I'm using the Marvel forum because of the run that I want to mention.....I can't think of any other way of doing it without doing this. I want to mention my favorite arch, which happens to be a Top Cow arch written by J. Michael Straczynski who so many comic fans know of, because of his work with Marvel AND DC. Plus It's a Marvel run that's is my second favorite (might be first actually) but I want to get the word out about Strazyski's Rising Stars. It's actually a maxi-series. There's a beginning and a definitive ending. It ran for 24 issues and it's brilliant. David Finch was the first artist on the series. It's a very Marvel eccentric type of story, the heroes are comparable to mutants, as in some of the antagonists are non-powered humans that fear them. I loved it for a few reasons. Now Watchmen, the Dark Knight Returns, and Killing Joke are so important to comic books for one main reason they all have in common. They were first comic books that were without a doubt aimed for the mature reader or adult market. There were written for the people who grew up on comics when they were written for the younger ages, but us comic book readers, or fanboys, as we grew up, wanted our comic book stories to mature with us. Those three stories I mentioned are no doubt NOT for kids to be reading. I forgot to throw in Batman Year One as well. So we had to two stories by Frank Miller, and two by Alan Moore and they paved the way for comics to grow and become more mature. The market isn't even AIMED for anyone younger then 18 now and that says a lot. Anyway. Those stories were written between 1985 and 1989. I don't remember the exact years for them, but I noticed, because I was 12 in 1989 when I started to read comics. 7th grade. I graduated high school in 1994 and it was clear the stories I was reading in all my comics were growing up with me. Now here's where Rising Stars comes into play and why it's so important in my opinion. J.M.S. did something that I saw Grant Morrison make popular. Chris Claremont was already doing in Uncanny X-Men, but he never had and ending to his ideas. I used to pick up various trades from the Borders Books that was around the corner of the cigar shop I worked at. Batman the animated series and Superman the animated series were airing, and it's how I got familiar with those characters and their villains. Plus I grew up with Super Friends so I knew a few others. Anyway, I picked up 2 trades by Grant Morrison doing Justice League and saw the connection. In the next couple weeks, I picked up all the trades, as this was the beginning of making trades for story archs just a few months after the story was released. Grant did one long story that had a start, and the definitive ending, and then he moved on. I am convinced that Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, and Brian Bendis went to the bar together and decided they were ALL going to tell their stories this way from then on, because they were all good friends, and they kicked off what is popular method of story telling now as it should be.
Anyway.
J.M.S. used that method, but unlike Morrison on Justice League, when Morrison was done, he had to hand it off to someone else to continue. J.M.S didn't have to do that. Rising Stars is story that begins with stars of the books, the heroes and villains being conceived, and it's ends with the death of last remaining "Special" as they are called. I'm not spoiling anything, because this is told to the reader in first sentence of the first issue. What the reader doesn't know tho, is it spans a lifetime. A generation. Decades. What happens, the changes to the world, and their place in it. It's a beautiful story. It's personal, it's long, and sad and happy how it concludes. I just went on a rant, but this story needs to be mentiond. My other favorite, and what I consider the most important comic book run is Mark Millars The Ultimates.
Like Watchmen and DKR showed the evolution of comics books, or the example of the comics becoming mature reading, The Ultimates did this as well.
It's how was able to get into the Avengers. I was already reading Ultimate X-Men, which pre-dated the Ultimates, and used the same method in it's story telling usage, but the Ultimates was a better story.
The characters were modernized now. Written as if they were REAL characters, and basically being written the way someone would imagine that the heroes would actually be if they really existed. It's how they're portrayed in Avenger movies. For one, they kill. Hawkeye, Capatain America, both soldiers. In the comics they don't kill, or they didn't, but in the Ultimates it was made clear that Cap was a soldiers, and soldiers kill. So he did in the books.