Okay… so this article took me three days of research to complete. That’s a lot for me considering I can usually bang out a thousand word essay in less than two hours. On this one I wanted one that you and everyone on the internet could not argue against… one that both Democrat and Republican and Libertarian and the Green Party would all agree with… a statistically driven top ten list.
So with this in mind, I enlisted the help of Jarid Mayo and Jon Durmin to help me cull a list of 70 contributors. I then used the data at http://www.maelmill-insi.de/UHBMCC/ to help me get an accurate list of each contributor’s credits.
Some notes on how I counted credits: I only counted pencils and writing as credits. Why not inks and colors? Those pieces are important, but this is about the storytellers. If a contributor did both pencils and writing on a book, that was two credits. All trades and obvious republishes were ignored as well as all Icon and Malibu contributions (because everyone ignores those anyways). This is also a Marvel contributors and not a 616 contributors top ten list. Why? I have a job and partitioning out 616 from every Marvel publication would not only take much longer but would also add in a level of opinion that I wanted to be removed from this list. Also, I did (note: did!) count all Conan books because when they were published at Marvel, they were part of the 616, just in the past (see: What If? Wolverine vs Conan for more proof). I counted all Marvel credits through the end of Secret War so this’ll be current up to the relaunch of the New (?) Marvel Universe in the fall of 2015.
Since I did 70 contributors and that was a lot of work we are first going to have a list of the 60 honorable mentions in order from smallest to largest contribution and what series they contributed to the most. The final 10 won’t be much more, but we’ll have pictures because you need to know who these titans of Marvel Comics are!
Honorable Mentions:
28 – Alan Moore – Daredevils (UK)
36 – Amanda Conner – Gargoyles
56 – Sara Pichelli – Guardians of the Galaxy
58 – Kathryn Immonen – Journey Into Mystery
60 – Joe Madureira – Uncanny X-Men
62 – Olivier Coipel – Avengers
66 – Kelly Sue DeConnick – Captain Marvel
66 – Tom Brevoort – Fantastic Force
84 – Skottie Young – Rocket Raccoon
87 – Jimmy Cheung – X-Force
88 – Marjorie Liu – X-23
92 – Todd McFarlane – Amazing Spider-Man
95 – Greg Land – Uncanny X-Men
95 – Joe Quesada – Daredevil
104 – Mike Zeck – Captain America
113 – Adam Kubert – Ultimate X-Men
117 – Terry Dodson – Generation X
117 – Jim Lee – Punisher War Journal
119 – Joe Kelly – Deadpool
125 – Andy Kubert – X-Men
130 – Steve Epting – Captain America
134 – Chris Bachalo – Uncanny X-Men
136 – Rob Liefeld – New Mutants
159 – Ann Nocenti – Daredevil
187 – Garth Ennis – Punisher Max
195 – Mark Millar – Ultimate X-Men
200 – Mary Jo Duffy – Power Man & Iron Fist
206 – Ron Lim – Silver Surfer
207 – Howard Chaykin – Blade
218 – Jeph Loeb – Hulk
222 – Rick Remender – Uncanny X-Force
222 – Louise Simonson – X-Factor
223 – Mike Deodato Jr – New Avengers
238 – Gil Kane – Amazing Spider-Man
242 – Warren Ellis – Excalibur
249 – Al Milgrom – West Coast Avengers
255 – Jonathan Hickman – Avengers
268 – Mark Waid – Daredevil
275 – Ed Brubaker – Captain America
291 – Walt Simonson – Thor
297 – Kurt Busiek – Avengers
302 – Steve Gerber – Howard the Duck
303 – Jason Aaron – Wolverine and the X-Men
306 – Matt Fraction – Invincible Iron Man
344 – Alan Davis – Excalibur
348 – John Romita Sr – Amazing Spider-Man
354 – Scott Lobdell – Uncanny X-Men
375 – Roger Stern – Amazing Spider-Man
378 – Dan Slott – Amazing Spider-Man
381 – Dave Michelinie – Amazing Spider-Man
396 – Steve Englehart – Avengers
402 – J. M. DeMatteis – Spectacular Spider-Man
410 – Howard Mackie – Ghost Rider
422 – Mark Bagley – Ultimate Spider-Man
424 – Mark Gruenwald – Captain America
428 – Jim Starlin – Dreadstar
479 – John Romita Jr – Amazing Spider-Man
590 – Fabian Nicieza – Cable/Deadpool
632 – Peter David – X-Factor
673 – Gene Colan – Daredevil
And there are your 60 Honorable Mentions! Here are the Top 10 Marvel Contributors:
#10 Sal Buscema –704
– Spectacular Spider-Man
Other notable works: Incredible Hulk, Defenders, Rom, & Captain America
#9 Bill Mantlo – 721
– ROM
Other notable works: Spectacular Spider-Man, Micronauts, Incredible Hulk (including first Rocket Raccoon), & Alpha Flight
You can read more about his personal life here and maybe it’ll inspire you to give to The Hero Iniative
#8 Steve Ditko – 883
– Strange Tales
Other notable works: Amazing Spider-Man, Journey into Mystery, Tales to Astonish, & Where Monsters Dwell
#7 Brian Michael Bendis – 899
– Ultimate Spider-Man
Other notable works: Uncanny X-Men, New Avengers, Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, All-New X-Men, Daredevil
#6 John Byrne – 967
– Fantastic Four
Other notable works: Alpha Flight, Sensational She-Hulk, Namor the Sub-Mariner, & Uncanny X-Men
#5 Chris Claremont – 1007
– Uncanny X-Men
Other notable works: X-Treme X-Men, X-Men Forever, New Mutants, & Fantastic Four
#4 John Buscema – 1009
Other notable works: The Mighty Thor, The Savage Sword of Conan, Fantastic Four, Avengers, & Captain Britain
#3 Jack “The King” Kirby – 1322
– Fantastic Four
Other notable works: Captain America, Uncanny X-Men, Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish, & The Mighty Thor
#2 Roy Thomas – 1469
– Conan the Barbarian
Other notable works: West Cost Avengers, The Might Thor, Uncanny X-Men, Sub-Mariner, The Savage Sword of Conan, The Invaders, The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four, Doctor Strange, Amazing Spider-Man, & The Avengers
#1 Stan “The Man” Lee – 2601
– Fantastic Four
Other notable works: Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Captain America, Daredevil, Kid Colt, Journey into Mystery, Millie the Model, The Rawhide Kid, Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense, The Mighty Thor, Two-Gun Kid, Uncanny X-Men, & Where Monsters Dwell
