Source: imgur.com

3. X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills

(Marvel Graphic Novel #5)

I know Dark Phoenix is the most famous X-Men story, but pound for pound, I'd say God Loves, Man Kills is as good, if not better.

After all, it was heavily riffed upon as the source material for X2: X-Men United. Of course, the film did dilute the social commentary a bit by shifting the villain’s career path. Reverend William Stryker is a striking (pun!) condemnation of bigotry in the name of religion. He is Fred Phelps with a distaste for mutants. And some of the book's most powerful moments come from seeing him at his most venomous.

The climax has him ranting before his assembled masses about the evils of mutantkind, and it’s tense and spooky. For five years in either direction, "Human? You dare call that"¦thing, human?!" was the best depiction of bigotry we got in superhero comics.

In the writing department, Claremont was at the top of his game. Steve Oliff, whose painterly style doesn't look like anything else on the stands was also in excellent form. But the breakout star was a pre-Astro City Brent Anderson, who absolutely killed it. That panel in which Magneto descends into the dome where Stryker is speaking like a falling angel of vengeance is gorgeous and haunting at the same time.