From Cassius Comics

Picking the greatest comic of all time is an impossible task.

Hell, it would be impossible to pick the top ten, or top fifty comics. With over seventy years worth of stories and dozens of genres to take into account, it just can’t be done. With that said though, there are stories that stand head and shoulders above the rest…the creative cream of the crop, the stories that stick in your mind years after you read them. With that in mind, over the following months- and in all likelihood, years- Cassius Comics will be counting down the two hundred and fifty greatest comic books of all time!

A few notes before we begin:

• Each comic will be judged according to specific criteria, including story, art, originality, historical importance etc.
• Comics on the list will be chosen by story, as opposed to by issue; multi-issue stories will be listed as a single entry.
• Though the rankings are meant to be definitive rather than arbitrary, the content of some stories resist comparison with more traditional fare. In these cases, they were ranked according to what “felt right”. Though the list is obviously somewhat ruled by the tastes and biases of the Cassius Comics writing team, it is nonetheless intended to be as objective as possible. If in doubt, when wondering “why did this rank higher than that”, consider each entry to have a plus-or-minus range on the list of about ten places.
• Finally, while this should be obvious, it needs to be said- the Cassius Comics staff haven’t read every single comic to ever come out. Far from it, in fact. Nevertheless, we’ve made a concerted effort to read all the comics we can, including pretty much every “must have” issue recommended to us. While the list has been finalized as of August 8th, 2008, any comic that is retroactively determined to have qualified, and any exceptional new stories that are released in the future will be noted in quarterly updates.

Let the hate mail commence!

Number 250

Wolverine vol. 3 #6 Art by Esad Ribic

Wolverine (vol. 3) #6
“So, This Priest Walks into a Bar”
Marvel, December 2003
Writer: Greg Rucka / Pencils: Darick Robertson

He’s the best there is as what he does…and what he does is ugly, brutal and violent.

So, This Priest... begins with Wolverine on a serious bender, as he attempts to drown his sorrows in the bottom of a beer glass. For once, he’s not alone- Logan is joined by his friend and X-Men teammate Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner). Though never known for being approachable even at the best of times, Logan is even more abrasive than usual; his self-loathing leads him to subconscious attempt to alienate Kurt even as he silently reaches out to him. Despite Logan’s best attempts to alienate him, Kurt presses him to talk about what is clearly bothering him so much; the truth leaves Kurt dumbstruck- three days earlier, Logan had slaughtered over two dozen men.

A young woman named Lucy Braddock, fearing for her life, had sought out Logan for protection. He failed her. Despite his best efforts, Lucy was murdered by agents of the Brothers of the New World, a cult of militant extremists that had taken control of a small town, and was ruling it with an iron fist. Driven by a cold rage and a thirst for vengeance, Logan launched a violent assault on the Brothers, and in the span of less than an hour, twenty-seven men laid dead at his hands. Having once again succumbed to his own bestial rage, Logan is now left questioning if he can even call himself a man anymore, or if he is nothing but a soulless killer, or worse, a blood-thirsty animal.

Though Wolverine is arguably Marvel’s most popular hero, he can also be a difficult character to take seriously. Between his grim-and-gritty teeth gnashing, and his oft-spouted catchphrases, Wolverine stories can quickly fall into the realm of cliché, or even unintentional self-parody. In So, This Priest however, Rucka strips Logan down to his core essentials- a killer, whose inherent nobility clashes with his amoral violence, desperately clinging to the last fading vestiges of his own humanity.

The choice of Nightcrawler as a foil is equally inspired. While both heroes share a certain roguish charm, Kurt Wagner boats a strength of moral belief and a love of life that Logan simply doesn’t possess. Nevertheless, at the time of this story’s publication, Kurt and Logan were walking parallel paths, as Kurt suffered through a crisis of faith brought on by the recent death of a close friend. As a result, the two men help bring about catharsis in one another. Kurt’s faith is strengthened by the clarity in which he sees Logan’s place in the world; at the same time, Kurt offers Logan a measure of absolution, despite the fact that deep down, Logan just doesn’t believe that he deserves forgiveness. For that matter, maybe he doesn’t- the moral ambivalence which Rucka ascribes to Wolverine’s actions leaves the matter open to the reader’s interpretation.

This comic is one of the rarest of beasts- a Wolverine story in which no punches are thrown, no costumes are worn, and no street punks, ninjas or cackling megalomaniacs ever appear. Instead, we get twenty-odd pages of quiet introspection about the nature of heroism and humanity, and the Wolverine series is all the richer for it.