10 Modern Comic Book Runs Destined To Become Classics

5. Bendis, Bagley & Pichelli's Ultimate Spider-Man

Thor Statue
Marvel Comics/Mark Bagley

The winner of the record for the longest continual run on a single comic by two people, previously held by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby on Fantastic Four, Brian Michael Bendis and artist Mark Bagley's run on Ultimate Spider-Man defined the Ultimates line of Marvel Comics for a long time.

From the original run with Peter Parker, to our first introduction to Miles Morales, this run has set the precedent for a lot of Spider-Man media over the course of its run.

The Ultimate line was meant to provide more classic, modern takes on the Marvel heroes that readers could get into, without having to worry about decades of continuity getting in the way. However successful they were at that as a whole is for history to decide, but it's undeniable that Ultimate Spider-Man was the absolute best of the bunch all the way up to the Ultimate line's cancellation.

The reason for this is simply due to the comic's ability to balance being modern, while also staying true to the themes of the original series. Sure, it wasn't always great, no series handled by only one or two people is great all the time. But when this series worked, it worked like gangbusters.

Contributor
Contributor

John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?