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Lets face it, every genre has this.

Music you must listen to, football games you must watch, video games you must play, movies you must see...

So comics. What are THE must reads? I'll start with:

Crisis on Infinite Earths

"The Dark Phoenix Saga" X-Men 129-138

The Dark Knight Returns

Fantastic Four 51 "This Man, This Monster"

Watchmen

Secret Wars

The Judas Contract Tales of the Teen Titans 42-44, TotTT 1984 annual

"Demon in a Bottle" Iron Man 120-128

All Star Superman.

Infinity Gauntlet.

Sandman.

Lucifer.

Transmetroplitan.

Astro City.

New Gods by Jack Kirby.

Invisibles/Flex Mentallo.

Planetary/Stormwatch/Authority.

Action Comics 775.

Superman annual 11 "For the man who has everything."

Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow!

Batman Year One.

etc.

Some good choices, thanks Jimmy.

"Ultron Unlimited" Avengers 19-22

Avengers/JLA

Flash (Wally):
Terminal Velocity (Flash 95-100)

Flash (Barry):
Flash vs Flash + subsequent trial (Flash 323-328)

Superman:
Ending Battle (Superman 186-187, Adventures of Superman 608-609,
Man of Steel 130-131, Action comics 795-796)

Green Lantern (Hal):
Emerald Twilight (Green Lantern v3 48-50)

Green Lantern (Kyle):
Circle of Fire (Green Lantern: Circle of Fire 1-2)

Green Lantern (Guy):
This guy, this gardner (JLA Classified 4-9)

Batman (Bruce):
Black Glove+Batman RIP (Batman 667-675, 676-681)

Batman (Nightwing):
Batman and Robin (1-12)

Youngblood #1

The Clone Saga

Countdown

One More Day

Amazons Attack




... wait, I may be doing this wrong!

Fables

Y The Last Man

First 2 volumes of The Ultimates

Garth Ennis' Punisher

Rising Stars

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Grant Morrison's Animal Man

I read Watchmen, V for Vendetta and Dark Knight Returns for the first time not long ago. The last one was awesome,but the first two? I honestly don't get what all the fuss is about.

How much you like the stories is up to you.
There's choices in this thread already i think suck (V for Vendetta being one of them) but i acknowledge their importance.

Originally posted by abhilegend
All Star Superman.

Infinity Gauntlet.

Sandman.

Lucifer.

Invisibles/Flex Mentallo.

Planetary

Batman Year One.

etc. I'd agree with these.

For DC/Marvel I would also add:
Kingdom Come, Sinestro Corps War, The Long Halloween, The Judas Contract, Secret Wars I, Daredevil: Born Again, The Ultimates(I-II), Annihilation.

I was going to name some Indie must-reads, but the list is vast(moreso than I realized), so I'll just mention a few notable titles I've not yet seen mentioned:
Preacher, The Walking Dead, Grendel: Behold The Devil

Honestly any list we make will be huge regardless!

Indie wise, Powers "Who killed Retro Girl?" Was great. The original run of Miracle Man. Sooo many...

Originally posted by riv6672
Honestly any list we make will be huge regardless!

Indie wise, Powers "Who killed Retro Girl?" Was great. The original run of Miracle Man. Sooo many...

There are a lot of good ones here.

But I disagree with Infinity Gauntlet. It didn't introduce any new characters, villains etc, it didn't even deal with the resurrection of Thanos or Warlock after a long hiatus of being dead - that was handled in earlier issues. It didn't introduce the soul gems or their rebranding as the Infinity Gems, or the unification of the gems. It didn't really change anything or have lasting effects, it was another one of those stories where a whole lot of crap went down and was all reset at the end with hardly anyone remembering. It didn't really have any sort of original story (it was quite derivative of Starlin's earlier work,), any clever plot turns, or surprises. Characterisation and real drama took a back seat to cosmic pyrotechnics and temporary hero deaths.

A fun story? Yes. Entertaining, interesting? Yes. Worth reading? Yes. But a brilliant comic for the must read list of classics? Not really. I would recommend Starlin's earlier Thanos/Warlock arcs as candidates ahead of Infinity Gauntlet.

Seeing as thats another of the books i dont think are all that great, i wont argue on its behalf except to point out you said it was worth reading, and that not everyone likes everything considered a classic.
I know folks who dont like the Black album or the White album...

The Great Darkness Saga is a good one

Was a matter of time before it turned into "post your favorite stories" thread.

I dont think its gotten to that point.
The more likely scenario us "i dont like that story so its not a classic".

I think there is a difference. There are stories which I liked and I thought were worth reading but wouldn't put on a "must read" list. There are also a few which I wasn't a big fan of that I might still consider for the list.

To me, "must reads" would include some "classic" stories, but also stories that defined genres or had a big influence on what came after, perhaps some that introduced great characters or concepts.

I wouldn't put Infinity Gauntlet on, not just because I thought the story and characters were a bit weak in parts, but also because it doesn't really do anything new. It's light entertainment if you like that sort of thing.

On the other hand, whether people like Watchmen and Dark Knight or not, a lot of them would probably agree that they belong on the list if only because of their influence. Like novels and films, there are various reasons for being on the list.

I agree on the differences, the reasoning etc, you've cited. Good stuff.
The kicker is posters being honest enough to see those differences.

About IG, i think its one of the building blocks for the Thanos mythos, so there's that.