I love comic books because, deep down, I wish I was a hero with incredible powers. I wish I could fly around the world. I wish I was more powerful than a speeding locomotive. I wish I could turn invisible and mess with people on the street. I love reading comic books because they are a uniquely perfect way to tell a story, combining prose and pictures into one fun-to-read package. And comics have a creative freedom unmatched by almost any other medium. Movies and TV shows are hampered by budgets, technology, running time and so much more. With comics, the heroes can travel all around the world or into space without awkward green screens of fake-looking CGI. The visual imagination of comics is hampered only by the strain on an artist’s wrist. Comics can do anything, go anywhere and be anyone.

Though they’re mostly about men dressing up in animal costumes

I’ve had a draft of this List of Six waiting in my queue for more than a year now. I’ve been picking at it, rearranging it, deciding what should go where, but I’m dying to share this list with you. I’m always talking about comics, so what are the best comic book stories/series I have ever read? Keep in mind: this is my personal list. This isn’t just the best comic books of all time. This list isn’t going to have Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns on it. I’ve read those comics, and I like those comics, but they aren’t among the best comics I have ever read. No sir. And that probably has a lot to do with my comic book upbringing.

When I was a kid, I read everything from my dad’s comic collection that he left lying around, which were mostly a small smattering of Marvel superhero comics from the 60s. I didn’t get into comics on my own until the mid-90s, when my brother and I started with Spider-Man in the middle of the Clone Saga…which explains why he and I both love the Clone Saga…and my undying love of Phil Urich. We eventually moved on to the X-Men, but it wasn’t until Batman: Hush and Infinite Crisis that I finally started reading DC Comics on a regular basis.  Because of this timeline, I wasn’t around in the 80s for Watchmen to blow my mind. I wasn’t around in the 60s for Spider-Man and Superman to define my world. In fact, almost everything on this list comes from the past 20 years or so, when I really got into comics.

Here are my personal Top 6 Greatest Comic Books of All Time. I would recommend any of these to anyone, comic fans or not.

6. Astro City by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson

Astro City is a brilliant concept written and drawn by two people who know exactly what to do with that concept. Astro City is about life between the cracks of a world filled with superheroes, magic, aliens, villains and so much more. Originally published between 1995-1998, with sporadic returns to the series since, Astro City is about a wholly original, but utterly familiar, superhero universe. Most of the characters are analogues of famous superheroes (Samaritan is similar to Superman, the Confessor and Altar Boy are like Batman and Robin), but that is simply to ease readers into Astro City, to make the universe seem more familiar. Because the superheroes are not the focus of the comic, they’re simply the backdrop for the real protagonists.

Busiek and Anderson tell the stories of the ordinary people living and working in Astro City, who aren’t necessarily super or amazing, but still have to contend with that kind of madness on a daily basis. Like the newspaper reporter who gets whisked away on an interdimensional adventure with the Honor Guard, but can’t write a story about it because there are no other verifiable witnesses. Or the father who has to comfort his daughters in their little apartment while the superheroes are outside battling to save the world from an evil enemy. Or the lawyer who has to incorporate things like mind control or shapeshifting into a murder trial. Or the costumed thief who is just so good at stealing that nobody even knows he’s a suspect, only for him to get bored with his stolen wealth because he’s in it for the chase and the glory, not the money.

Those are only a handful of Astro City stories, but they’re perfect examples of why this series is just so brilliant. Astro City takes the real world and marries it perfectly to the super world in a way that the other, major superhero publishers don’t bother with. Perhaps that’s how Busiek came up with the idea. Perhaps that’s how he found his niche. And I love it. You’re probably going to see this as a running theme on this list: I love superhero comics that have an emphasis on realism. I don’t care to see muscle-bound men in spandex punching other muscle-bound men in spandex and spouting platitudes about truth, justice and blah blah blah. I want to read comics about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. And Astro City nails that concept perfectly.

5. All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely

Grant Morrison is a legendary comic book writer who is so popular that he even has his own conventions. He’s also the author of one of my favorite comic book quotes of all time, about Superman: “Somewhere, in our darkest night, we made up the story of a man who will never let us down.” That, to me, is Superman. Grant Morrison gets the character, and between 2005 and 2008, DC Comics hired Morrison to tell the ultimate Superman story, free of all continuity and any expectations. Just Morrison writing Superman. And while I’ve never been much of a Superman fan, I think it’s safe to say that All-Star Superman is the greatest Superman story ever told.

The genius of Morrison’s All-Star Superman is that he makes the Man of Steel fun. It’s a joyful, innocent, wide-eyed kind of fun. This is a Superman who gives Lois Lane super-powers for her birthday. Who is on a first-name basis with Dino-Czar Tyrannko, ruler of the Subterranosauri in the center of the Earth. Who is raising a baby sun-eater in the Fortress of Solitude, and treats it like a giant puppy. And it’s also about a very human kind of Superman, who cares about everyone. It’s a Superman who still finds the time on the busiest day of his life to talk a suicidal girl off the roof of a building.

Morrison’s All-Star Superman is probably the most fun comic book I have ever read. He tackles the character with childlike glee, coming up with the wildest, most awesome Superman adventures his genius mind can create. The 12-part series is about the final showdown between Superman and Lex Luthor, and this time, Luthor has won. Superman only has a few months left to live, and in that time, he must complete the 12 Great Labors of Superman, everything from answering the unanswerable question to creating life. And issue after issue, Morrison comes up with new and amazing adventures that treat Superman like the resourceful and heroic man that he is. Morrison’s Superman is courageous enough to face any challenge and human enough to solve even the small ones. This is Superman at his most pure and his most heroic, and it’s a beautiful reminder why he’s always going to be the biggest superhero ever.

4. Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra

Unfortunately, Y: The Last Man is the only non-superhero comic you will see on this list, but that’s more my fault than anything else. I simply don’t read enough non-superhero comics. It’s a matter of time, money and just my love of superheroes. But I picked up the first trade paperback volume of Y: The Last Man one day out of curiosity (and great word of mouth), and I was instantly hooked. I went back to the comic book shop and bought the next four volumes. The story is one of those adventures that you just can’t put down, starring compelling and complex characters on an adventure that spans the globe. It’s about a biological outbreak that immediately kills every single male creature on the planet, human and animal, in a matter of minutes – every man except Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand. So Yorick teams up with nerdy scientist Dr. Allison Mann and government operative Agent 355 to figure out the origins of the disease, how to cure it and whether or not Yorick’s girlfriend Beth is still alive.

Writer Brian K. Vaughn gets a lot of mileage out of a world where all of the men suddenly die. I’m no feminist academic, so I can’t comment on how well a job he does in terms of gender politics, but I think Vaughn does a great job of creating a all-female post-apocalypse. Women across the globe step up to take over when the men are gone, while still dealing with the fact that many important facets of the world have come to a screeching halt. Watching Yorick travel across America, and then the world, as Vaughn builds this epic tapestry for him, is just fantastic. Vaughn is a master of character-work, as his current series, Saga, clearly demonstrates, so every issue is just a blast to read because the characters are just so much fun. And unlike most superhero comics, Y: The Last Man has a clear ending. It doesn’t just go on forever with new writers and artists. Issues 1 through 60 were published between 2002 and 2008, and Vaughn and Guerra were behind all of them. It’s a full story, from one amazing writer’s unique vision, and there are few better stories in all of comics than that of Yorick Brown and his monkey.

3. Gotham Central by Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka and Michael Lark

Why Gotham Central has not been optioned for a TV show I will never understand. How many CSI and Law & Order clones were put on the boob tube? How many still exist and get millions of viewers? Imagine Law & Order, but instead of crimes ripped from the headlines, the detectives solved crimes involving the Joker and Mr. Freeze. That’s Gotham Central. And it was amazing. This is probably the comic most grounded in realism on this list, and I love it. The series is about the Major Crimes Unit of the Gotham City Police Department, because even though Batman always catches the bad guys, Gotham City still has a police department. Who do you think Commissioner Gordon works for? And just like the TV shows, the drama comes both from the crimes themselves and from the interactions between the officers. Because, as you can imagine, there is a lot of pressure and stress on the cops who are tasked with stopping Joker’s latest homicidal rampage. Not to mention having to deal with Batman making them all look bad.

Gotham Central ran for 40 issues between 2003 and 2008 before the high-quality creative team decided to leave the book for other projects. It was a critical darling, but had very low sales, because comic book readers never seem to recognize the truly amazing, ground-breaking titles. I love Gotham Central because it’s about real people and how they deal with living in such an insane city. None of the officers have super-powers, none of them are secretly superheroes. It’s just real men and women trying to do their jobs and do them right. How do the officers accept so much corruption in the department? What do they do when the Joker turns himself in? What are the office politics behind turning on the Bat Signal? Gotham Central is a fascinating look into the lives of real people living in Gotham City. Not everyone is a billionaire playboy dressing up like a bat and fighting crime. Sometimes you’re just a person, struggling to make ends meet, in a city where criminals run around with freeze rays.

It should also be no surprise that the series creators, writers Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, and artist Michael Lark, are some of the greatest comic book creatives working in the business today. That trio created a brilliant series, one that easily holds up these few years later. Plus there’s a whole story dedicated to Robin, so of course I love it.

2. The Punisher (Max Imprint) by Garth Ennis

The Punisher series by writer Garth Ennis is a masterpiece. Never before, and perhaps never again, will I read a comic that so completely understands and presents a character. Like most comic book characters, there are many iterations of the Punisher out there, including two failed movies. But none of them can hold a candle to the haunting, powerful and deeply visceral 11-volume series written by Ennis from 2004 to 2009. Now, when I talk about Ennis’ Punisher, I don’t mean the dark humor series he wrote at the start of the decade, including the very popular ‘Welcome Back, Frank’ storyline. I never read those works, and I don’t care to. I’m talking about The Punisher Ennis wrote under Marvel Comics’ MAX imprint, which is basically R-rated comics. Ennis used this to tell a very mature story. Yes, there’s swearing, nudity, sex and extreme violence, but they’re just window-dressing. Ennis uses them to tell a more adult, more profound story.

And an adult, profound Punisher is amazing to read.

In Ennis’ Punisher, he created a whole new reality around the character, based in the real world instead of the Marvel Universe. There are no superheroes or super-powers. There’s just Frank Castle, the Punisher, who was forged in the jungles of Vietnam, and has been waging his one-man war on crime for more than 20 years. In fact, the horrors of Vietnam are a major theme of the story, because I believe Ennis’ own father served there. Ennis’ Punisher starts with a 4-issue origin story called Born, about how Frank went through hell in Vietnam, and came out a changed man. From there, the next 10 volumes (and a few single issues) are all various stories of the Punisher killing bad guys. In one story, he takes on a vicious Italian mobster. In another, he goes on a mission into Russia for Nick Fury. And in The Slavers, one of the best stories I have ever seen, in any medium, the Punisher rains brutal justice down upon a sex-trafficking ring. The real pleasure of Ennis’ work is that all 11 volumes are interwoven to tell a fully encapsulated story. Characters and events from one story will show up later and influence another story. That sort of thing happens all the time in fiction, but Ennis makes it really work, adding and building to the Punisher’s relationships and world views.

And those side characters are important, because the Punisher himself doesn’t change, and that’s what’s so good about the series. The Punisher is an uncompromising protagonist. He is a force of nature, and the mere sight of him sends his enemies into a frightened tizzy. So in many ways, the series is about the people around the Punisher, and how both they and the world react to this unstoppable killing machine.

Ennis’ Punisher is the most brutal and beautiful comic I have ever read. From start to finish, it’s just that damn good.

1. The Ultimates by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch

The Ultimates is my Watchmen. Like that venerable series did for comic book readers in the 80s, The Ultimates did for me in the 00s. The Ultimates, by writer Mark Millar and artist Bryan Hitch, showed me how realism and comics could work together to create something truly wonderful. The Ultimates tells the story of the Avengers if they existed in a more realistic, contemporary world. There are still super-powers and Asgardian gods and Hulks, but Millar’s pen and Hitch’s photo-realistic art show us what the Avengers would be like if they existed in our world. It’s the Avengers dealing with things like politics, loyalty, pettiness, celebrity and DVD sales of their latest big battle. But The Ultimates isn’t about the pettiness of being celebrity superheroes, it’s about the humanity that goes into volunteering yourself to fight monsters and aliens to protect your fellow man, and about the tolls that takes on your relationships and on your psyche.

What does Thor do when nobody takes him seriously that he’s an Asgardian god? How does Giant Man react when clearly the world loves guys like Captain America and Iron Man more than him? How insane and badass would the Hulk be in real life?

The Ultimate Universe had been around for a year or so before The Ultimates debuted, and I liked what they had well enough. Ultimate Spider-Man was good, and Ultimate X-Men was OK, but it was The Ultimates that really blew my mind. Like I said earlier, I grew up reading comics from the 60s under Stan Lee, or reading the Clone Saga in the 90s. Realism was not a part of those comics. I didn’t even understand that realism was a thing. The Ultimates introduced me to an entire literary concept, one I have since embraced as the gold standard of all fiction. The Ultimates took some of the coolest superheroes and made them real.

The Ultimates also made them epic action heroes. Millar has become famous as a writer with a real cinematic flair, and The Ultimates was no slouch when it came to bombastic, big-screen action. And it should come as no surprise that The Ultimates was the inspiration for the wildly successful The Avengers movie. The first story is the Ultimates vs. the Hulk in the streets of New York, and the fight is massive. The second story, much like the movie, is about the Ultimates taking on an alien invasion, and with Hitch’s pencils, the fight seems so momentous and huge that the comic book page cannot contain it. I’d never read any superhero stories on this scale before, and then through it all, Millar maintained such a wonderful understanding of the characters, and how they would react in these larger than life situations. Sometimes that led to some fun comedy, and sometimes that led to some truly heroic and inspirational superhero scenes. Ultimate Quicksilver, of all characters, is a real standout in Volume 2.

Millar and Hitch wrote two volumes of The Ultimates, both 12 issues long, from 2002 through 2007. The series was notorious for long delays between issues, but that was only because of Hitch’s high-quality pencil work. And though the delays were terrible, the issues were always worth the wait. Both volumes 1 and 2 are amazing. Unfortunately, Millar and Hitch dropped out for Volume 3, and the new creative team turned The Ultimates into garbage. Volume 3 was a train wreck. And, of course, the entire Ultimate Universe has gone downhill ever since. It’s a mess now. But in those first 24 issues, Millar and Hitch redefined superhero comics for me, and I have never looked back.

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What are your most favorite comic books of all time? What do you think are the best comic books of all time? Let us know in the comments!