MARVEL'S SECRET WARS (or more accurately, Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars)
This one hardly needs to be explained, as it's in many ways the harbinger of all the colossal Marvel comics crossover events that followed. The way the story goes, it was largely toy-sale-driven--based on a collaboration with Mattel--and related marketing considerations were critical to certain plot elements. But what can't be overlooked is what the creative team--including writer/editor Jim Shooter and artists Bob Layton and Mike Zeck--were able to create within those parameters.
This is the story that gave Spider-Man his black costume--so all of the alien-symbiote-based goodness to follow, including Venom, Carnage, Red Goblin... all of it owes its existence to this story. But more than that, this story upped the ante for the scale of cosmic adventures in the Marvel Universe on the whole.
"I am from Beyond! Slay your enemies and all that you desire will be yours," our heroes are told as they're whisked away to the other side of the universe--to a Battleworld and solar system assembled in front of their awe-struck eyes. Having a threat like The Beyonder--who could truly toy with all of the company's most popular characters (including Galactus!)--changed the stakes for all crossovers going forward. (It made the concept of a Cosmic Cube--the primary McGuffin of many prior epics--almost quaint.) So, in some sense, without The Secret Wars there is likely no Infinity Gauntlet/Infinity War.
Simply put, the Secret Wars are the first huge step into the larger Marvel Universe we know today--and therefore a worthy read for that if no other reason.
THE SQUADRON SUPREME
Much more obscure is the story of the Squadron Supreme.
First introduced in the pages of The Avengers as a foil for that team--a (very) thinly veiled representation of DC's Justice League--the squadron appeared in various '70s story-lines culminating in the near destruction of their alternate Earth in the pages of The Defenders. While this near-apocalypse was initiated by two world-class villains--the Over-Mind and Null The Living Darkness--it was also facilitated by squadron members who had fallen under their mental control. And so it is on the heels of that misadventure--where the squadron have been left to pick up the pieces of their broken world--that the late Mark Gruenwald's thought-provoking mid-80s tale takes place.
If the squadron members had started off as straw men--as stand-ins for a rival comics company's greatest heroes--Gruenwald makes them so much more. He turns them into a handful of super-powered men and women looking into the abyss of a world tearing itself apart because of their collective mistakes. And he plants an awesome terrible idea in their minds. "What if we fixed the world by taking it over?" they ask themselves. Their answer sets in motion a story that that raises fundamental questions about what it means to be a hero and what the limits of power are.
Another thing it does--almost 20 years before Marvel's much more celebrated Civil War--is that it pits self-professed heroes, friends, into direct and deadly conflict over their ideals. And unlike that other series (which I do, in fact, like), this story delivers much more dramatically on death and consequence.
If you ever wonder how you'd fare if you had super powers--ever wondered about the choices you'd make about how and when you'd use your abilities--you really want to read this compilation.
OK--that covers what I've collected and donated from my target list thus far. I'll provide more updates as I get my hands on other graphic novels. I'll also update as my list continues to evolve, sprinkled in among the other unrelated topics to come.
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