I had a Smokey stuffed toy too and loved the heck out of that thing. As for the comic, I've never read it but can appreciate your feelings about it.

5. Showcase #22 (DC 1959)



Me and Green Lantern. Where do I start?


I guess it begins with the Super Powers figures. Growing up in the 1980s, I was exposed to comic book characters through virtually every possible medium other than comic books. The Superman movies were regularly playing on the network 8 o'clock movie slots, Adam West and Lynda Carter were rocking the weekend re-run slots, I grew up in licensed Batman and Superman PJs, learned to color in the DC superhero coloring books, watched the Saturday morning cartoons, and, of course, my most cherished toys of all were my DC Super Powers action figures.

Of all the superheroes, I alternated between loving Superman and Batman the best. Superman because he had more powers and just seemed to have it all figured out. Batman because he was a little more mysterious, had all those cool gadgets, and because he took a kid sidekick under his wing who reminded me a whole lot of myself. Yeah, I guess I was primarily a Batman fan.

But the Batman Super Powers figure wasn't very Batman:



Those huge, hulking muscles (borrowed from the Superman figure mold) didn't fit his style very well, and those colors were too soft. I knew Batman as being just a little more dark than this (at least visually), as well as a more slender agile figure who could eclipse his entire body beneath his moody cloak and disappear into the shadows.

So my four year old self, instead, found himself more drawn to a figure who had all of that -- a darker look, a more slender figure, and (in hindsight I realize) he actually looked like a cross between the Batman I knew and a fully grown version of Robin (the character with whom I identified):



So Green Lantern often became the hero of my action figure battles, essentially functioning as Batman, even though I knew absolutely nothing about him.


As time went on and I grew a little more literate, I one day started reading through the mini comics that had come with those Super Powers figures. I vividly recall reading this one:




In it, Green Lantern and Hawkman come to Robin's aid against the Penguin. This was where I first learned about Green Lantern's ring and his thoroughly astounding ability to transform his will into matter and energy. I'd loved the character's look previously, but now I loved the concept as well. I adored Green Lantern.

I've written here before about buying my first ever comic off the spinner racks at the age of five (Detective Comics #557) and finding the writing so prohibitive to a five year old, as well as the subject matter so dark and inaccessible to me, that I was turned off from comics for years after. What I always leave out though, was that I bought a second comic that day -- a Green Lantern Comic --, and that experience turned me off even more. I remember being profoundly disappointed that the dude on the cover (John Stewart) wasn't some impostor that Green Lantern was going to expose; he WAS Green Lantern. My guy had been replaced. It wasn't an issue of his skin color, mind you. It just wasn't the guy I knew. Weren't heroes supposed to be a sign of stability to kids?

When I finally got into comics in 1989, there was no Green Lantern comic. I was thrilled when the Emerald Dawn limited series hit stands and read avidly, but when we finally got an ongoing a while later, Hal Jordan (I now knew his name) wasn't the focus. I patiently waded through those first few issues waiting for him to get total control of the series, but when it shifted to Guy Gardner, I was done.

It was also around this time that DC released its Cosmic Cards series. Some of the cards, I believe, featured famous first appearances or something of the sort. I really don't remember, as I was neither a fan of the set nor too interested in DC's convoluted past history (which was evident even from the cards alone), but I took interest in this one:



I think it was the combination of the fact that the image was absolutely gorgeous, that there were no current Green Lantern comics to satiate my curiosity (and, as far as I could tell, hadn't been for quite some time), and that his history seemed less convoluted and violated than the rest. Whatever the case, I dreamed of owning this book. It mattered to me. Too realistic at the age of ten to be dreaming about an Action Comics #1 or Detective #27, Showcase #22 became my dream key issue, and it stayed that way until I finally obtained it fifteen years later.

Sadly, writers like Geoff Johns have since convinced me that the Green Lantern franchise is no longer for me. It would seem that the sly, rougish, yet well meaning hero with the quick wit and fantastic imagination was last seen around 1970. I missed him by a long shot when I started looking in 1985. Still, I feel what this book meant to me every time I see its image; it recalls to me all the feelings I had about this character at a tender young age that, due to lack of current stories in the late 1980s and early 1990s, went unsullied for far longer than most of my other heroes, who I saw go dark and brooding when I was still too young and impressionable to be able to relate.

I guess Showcase #22 represents for me the idealism and purity of childhood heroes in a way, as well as the vast imagination the character inspired in my young mind.

#5: Green Lantern #191




Much like shaxper's pick for today, mine is centered around my favorite comic book character of all time, Hal Jordan aka the Green Lantern. Sure there were other characters who I liked before Gl, like Spider-man and the X-Men when I first got into comics, but none of them really sucked me into the comics world like Hal Jordan did. Unlike Superman who was born with powers or Batman who was rich enough to buy everything he needed, Hal stumbled upon his powers through being worthy to wield them. I loved the cosmic mythos of the Green Lantern concept, the massive world building that writers had developed over the years. The reason Hal Jordan worked so well in those stories was that he was one of us, a human who had found himself suddenly working with aliens from worlds beyond. Not only that, but he was one of the best Green Lanterns of all! However, the reason that this story stands out to me is that Hal isn't even a Green Lantern in it. This was during one of the periods Hal had given up his ring and John Stewart was the main Green Lantern of Earth. However, Carol Ferris is kidnapped by the Predator and Hal must go rescue her. Steve Englehart really gets into Hal's head and gives us insight into who he is and his love for Carol. While many writers had previously toyed around with the Hal and Carol relationship, Englehart took into bold new directions, sometimes for the better and other times for the worse. However, even at its worst, he still did it in a fascinating way and this issue is a testament to his skill in character study.  

5. Ultimate Spider-Man #5
"Life Lessons" by Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, and Art Thibert
March, 2001 (Marvel)

On Day 5, we discussed how I got into Spider-Man back in 1992. Now let's talk about how he came to be my favorite character.

I continued to read Spider-Man pretty regularly. And I basically enjoyed it, though I'm not sure why. The Clone Saga was hard to keep up with, but I eventually did track it all down and one day read the entire 200+ issue saga. It had some excellent bits and some terrible bits; taken together it was a bit of a mess. After the Clone Saga was a couple years that nobody much remembers. The Slingers was the best thing to come out of those years.

And then it got bad. Like taught-me-that-comics-could-be-bad bad. Prior to 1998 Spider-Man comics, I broke comics into those I liked and those I failed to appreciate. It had not yet occurred to me that maybe the people producing this stuff sometimes made bad product. But the extended Gathering of Five/Final Chapter arc by Howard Mackie which brought the Spider-Man series to a close taught me that comics could be bad. Wait a minute? I asked. I'm supposed to believe that the lady who had kidnapped Peter's baby had actually kidnapped Aunt May? And that she entertained Aunt May with a baby rattle? And that Norman Osborn had hired an actress to play Aunt May and fake her death, and that this actress seemed to have surprisingly intimate knowledge of Peter's childhood. It was bad enough to take me out of the comics. Not bad enough to make me stop reading them, for some reason. That would come later, when Aunt May was dying again and I realized I couldn't invest in the emotional arc of an already-dead character dying.

Meanwhile, while the series was being terribly rebooted, the origin was getting a remake in Spider-Man: Chapter One by John Byrne. What a worthless comic that was. With such terrible art and writing. I never know what to do with Byrne when ranking Spider-Man artists. I think Byrne-who-drew-Marvel-Team-Up is one of the best Spider-Man artists of all time and Byrne-who-drew-Chapter-One is one of the worst. That they seem to be the same person can only be explained with clones. Or perhaps Skrulls.

So here I was, 8 years into reading Spider-Man, having read mostly not-good Spider-Man comics, but ones I enjoyed well enough, and having been most recently subjected to a year or so of terrible Spider-Man comics.

Along came Ultimate Spider-Man. As far as I could tell, another attempt at Spider-Man: Chapter One. In concept or summary, I could detect no difference. Chapter One had been terrible, and just ended not that long before. Why would I want to read it again?

Somehow, I picked up #1 anyway. And it was the best comic I had ever read. Suddenly, I knew why I had read Spider-Man for the last 8 years. Everything that seemed to be lurking at the edge of the stories I'd been reading, that potential I knew was there... finally laid out in front of me.

The first 5 issues basically retell in expanded format the 10 page original story from Amazing Fantasy #15. These also build up to issues 6-7, where Spider-Man fights Ultimate Green Goblin. I did not care for Ultimate Green Goblin or those issues. Then issues 8-12 are the Learning Curve story, one of my all-time favorite Kingpin stories, the best Kingpin/Spider-Man story, and one of the best Spider-Man stories ever. So many classic moments. Then issue 13, which I almost chose for this list, is the adorably cute single-issue story Confessions. As with Learning Curve, another top 25 Spider-Man story by my measure.

Back then I was going to the comic store every Wednesday to pick up my rather large pull list. The first thing I did was put the comics I got in the order I wanted to read them. And Ultimate Spider-Man went to the top every time for years to come. Probably my favorite series I ever followed monthly off the newsstands.

So why did I choose #5 to spotlight? As I alluded to, it was a close call.

In part because I wanted Amazing Fantasy #15 on this list. It was #1 on my original draft. But then came Cei-U's byzantine rules about having had to have actually read the original comic to include it. I've read every story from Amazing Fantasy 15 in one form or another, and the relevant story many times in many forms. But I've never held the issue in my hand.

So in some ways, this remake is a stand-in for what I consider my favorite comic story ever.

But it's also here because it offers something missing from the original story. A scene unshown which took place after Amazing Fantasy but before Amazing Spider-Man #1. A moment of decision.

In one of my single favorite pages in comic history, Spider-Man stands atop a rooftop reflecting on the recent events involving the burglar and his uncle. "You told me", he says aloud. He then flashes back to the key moments, to Uncle Ben's speech about moral obligation, to the shopkeeper who yelled at him for letting the burglar escape, to the moment he saw the face of Ben's killer. "Great things are going to happen to you. And with that will come great responsibility. Do you understand?" And a look of determination wells in Peter's eyes as he pulls on his mask, saying, "I do now."

I love that moment. The decision to learn from his mistakes and become a hero. When Peter takes to heart the great P&R speech from #4. “If there were things in this world that you have to offer, things that you can do better than anyone else... Things you can do that help people or make them feel better about themselves, then it’s not just a good idea to do those things. It’s your responsibility to do them.”

I would love to show you that page, but I don't know how to find it on the interwebs. And so this post will go pictureless. The only picture I can find is a cover of the issue. And Ultimate Spider-Man had terrible covers. Just like many Marvel comics of the era. There must have been some edict from on high to make all covers as generic and interchangeable as possible. And so a great series has boring and indistinguishable covers.

Stumbling back to 1989 where a junior high DubipR got his mind blown and scared of a comic....

Number 5
ARKHAM ASYLUM: A SERIOUS HOUSE ON SERIOUS EARTH



Year of Publication: October 1989
Written by: Grant Morrison
Drawn by: Dave McKean

Synopsis:  Batman is called to investigate at the infamous Arkham Asylum, that the inmates have taken over...literally.  Commissioner Gordon tells Batman, the inmates only want him and no one else.  The Joker has led the inmates in a weird danse macabre like party for Batman to play along with and see if he can escape.  As Batman goes deeper and deepe into Arkham, the history behind this institution's walls is revealed to the reader; how Amadeus Arkham killed his mother as she was slowly losing her mind, claiming a giant bat was terrorizing her.  As Batman goes deeper into the bowels, his actions have been eschewed and seeing how this place has treated his infamous villians; they don't look like how they appear to Batman.  Their faults are revealed and the readings of the personal diary of Dr. Arkham pretty much run parallel to Batman's world today.

Why This Is A Classic:  To me, this is the best Batman story ever told.  Dark Knight Returns, Year One and Killing Joke are great examples of Batman stories, but Morrison tapped into something no other Batman writer ever did, by tapping into the psyche of not only Batman but his villains.  The setting of Arkham plays a large role in how the inmates perceived their own insanity and how they deal with their own views of how other see them. Dave McKean's artwork show how grotesque some of these infamous baddies can be...  Harvey Dent's pretty much a quivering mass of confusion, Clayface is wasting away, the Joker growing increasingly more scarier because he feels so at home there.  McKean's artwork is striking, which was a such a break from the normalcy of what Batman books I was reading at the time.  I knew of McKean's artwork from Big Numbers but seeing him an iconic character was so head exploding good.  The page layouts were incredible; the color tone of the book is nothing short of a horror film. And Grant Morrison... this is why I flock to his books. He pushes the boundaries with every title he does.  This was so amazing to see at the age of 14... it was creepy, dark and so fascinating to read.  

    

I normally love McKean's artwork, especially his covers but I found his page layout to be nearly indecipherable here. I mean, I know that on a technical level his layouts here are great at conveying that utter sense of madness...but I found it to be a hindrance from a narrative stand point. 

If I had actually read a copy of the comic, this would easily have made my Top Five. Sigh.

Cei-U!
Hoist on me own petard!