Great Comic Books in Pop Culture History
I've done some of my own "best of" lists.
I normally review historical nonfiction here, often on serious themes. But I am not a historian—I’m just trying to teach myself as much as possible and share some book recommendations along the way.
In my other life, I write novels—specifically superhero novels at the moment. On my own Substack, I focus on pop culture matters, primarily from the writing perspective. Naturally, superheroes receive extra emphasis.
God of the Desert Books has featured some solid “best of” music lists in recent weeks, but allow me to turn your attention over to some “best of” comic book lists I’ve compiled.
My comic book reading experience spans over thirty years, and recently I’ve been following a website called The Complete Marvel Reading Order. They’ve done a great job of sorting decades’ worth of Marvel Comics into a workable reading order. It’s not an overall continuity order—you won’t find a flashback comic from 1992 right after a comic that came out in 1967, for example. Rather, storylines are grouped together, and the crossovers line up as much as possible. So, if Spider-Man guest-stars in an issue of Daredevil, it won’t appear right after a major cliffhanger in The Amazing Spider-Man.
I’m not reading through every last title, as there’s no way I’d ever finish. But it’s been fun to observe how the medium has evolved through the years, and also interesting to observe how changing social norms are reflected in comics of different eras.
I’ve also been thinking about which comics hold up as the best of their respective eras—and, more importantly, why they hold up. And, just for fun, I’ve decided to rank the best of each five-year increment of Marvel stories.
In the reading order, I’m currently up to comics that came out in 1984 and 1985, and I want to start something similar with DC soon. (I’ve never been a partisan when it comes to Marvel vs. DC—I love both.)
Let me know what your favorite comics of these eras are. What great books did I overlook? (Something, no doubt. 1976-1980 was the most competitive yet.) And which do you prefer: Marvel or DC? Or a different publisher altogether?
Good comic books are part of a balanced reading diet.