Two Publishers. One Decade. The CBR Top 100 Tells You Everything About How Comics Got Great.

The numbers behind the canon don’t lie.

CBR just published the results of its 2025 reader vote for the top 100 comic book storylines of all time. Over 1,100 people voted. The results are, in the best possible way, completely predictable, and completely worth paying attention to.

Here’s the thing about lists like this: the individual rankings are almost beside the point. Yes, Watchmen is number one. Yes, Born Again pipped Dark Knight Returns to second. You can argue those calls until you run out of coffee. What’s actually interesting is what the shape of the list tells you about where and when comics became the thing we now recognise them as.

So I ran the numbers. And the picture they paint is pretty striking.

Marvel and DC own this list. Almost entirely.

Between them, Marvel (38 entries) and DC (32 entries) account for 70 of the 100 spots. Add in DC’s imprints, Vertigo, Wildstorm, and America’s Best Comics, and the number climbs to around 79. The remaining 21 are spread across 10 publishers, none with more than four entries. Image gets four. Fantagraphics gets three. Everyone else is picking up singles.

Now, you could read that as depressing. Two corporations. Seventy percent of the canon. But I think that’s the wrong frame. What it actually tells you is that the conditions for great comics storytelling in the 20th century were almost entirely inside those two publishing houses. The talent, the characters with decades of history behind them, the editorial freedom (when it existed), and crucially the audience that created a market for work that pushed past what anyone thought the medium could do. The great independent work is here, but the centre of gravity is unmistakably the Big Two.

The 1980s did something that every other decade is still living off.

34 entries on this list originate in the 1980s. That’s more than a third of the entire canon, from a single ten-year window. The 2000s come in second with 24. The 1990s follow with 22. The 2010s manage 13. The 1960s and 2020s each contribute 3. The 1970s, genuinely, produced one entry.

Think about what that means. If you were reading comics between roughly 1980 and 1989, you were present at the moment the medium decided what it was going to be. Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Year One, Born Again, Maus, V for Vendetta, The Dark Phoenix Saga, Kravens Last Hunt, Days of Future Past. That’s nine of the top twenty, all from a single decade.

The 1980s were when comics stopped apologising for being comics and started treating the form as a legitimate vehicle for literary ambition, political complexity, and genuine visual storytelling. Moore and Miller and Gaiman and Claremont and Simonson didn’t just write great stories. They redrew what the ceiling looked like. Every list since has been a negotiation with the shadow they cast.

What does the 2020s number tell us?

Three entries. Absolute Batman’s The Zoo, Woman of Tomorrow, and Daniel Warren Johnson’s Transformers: Robots in Disguise. The decade is only half done, so that number will climb. But it’s worth sitting with the gap.

Part of it is recency. Votes for the ages take time to accumulate. Part of it is that the format itself has fragmented so dramatically that no single title commands the cultural attention it once did. And part of it, maybe, is that we’re still waiting for the work that does for this decade what 1986 did for its own.

That work is probably already being made. It just hasn’t been canonised yet.

The list is a record of where the form found its confidence. Two publishers supplied the infrastructure. One decade supplied the proof of concept. Everything else is the long tail of that moment still playing out.

For the record… not having “Justice” on the list seems like a huge oversight!

The Full List

Here’s the full list with publisher and year:

1. Watchmen — DC Comics, 1986–87

2. Born Again — Marvel Comics, 1986

3. Dark Knight Returns — DC Comics, 1986

4. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale — Pantheon Books, 1986–91

5. The Dark Phoenix Saga — Marvel Comics, 1980

6. All Star Superman — DC Comics, 2005–08

7. Year One — DC Comics, 1987

8. Kingdom Come — DC Comics, 1996

9. Crisis on Infinite Earths — DC Comics, 1985–86

10. The Long Halloween — DC Comics, 1996–97

11. The Great Darkness Saga — DC Comics, 1982

12. If This Be My Destiny — Marvel Comics, 1966

13. Kraven’s Last Hunt — Marvel Comics, 1987

14. Season of Mists — DC/Vertigo, 1990–91

15. Perfect Strangers — Image Comics, 2003

16. Marvels — Marvel Comics, 1994

17. V for Vendetta — DC Comics, 1988–89

18. The Judas Contract — DC Comics, 1984

19. Days of Future Past — Marvel Comics, 1981

20. The Coming of Galactus — Marvel Comics, 1966

21. Blackest Night — DC Comics, 2009–10

22. Civil War — Marvel Comics, 2006–07

23. Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? — DC Comics, 1986

24. Avengers Forever — Marvel Comics, 1998–99

25. The Sinestro Corps War — DC Comics, 2007

26. Infinity Gauntlet — Marvel Comics, 1991

27. The New Frontier — DC Comics, 2004

28. Winter Soldier — Marvel Comics, 2005

29. The Man of Steel — DC Comics, 1986

30. Life as a Weapon — Marvel Comics, 2012–13

31. The Elektra Saga — Marvel Comics, 1981–83

32. Batman R.I.P. — DC Comics, 2008

33. Return of Barry Allen — DC Comics, 1993

34. The Death of Gwen Stacy — Marvel Comics, 1973

35. The Surtur Saga — Marvel Comics, 1985

36. Under Siege — Marvel Comics, 1986–87

37. Dangerous Habits — DC/Vertigo, 1991–92

38. Rock of Ages — DC Comics, 1997

39. Who is the Fourth Man? — DC/Wildstorm, 1999

40. The Golden Age — DC Comics, 1993–94

41. House of X — Marvel Comics, 2019

42. Wolverine — Marvel Comics, 1982

43. Saga, Volume 1 — Image Comics, 2012

44. American Gothic — DC Comics, 1985–87

45. Mister Miracle — DC Comics, 2017–18

46. Secret Wars (2015) — Marvel Comics, 2015–16

47. Annihilation — Marvel Comics, 2006

48. The Eternity Saga — Marvel Comics, 1963–65

49. Squadron Supreme — Marvel Comics, 1985–86

50. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 1 — DC Comics, 1999–2000

51. The Death of Superman — DC Comics, 1992–93

52. Kree/Skrull War — Marvel Comics, 1971–72

53. The Court of Owls — DC Comics, 2011–12

54. Welcome Back, Frank — Marvel Comics, 2000

55. Planet Hulk — Marvel Comics, 2006–07

56. Confession — Homage/DC, 1996–97

57. Grand Guignol — DC Comics, 2000–01

58. Runaways Volume 1 — Marvel Comics, 2003–04

59. Secret Wars (1984) — Marvel Comics, 1984–85

60. The Death of Jean DeWolff — Marvel Comics, 1985

61. Tower of Babel — DC Comics, 2000

62. E is for Extinction — Marvel Comics, 2001

63. Woman of Tomorrow — DC Comics, 2021

64. From Hell — Kitchen Sink Press, 1991–96

65. Red Son — DC Comics, 2003

66. Deus ex Machina — DC Comics, 1989–90

67. The Age of Apocalypse — Marvel Comics, 1995

68. We3 — DC/Vertigo, 2004–05

69. Ultron Unlimited — Marvel Comics, 1999–2000

70. Hush — DC Comics, 2002–03

71. The Korvac Saga — Marvel Comics, 1977–78

72. House of M — Marvel Comics, 2005

73. The Man Without Fear — Marvel Comics, 1993–94

74. Anatomy Lesson — DC Comics, 1984

75. Mutant Massacre — Marvel Comics, 1986

76. Olympus — Eclipse Comics, 1985–86

77. New World Order — DC Comics, 1997

78. Church and State — Aardvark-Vanaheim, 1984–88

79. The Magus Saga — Marvel Comics, 1975

80. The Governor Saga — Image Comics, 2004–06

81. Old Man Logan — Marvel Comics, 2008–09

82. Knightfall — DC Comics, 1993

83. The Death of Speedy — Fantagraphics, 1987

84. First Tale of the Demon — DC Comics, 1971–73

85. Identity Crisis — DC Comics, 2004

86. Little Worse than a Man, Little Better than a Beast — Marvel Comics, 2015–16

87. Weapon X — Marvel Comics, 1991

88. Robots in Disguise — Image Comics, 2024

89. Final Crisis — DC Comics, 2008–09

90. The Kindly Ones — DC/Vertigo, 1994–95

91. The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck — Gladstone Publishing, 1992–94

92. High Society — Aardvark-Vanaheim, 1982–84

93. The Zoo — DC Comics, 2024–25

94. The Great Cow Race — Cartoon Books, 1993

95. Superman for All Seasons — DC Comics, 1998

96. Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Boy on Earth — Fantagraphics, 1993–2000

97. Demon Bear Saga — Marvel Comics, 1984

98. Blood of Palomar — Fantagraphics, 1987–88

99. Future Imperfect — Marvel Comics, 1992–93

100. The Last Iron Fist Story — Marvel Comics, 2007–08