While I am with you loving all of Geoff Johns' recent stuff, the best run of any comic for me is his run on The Flash. It's really where he came into his own as the master of turning b characters into A characters that you really care about.

Johns' run on Avengers was also really good. He had me caring about Jack of Hearts, Scott Lang (Antman) and Triathlon and that takes some doing.

Other great runs that spring to mind are Dan Jurgens on Thor, Greg Pak's Planet Hulk, Greg Rucka's brief run on Wolverine, Peter David's X-Factor, Bill Willingham's run on Robin, Mark Waid on Legion of Superheroes and any of the Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale Batman stuff.

I may be the target of adoration or hate here, but I believe that Geoff Johns on Green Lantern is one of the greatest, most original, and most refreshing runs on comic in recent history.

And if you want something outside of the realm of superheroes, I can't recommend Sandman highly enough, it is the pinnacle of what the medium can be. Or for something that stays within the realm of capes and tights but pushes it a bit further check out Srazynski's (sp?) awesome Rising Stars or Busiek's Astro City.

Claremont & Byrne on Uncanny X-Men, the modern benchmark
Geoff Johns on his first run on JSA, the new incarnation is not near as good.
Morrison on JLA is excellent! Final Crisis was much better the first time I read it when it was called Rock Of Ages.
Mark Gruenwald on Captain America, from about the end of "acts of vengeance" to right before Cap-Wolf.
Wolfman and Perez on New Teen Titans, solid.

I disagree with many of the suggestions put forward, but to spare needless bickering I won't mention them.

Silver Age DC: Shooter (and mostly Swan) on the Legion stories. It's shocking to realize that these guys laid the groundwork for a HUGE number of future stories. You have a favorite recurring LSH villain? These guys almost certainly made the introduction. There have been many fun Legion members introduced by others, but these guys were the masters of the Legion Villain.

Oh definitely! While I totally hate hate hate stuff that he does now and his New Excalibur, New Exiles and basically everything he has done for Marvel since 1998 is junk for me (and sadly I'm not alone on this - and there is a reason why those books get cancelled), the Chris Claremont that returned to Marvel in 1998 is NOT the same Chris Claremont that left in 1991 and definitely NOT the same Christ Claremont that was writing the X-Men in the 80s and late 70s. Back than not only was he the guy who took one of Marvel's lowest selling titles, the X-Men (although it is laughable when you think that when it was turned into a reprint title in early 70s, it was because of low sales of... only about 195,000 monthly) and turned it into their biggest franchise, but also about anything he touched back then, was gold.


I second Geoff Johns on JSA. Also Peter David on X-Factor (back in the early 90s AND now - which reminds I haven't yet read this week's issue! and it was the book I was most looking forward this week) and most of all - Peter David on The Incredible Hulk! Whenever there was a time when the Hulk was truly Incredible, it was then. Peter David was quite simply THE MAN on them - and unlike Claremont, he still is.

Also, as others mentioned - def. Morrisson on JLA and Animal Man.

Now going back on my couch with X-Factor #40 - and no spoilers, Peter David would not want it that way!

Is there an exceptable issue count for this?

From what I have read:

Claremont/Byrne/Austin on Uncanny
Bendis/Bagley on Ult. Spider-Man
Bendis/Maleev on Daredevil
Ennis/Dillon on Punisher
Ellis/Immonen on NextWAVE
Bendis/Oeming on Powers
Glass/Oeming on Mice Templar
Johns on Green Lantern
Everyone on 52
Hama/Adam Kubert on Wolverine (my favorite run)
Kirkman/Adlard on The Walking Dead

Preacher- Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon

Peter Milligan and Mike Allred on X-Statix
Kirby's Fourth World
Garth Ennis' Punisher
Ellis and Robertson on Transmetropolitan

wow! I did mean only DC but marvel is okay!

if thats the case!

Millar/McNiven-Civil War & currently Old Man Logan!
Bendis/Various-New Avengers
Ellis/Deaoto-Thunderbolts
Jenkins/Lee-Inhumans,The Sentry
Morrison/Quitely,Various-New X-Men
Jim Shooter/Mike Zeck-Secret Wars

I would disagree with a lot of your Marvel nominations.

Old Man Logan and Civil War are enjoyable, but I don't consider a single story to be a "run".

New Avengers definitely gets the nod from me, but Bendis has been given free reign to do whatever he wants and use whatever characters he wants with no regard for continuity. That drives me a little crazy. And I don't always like his handling of some characters.

Lastly, I hardly consider Ellis/Deodato a "run" on Thunderbolts. The first 110 issues + specials were done by two writers and a handful of artists, so I barely count the 12 issues Ellis did or anything that has followed as a full run.

My list is -

Busiek/Bagley/Nicieza/Zircher/etc. - Thunderbolts #1-75 - amazingly well done. Kinda fell apart after #75 though.

Busiek/Perez/etc. - Avengers v3# 1-56 - Artwork lost quality after Perez left, but Busiek really crafted some great stories. The final arc with Kang was a real event. Better than Secret Invasion.

Mark Waid/Mike Wieringo/etc. - Fantastic Four #489-524 - They nailed it. Totally nailed it. Right from the first issue Waid made it obvious that he knew what to do with these characters. They're not superheroes - they're adventurers. Sue should be sexy. Johnny needs to grow up. It was all great. Wish they hadn't undone most of it following Civil War.

Bendis/Gaydos/etc. - Alias (full series) - So good that I wanted it to keep going, but Bendis knew he had written exactly what he wanted, and ended it before it got stale.

Bendis/Maleev/etc. - Daredevil #26-81 - Who cares about Daredevil when there's so much going on with Matt Murdock. Kingpin of Hell's Kitchen? Need I even say more?

Morrison/Porter/etc. - JLA #1-41 - I agree with whoever said earlier that Final Crisis was much better the first time Morrison did it, as Rock of Ages.

Kirkman/Ottley/etc. - Invincible #1-present - I sometimes feel like Kirkman is breaking stereotypes, but he's really just revamping them and presenting them in fresh, enjoyable new ways.

And finally, even though it doesn't really count as a "run" in my mind, I definitely want to mention Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier. My all-time favourite DC series.

I was a huge fan of George Perez when he WROTE Silver Surfer. I believe he wrote it for about 10 issues. Tom Grindberg did the pencils. One of the only artists I've ever seen that has actually made Surfer reflective instead of just a generic metallic look.

Ennis. Dillon.

You didn't actually read it, I wager. Just read about it online.