This is a little something that d.morris did a while ago in CD that I'd like to try again here to see what people might pick differently and what new people would pick.

This is how it works; you pick ten individual comic issues from any series as if they would appear in a trade, like a mix tape.

Here's mine:

1. "Sequestered"
Words: Kevin McCarthy
Pictures: Kyle Baker
Originally published in "Michael Chabon Presents The Amazing Adventures of The Escapist" issue one.

Sequestered was a story that appeared with a few others in the same issue, but I wanted to highlight this one specifically because it was my favorite. Aside from Kyle Baker's fabulous and emotive art that really fit the era the story was meant to belong to, the story is a really clever look at the wider responsibility of superheroes to the justice system as Tom finds himself doing jury duty only to realize that he apprehended the defendant as The Escapist!

2. Doom Patrol #34 "The Soul of a New Machine"
Words: Grant Morrison
Pictures: Richard Case

Aside from the Flex Mentallo issues, this is probably the most notorious story from Morrison's Doom Patrol in which The Brain and Monsieur Mallah break into Doom Patrol headquarters to steal Robotman's body. Other than the climax, highlights include The Brain suggesting that he's been a brain in a jar since he was a child ("the children used to laugh at me for being a brain in a jar") and The Brain's reaction to winding up on a table with Robotman's disembodied brain ("Hated enemy! At last we are face to face in open combat!")

3. Animal Man #5 "The Coyote Gospel"
Words: Grant Morrison
Pictures: Chas Truog and Doug Hazelwood

Technically speaking, The Coyote Gospel is the introduction of alot of reoccuring themes and devices not only in Animal Man itself, but through Morrison's whole career as a writer, making it important to anyone looking at his writing as a metanarative. It's also a very clever look the relationship between creator and created that will probably color your enjoyment of classic cartoons for years to come.

4. Planetary #7 "To be in England, In the Summertime"
Words: Warren Ellis
Pictures: John Cassaday

Planetary is ostensibly the secret history of the twentieth century of (comic book) fiction, and as such it could not be complete without a stop in Thatcher's England, the era that redefined and set the standard for every comic book written from then until now. That era ended yesterday with the final issue of Lucifer, what will most likely be the last major work recalling the time when the line between Vertigo and the DCU was blurred at worst and non existent at best. From here on out, Vertigo is devoted to new stories in new worlds, a current that began in the nineties with The Invisibles, Transmetropolitan, and Preacher. "To be in England, In the Summertime" was a narrative of that passing of the torch, an early (or late depending how you look at it) funeral for Proto-Vertigo and the baptism in blood of the new generation, which isn't (or so Ellis seems to imply) quite as new as you might think.

5. Hellblazer #141 "Shoot"
Words: Warren Ellis
Pictures: Phil Jiminez and Andy Lanning

This comic was, as far as I know, never published which outrages me. It's available to see here. Shoot was about the Columbine era school shootings, which is a subject that has been stymied, censored, and bullshitted about for years. I was in junior high when all this was happening. Thankfully no one I knew died, but I felt the impact, we all did. You were different, people looked at you like you were going to wig out and shoot them some day. We had to practice drills for in case someone started shooting in the school. All this, and none of the commentators seemed to give a ******** about the truth. It was the movies, the games, or the NRA. It was about personal agendas for fat ******** with video cameras and pundits alike. It wasn't about dead kids, kids killing kids, or what it even meant to be a kid at the time. This was the first Hellblazer issue I ever read, and I truly wish it didn't have to be posted as a link (by Maiadorn).

6. "Batman A Go Go"
Words and Pictures by Mike Allred

"If your only memory of Batman is [the Adam West TV series], I hope this comes as a shock to you," Frank Miller once wrote of Batman Year One. The reverse could be said of "Batman A Go Go", Mike Allred's love letter to the TV series and to the heart of a character long buried in grim and gritty storytelling. Alfred wonders aloud at the tendency to see only the worst bits of life as being the essential ones (in fiction). The Riddler reprises his Flex Mentallo role. Robin gets laid. Batman wakes up.

7. The Invisibles #5 "In Arcadia Part One: Bloody Poetry"
Words by Grant Morrison
Pictures by Jill Thompson

This is one of two issues of The Invisibles that I own original copies of (rather than in trade). But why issue five, the first issue of the arc that almost killed the series (aside from the gorgeous paper cover and it being the first Jill Thompson issue)? Because, hidden within this single issue is the entire series. The whole point and purpose of The Invisibles hidden underneath the surface. While the series covers a great deal of topics, there are three major ideas, three major quotes.

The first is "There is no enemy. We are not at war. This is a rescue mission."

The second is "A bullet in the right place can change the world." (Also used as "can blow a kneecap of the world" in Transmetropolitan)

The third is the last line in the last issue of the comic, which I won't reveal here.

All three are scrambled and hidden in this issue. Find them if you can.

8. Harley Quinn #1 "Rollercoaster of Love"
Words by Karl Kesel
Pictures by Rachel and Terry Dodson

There's a very interesting conceptual and thematic link between this comic and "The Coyote Gospel" as it serves as the bridge between Harley Quinn animated character and Harley Quinn comic book character. While it's true that Harley's initial in continuity comic appearance predates her solo series, this is where she actually "scales up" into the comic world and like the Coyote, her transition is not easy but by the end of the issue Harley is settled into this brave new static world. Beyond just re-establishing Harley, Kesel gives us brilliant and heart breaking insight into Harley's character and the relationships that have shaped her up until this point which makes up the other half of the reason it made it here. There are funnier issues, others that deal with her relationship with The Joker, and more poignant ones, but I feel that this issue is special in that it seems to capture and wrap together all those elements.

9. Mystique #13 "Nevermore"
Words by Brian K Vaughan
Pictures by Michael Ryan and Matt Milla

In an interview with Wizard prior to the launch of Mystique, Vaughan said that there is a tendency among writers to want to repair female villains, to fix them and make them not bad, or whatever the alternative might be. He was probably thinking of Emma Frost or Elektra when he said it. He went on to say that it was something he struggled with in writing Mystique, but attempted to avoid. Issue thirteen, his last on the series, is one of the moments that proves he succeded while adding new depth to the character.

10. All Star Superman #3
Words by Grant Morrison
Pictures by Frank Quitely

What happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object? Find out all this and more in the powerful reclaiming of Superman's identity as a hero and the most romantic superhero moment of all time.