Wizard’s 25 Greatest Comic Book Moments Circa 1998

Back in 1998, the now defunct Wizard magazine published their list of the 25 Greatest Comic Book Moments. It was fantastic.

This list includes spoilers for Green Lantern: Emerald Twilight, Wolfman/ Perez’s Teen Titans, Crisis of Infinite Earths, Daredevil: Born Again, Walt Simonson’s Thor, The Infinity Gauntlet, John Byrne’s Fantastic Four (Twice), Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment, the first volume of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Alan Moore’s Miracleman, Alan Moore’s two famous Superman stories, Thunderbolts #1, Daredevil #181, Batman: The Killing Joke, Amazing Spider-Man #121, Roger Stern and John Byrne’s Captain America, Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s Uncanny X-Men (three times), Kingdom Come, Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

A few writers and artists are well-represented. Five of Alan Moore’s stories make the list. Frank Miller appears three times. There are also three moments from one run: Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s Uncanny X-Men. Byrne is also represented with two moments from his solo run on Fantastic Four, as well as his Captain America with writer Roger Stern. Stern also appears on the list twice, but never due to his Spider-Man work, which Wizard also really loved. Two stories from Wolfman/ Perez’s collaborations also make the list. Each of the moments was set in a superhero title, as even Sandman was set in the DC Universe.

There is some overlap with their Top 40 Comics Stories list, as 15 of the moments came from those stories. Three more moments came from legendary runs represented on that list by other stories: John Byrne’s Fantastic Four, Walt Simonson’s Thor, and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. The 24th and third moments are harder to classify, as the payoff to those scenes could be found in stories that made the Top 40 list.

As a note, the images are a bit blurry, but if you click on it, you’ll be able to open up a much larger version. At that point, the fifteen year old (yikes) text is quite visible.

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