10 Best Comic Books Of The Decade

5. Richard Stark's Parker - Darwyn Cooke

It's hard to quantify just how terrible a loss Darwyn Cooke's passing was to the medium of comics.

The late artist was beloved by his peers and readers and had amassed an incredible portfolio, plying his trade mostly at DC Comics in the mid-to-late 2000s. Cooke created Catwoman's now iconic black jumpsuit design during a run on the comic with Ed Brubaker, which he later fleshed out in a comic he both wrote and drew called Selina's Big Score. Further seminal offerings situated in the DC universe followed, including the magnificent Ego, a story that explored the dichotomy between Bruce Wayne and Batman; Solo, an anthology series Cooke contributed to in 2006; and - what many would consider to be his magnum opus - The New Frontier, a story that married Cooke's love for DC with his expert understanding of Cold War-era America.

Later forays into the DC universe punctuated Cooke's peerless contributions to the publisher, in particular the issues he crafted alongside Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray on Jonah Hex. But different pastures beckoned, and it's with this in mind that Cooke ventured to IDW to adapt Richard Stark's Parker novels - seminal crime thrillers published between 1962 and 1974.

The first entry, The Hunter, released in 2009, but three further volumes followed in 2010, 2012 and 2013 respectively. They're a genuine letter of love to Donald Westlake's novels, and some of the finest stories of the last decade.