Best Comic Runs

Hi Scott,
I'm new to the comics game, I've just finished Marvels Civil War Saga. What are your favorite comic book series/runs? Which ones should I definitely look for?
All the best from Holland,

Well, it’s not much to go on, plus I’m not a Marvel guy to begin with.  I’m an old-school DC guy, so most of my favorite stuff tends to gravitate to that.  But for the record, here’s the ones I’ve always loved (most of which are available in trade paperback):

- Crisis On Infinite Earths.  The first and best universe-resettingest George Perez-Marv Wolfman nerdgasm.  People and universes got slaughtered wholesale, Superman got so pissed off that he punched out a living sun and saved the universe, Wally West got to be the Flash.  I read it over and over all the time.

- The Man of Steel.  John Byrne flushed away all the debris of the “moves planets with a shrug” version of Superman and recreated him as the musclebound Kansas farmboy we all know and love today.  The first issue, with Superman putting on his new costume for the first time and flying into the sky, is probably one of the most iconic panels ever done. 

- Watchmen.  I know, it’s the obvious choice, but you need to have it in your collection.  It’s dense and challenging (there’s entire other books written about dissecting it panel-by-panel) but if you watch the movie and want to see the story in even more detail, you gotta have it.

- 100 Bullets.  As I noted before, this was the only time I’ve ever run through an entire 100-issue series in one weekend.  Brian Azzarello creates an entire world in one issue, where a mysterious agent offers a young women a briefcase filled with an untraceable gun and 100 bullets to seek revenge with.  From there it builds its own mythology with crazy twists and turns and a series of seemingly unconnected people who turn out to be anything but.  I DARE someone to read the first volume and not obsessively finish the rest of it. 

I’m sure others have tons of other stuff to add to this.  Especially Marvel-related if that’s where you’re at.