Shelfdust Presents: The Fifty Best #1 Issues

This week it's time to finish out our first season, as we look at the comic which ended up in 1st place: Saga #1 by Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples and Fonographiks! The title should be a clue, but there's just so much of Saga. This first issue is triple-sized which, yes, is cheating a little. But it's the only way the series could have started. Nobody is holding back anything. We don't know... cu...

This week it's time to dream of a better loving world, as we look at the comic which ended up in 2nd place: Watchmen #1 by Alan Moore, David Gibbons and John Higgins! Of course we all know everything about Watchmen at this point and then some, being a reimagining of the Charlton superhero characters told across twelve issues. You can see slivers of the original characters within these new shells,...

This week... okay, it looks bad, as we look at the comic which ended up in 3rd place: Hawkeye #1 by Matt Fraction, David Aja, Matt Hollingsworth and Chris Eliopoulos! Oh, bro, you knew this was going to happen. Hawkeye's impact remains just as strong today as when it first came out – for a comic which felt like a "moment", that moment has certainly proven that it can last. Every inch of Hawkeye's...

This week it's time to ascend to godhood, as we look at the comic which ended up in 4th place: The Wicked + The Divine #1 by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matthew Wilson and Clayton Cowles! WicDiv #1 jump straight onto centrestage to offer a showy performance that looks at myth, iconography, devotion, and idolatry whilst quickly building up a fascinating lead character and a world which understan...

This week it's time to ogle some deli food, as we look at the comic which ended up in 5th place: Ms Marvel #1 by G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona, Ian Herring and Joe Caramagna! Devised by editor Sana Amanat with writer G. Willow Wilson and artist Adrian Alphona, Kamala Khan's first appearance is immediately appealing and delightful. There's an assured creative hand guiding her, as well as all the...

This week it's time to pop on the glasses and bumble into trouble, as we look at the comic which ended up in 6th place: All-Star Superman #1 by Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Jamie Grant and Phil Balsman. The comic itself radiates with energy, as Quitely creates some wonderful and magnificent pieces, and every page has at least one line of dialogue which feels lasting and memorable. "Only nothing...

This week it's time to do it all again... again, as we look at the comic which ended up in 7th place: X-Men #1 by Chris Claremont, Jim Lee, Scott Williams Jim Rosas and Tom Orzechowski Announced as "the dawn of a new era!", the first issue of X-Men by Claremont and Lee changed everything for everyone. The X-Men – who were reassuring soap opera figures – suddenly turned into blunt-force action hero...

This week it's time to bust out the Freddie Mercury as we look at the comic which ended up in 8th place: Sex Criminals #1 by Matt Fraction, Chip Zdarsky, Becka Kinzie and Drew Gill! Nobody forgets their first time. Sex Criminals follows only one of the two central characters, Suzie, as it jumps around in her timeline and establishes that whenever she orgasms, she pauses time. Literally, time pause...

This week it's time to meet the second generation as we look at the comic which ended up in 9th place: Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Len Wein, Dave Cockrum, Peter Iro, Glynis Wein and John Constanza. With this issue Len Wein and Dave Cockrum essentially created the X-Men Franchise, one of the longest-running and most compelling stories in comic book history. Giant Size X-Men saw the original X-Men charac...

This week it's time to draw up a salt circle as we look at the comic which ended up in 10th place:  Sandman #1 by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Robbie Busch and Todd Klein! Told across decades, the first issue of Neil Gaiman's revelatory series details the capture and imprisonment of Dream, one of the Endless People who control the minds and hopes of mankind. Joined by Sam Kieth, Gaima...

This week it's time to prepare for the world that's coming, as we look at the comic which ended up in 11th place: OMAC #1 by Jack Kirby, Jerry Serpe and Michael Royer! Jack Kirby's series was designed to be a vision of the future – but not even the King could've realised how darkly accurate he was when he set about creating the first issue of OMAC. Kirby's paranoia was meant to be overt and shocki...

This week it's time to pack up our bags and head off for Freshers Week as we look at the comic which ended up in 12th place: Giant Days #1 by John Allison, Lissa Treiman, Whitney Cogar and Jim Campbell! John Allison's self-published Giant Days books may have seemed an unlikely candidate for a shiny series from BOOM! Studios, but the first issue of the ongoing series proved to be a perfect fit for...

This week it's CLOBBERIN' TIME!!!! as we look at the comic which ended up in 13th place: Fantastic Four #1 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, George Klein, Christopher Rule, Stan Goldberg and Artie Simek! Stan Lee and Jack Kirby defined superhero comics forever with this issue, introducing four heroes whose simple powers belied the complex world which was to come. Kirby is having fun with the issue – especi...

This week it's time to throw off the strait jacket, as we look at the comic which ended up in 14th place: Y: The Last Man #1 by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, José Marzan, Jr, Pamela Rambo and Clem Robins! Many people would hail Y: The Last Man as the definitive "#1" comic book issue. It's easy to see why: it's structure jumps from character to character with absolute grace, giving the reader every...

This week it's time to wake up in a strangely empty hospital, as we look at the comic which ended up in 15th place: The Walking Dead #1 by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore! Rick Grimes, the standard protagonist, is a police officer who gets shot in the line of duty. When he wakes up from a coma, the world is full of zombies. That's it, that's the comic! But that early jump in time means everything fo...

This week it's time to FIGHT FOR EARTH!!, as we look at the comic which ended up in 16th place: New Gods #1 by Jack Kirby, Vince Coletta, and John Constanza. New Gods explodes straight towards the reader right from the start, a burst of cosmic energy which arrives fully-formed and ready for war. The comic introduces a dazzling number of concepts and characters, each of whom seem to have a long and...

This week it's time to get super-distracted from our schoolwork, as we look at the comic which ended up in 17th place: Ultimate Spider-Man #1  by Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, Art Thibert, Steve Buccellato and Richard Starkings. Although it now looks gleefully dated to the time it was made, Ultimate Spider-Man #1 remains a breath of fresh air, especially against the deliberately edgy or provo...

This week it's time to find out about the secret lives of our evil parents, as we look at the comic which ended up in 18th place: Runaways #1 by Brian K. Vaughan, Adrian Alphona, David Newbold, Brian Reber and Paul Tutrone! Runaways follows a group of kids whose parents throw a party each year: after spending time introducing each family separately, Vaughan's script then hurls the very different c...

This week it's time to feel sad across the course of nine panels as we look at the comic which ended up in 19th place: Mister Miracle #1 by Tom King, Mitch Gerads and Clayton Cowles! Mister Miracle is a deeply curious comic, the product of Tom King and Mitch Gerads presumably having several very late nights with little sleep. There's something hypnotic and mesmerising about the opening of the maxi...

This week it's time to teach Guy Gardner a lesson, as we look at the comic which ended up in 20th place: Justice League #1 by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, Terry Austin, Gene D'Angelo and Bob Lappan! You can tell there's going to be trouble from the moment Justice League begins. This was a different approach to superheroes, letting them be fun and funny characters first and turning...

This week it's time to jump onboard the floating Batmobile, as we look at the comic which ended up in 21st place: Batman & Robin #1 by Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Alex Sinclair and Pat Brosseau! A burst of vibrant energy following some fairly dark and sinister storylines, Batman & Robin harkened back to the brightest times of Batman as it followed Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne's new adventures....

This week it's time to clock in for the day shift, as we look at the comic which ended up in 22nd place: Gotham Central #1 by Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark, Noelle Giddings and Willie Schubert! It's almost a running joke by now that the Gotham Central Police are hapless to the point of being completely irrelevant – particularly when supervillains get involved in matters. But what  Gotham C...

This week it's time to pedal through time, as we look at the comic which ended up in 23rd place: Paper Girls #1 by Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matthew Wilson and Jared K. Fletcher! Paper Girls is exactly what it says it is, but also so much more, following four young women as they cycle their morning paper route, hurling newspapers onto every porch. As they go about their path, however, Chiang...

This week we're keeping a close eye on the new neighbours, as we look at the comic which ended up in 24th place: The Vision #1 by Tom King, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Jordie Bellaire and Clayton Cowles! Who would've thought that Vision could prove to be the lead for a dark and unnerving Marvel series? Well, Tom King made his name on writing maxiseries, and The Vision has the benefit of having Gabrie...

This week we're pretending our tragic past didn't actually happen, as we look at the comic which ended up in 25th place: Daredevil #1 by Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, Marcos Martin, Joe Rivera, Javier Rodriguez, Muntsa Vicente and Joe Caramagna. For several years there was a contest to see who could write the most miserable life for Matt Murdock – a contest which was only broken with the arrival of Mar...