Hagar the Horrible: I've always liked the idea of taking a humorous look at vikings in the medieval era, but I really tend to hate how most media tends to work with that concept. A lot of the time it just kind of boils down to "Teehee, look at how stupid these guys were!" and I think that's a really boring lens to look at that time period for the purposes of comedy. Hagar on the other hand, tries and succeeds to make viking, and by extension, medieval life relatable. It's easy to see yourself in the shoes of a lot of these characters, and just laugh with them and the situation, rather than just treating them like a bunch of moderately angry clowns. I've also always found Browne's art charming, and think it really enhances the likeability of everyone in his strip. [IMG size="1000x782"]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91Td3e0C01L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg[/IMG] 7. Golden and Silver Age Batman: I've always had an opinion that has always been a bit of a hot take, which I feel I should include here for some context on this. Usually when asked, I often tell people that I flat out do not like Batman. That's not entirely true though, otherwise this placement would really make no sense. What would be more accurate, but much less inflammatory and fun to say, would be to say that I don't really like post Tower of Babel Batman, or as I know he's called pretty regularly, Batgod. I have a few fundamental beliefs about Batman as a character that really hold me off from liking him in the vast majority of modern contexts. First, Batman ultimately is just a guy. An incredibly rich, intelligent, and skilled guy, but still just a guy. I've never really liked the direction of Batman having contingency plans for everything and being able to come up with anything he needs whenever he needs it just because he's Batman, fuck you. I actually think it takes a lot out of his character, because he doesn't really need to do any of the things that make him interesting if he just knows what could potentially be a problem and solves it before it ever even happens. How can a detective do detective things if he already solved the case before it even happened? I miss when a reasonable versus argument would have been Batman vs. Hourman, not Batman vs. Superman. The other core belief I have for him is something I know is just downright controversial at best, but it's also something I feel about most superheroes. Batman is an inherently silly character. The man's parents died in a genuinely tragic way when he was a child, and his actual reaction was to hold onto that for decades until a bat startles him, which inspires him to dress in a rubber bat suit and beat up thugs and mentally ill people, all the while recruiting the occasional orphan in his quest for unbridled and unfocused vengeance and theming every little thing he uses on bats. The man is a god damn cartoon, and even when I like the more serious stories, I just find it a little hard to take completely seriously. But, that's precisely why I love these eras for him so much, because they can't take him seriously half the time either and lean into it to just tell the silliest story they can come up with. Be it Batman going into children's story books, wearing a rainbow of suit colors for overly convoluted reasons, or just ripping off Superman with Bat-Mite, I think these comics are just pure entertainment with little to no substance, and I absolutely love them. Even then, there are still occasional stories that are also genuinely good detective/mystery stories, like pretty much any story involving the original Clayface, Basil Karlo. [IMG size="255x392"]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/53/Star_Wars_Republic_78.jpg[/IMG] 6. Star Wars: Republic: There's so much for me to say with this series that I don't even really properly know where to begin. Keeping this one brief because I really don't know how I would talk about it without spoiling some of the stories it connects with, I can say that this spans from around the time of The Phantom Menace until part of the way through Revenge of the Sith. The focus is largely on a variety of the auxiliary members of the Jedi Council, particularly Ki-Adi Mundi, as well as some of their Padawans. This run has a lot of solid stories and characters, and has great connections to other Star Wars comics and media. (To be continued after a bump, I have lots more to say about my top 5)[/CENTER] [/QUOTE]

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