10 Incredible Comic Book Panels That Changed Everything

All-Star Superman is an All-Star gem.

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Marvel

If you were to name any single comic creator whose impact on the medium could be considered immeasurable, it'd be Jack Kirby. He wrote the book on modern comics, and the wave of tributes left in the wake of the artist's 100th birthday have dominated the scene for over a month now. It's certainly special to see the medium bursting with so much positivity. Nazi-Cap is, after all, finally on his way out.

So, in the spirit of Kirby's 100th b-day, taking the odd moment or two to reflect on the best and brightest images to have emerged from DC, Marvel and others certainly feels like a worthwhile endeavour, particularly when it concerns an industry as iconic or as indelibly influential as comics themselves.

Indeed, artists have long been proving that comics aren't nor ever will be the funny books they once were. Granted, they can be funny, but y'know, things are decidedly more grim these days than before. Nuanced, certainly, but also grim.

But what about those panels that truly reinvented the industry? It's been home to plenty of incredible names over the years, including the likes of Kirby, Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli and more. And so naturally, it makes sense that there've been more game-changing pencils than there've been Elektra resurrections.

As for the ones that really changed the game? Well, we've collected (most) of them here, because we're nice like that.

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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.