10 Criminally Underrated Comic Book Runs EVERYONE Missed

Featuring the Batman comic every fan HAS to read...

by Ewan Paterson
DC Comics

Despite annual prophesies that claim the comic book industry is teetering on a cliff-edge, it's still big business. Marvel and DC publish hundreds of titles ever year, and with the likes of Dark Horse, Image, IDW and countless other independent publishers releasing their own work too, comics fans really are spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing what to read.

The sheer selection on offer can bring both positives and negatives though. The sheer selection on offer is great, but sometimes the volume of high-quality, brilliant books can lead to other comics falling underneath the radar. They may still get all the plaudits, but often these books just get drowned out underneath all the other releases on a given Wednesday, while others debut to immense acclaim, only to be ignored in the years following.

But let's take a positive approach to the topic. For many readers, highlighting those runs that didn't necessarily get the attention they deserved the first time around presents an opportunity to check out something new, and with most of these stories collected in trade paperbacks or online, they're easily accessible too.

It might not be the case for every comic, but whatever the publisher, there's bound to be at least one book here you missed.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.