The Big Five: Marvel Comics Recommendations

[Doctor Know]

If you could recommend only five runs for a character, which would you choose?

I was organizing my collection, and I realized I don't have a diverse collection of Blade and Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) titles. I realized I probably couldn't even name 5 worthwhile runs for either character, despite them being around since the 70s. I also noticed that my Iron Man collection was lacking when measured against my Thor, Captain America and Fantastic Four titles. While Iron Man is certainly a lot more popular than Blade and Jessica Drew, a lot of his volumes aren't collected like other characters in his tier.

It got me thinking, if I or someone else were to recommend just 5 runs for a respective character. Which ones would be picked?

For the X-Men (including ALL their spin-off titles) and Spider-Man, anybody could conjure those up in a heartbeat. Hell, it's even easier for Daredevil now. Start with the 1998 Heroes Return "relaunch" and stay in a straight line: Bendis, Brubaker, Waid, Soule, Zdarsky. That's 5 right there. Same Captain America: Grunewald, Waid, Jurgens, Brubaker, and Remender.


Feel free to list the characters and ensembles for your top five picks. They don't have to be in a row. Just top 5 runs over all that you feel are the best representative.

[shooshoomanjoe]

Claremont's X-Men
Busiek/Perez' Avengers
Nicieza/Bagley's New Warriors

and I'm probably on the minority here:
Liefeld's New Mutants/X-Force
The Clone Saga