1. The X-Men
2. Cyclops
3. Stan Lee

4. Grant Morrison's "Batgod" Batman


5. Fables
6. The basic concept of the Green Lanterns: space cops with magic rings
7. Primates with super powers




8. The Legion of Super Pets

9. Digging through quarter bins at conventions
10. The smell of old comics
11. Covers with dialogue on them
12. Lex Luthor's 1980s, George Pereze-designed battle suit

13. Dr. Doom speaking in the third person
14. John Romita Jr.
15. Chris Claremont's Magneto
16. Uncanny X-Men #175
17. Steve Englehart's crazy time traveling Kang stories
18. "I know your secret."
19. Silver Age Jimmy Olsen stories

20. The Justice League
21. The Avengers
22. The crappy paper on which comics used to be printed before the glossy stuff used today, so comics felt like books instead of magazines.
23. Darkseid

24. Thanos

25. Fin Fang Foom

26. Noble Causes
27. "With great power comes great responsibility."
28. Stan Lee's memory-saving alliterative character names
29. Thor's Shakespearean speech patterns
30. Jack Kirby
31. Bernard the Poet
32. Uncanny X-Men #190 and #191


33. DC's Showcase Presents and Marvel's Essential collections
34. Kingdome Come
35. Marvels

36. The Watcher, especially the fact that he's sworn to observe and never interfere, but he interferes every damn time.

37. Subplots
38. "My ward is a junkie!"

39. Claremontisms, especially: I’m the best there is at what I do” “The focused totality of my telepathic power” “No quarter asked, none given” and “I'm nigh invulnerable when I'm blastin’!”
40. Cable's convoluted history
41. DC's legacy characters
42. The women of the Hellfire Club



43. The idea that superhero comics are a modern mythology
44. Continuity
45. Pouring through my longboxes for hours on end, organizing my collection
46. "Ultron. We would have words with thee."

47. The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe

48. "To Be Continued."
49. Footnotes: I've read countless comics I never would have otherise because of them.
50. The letters page, a great way to end a comic: the story is over, but I'm not quite ready to move on to the next one.
1.