Top 10 Tuesday: Marvel Contributors

posted in: Comics, Features, Top 10!!! | 0

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Other notable works: Incredible Hulk, Defenders, Rom, & Captain America

#9 Bill Mantlo – 721

– ROM

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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

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Other notable works: Amazing Spider-Man, Journey into Mystery, Tales to Astonish, & Where Monsters Dwell

#7 Brian Michael Bendis – 899

– Ultimate Spider-Man

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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

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Other notable works: Alpha Flight, Sensational She-Hulk, Namor the Sub-Mariner, & Uncanny X-Men

#5 Chris Claremont – 1007

– Uncanny X-Men

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Other notable works: X-Treme X-Men, X-Men Forever, New Mutants, & Fantastic Four

#4 John Buscema – 1009

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Other notable works: The Mighty Thor, The Savage Sword of Conan, Fantastic Four, Avengers, & Captain Britain

#3 Jack “The King” Kirby – 1322

– Fantastic Four

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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

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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

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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

Follow Kevin McVicker:

Like an infinite number of monkeys trying to write Hamlet, Kevin has been able to randomly place together words in a somewhat coherent order in an attempt to express his lifelong love of all things Marvel. Starting from the first moments he watched Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends as a little tyke, Kevin has grown into an actual adult male while somehow maintaining his passion for superheroes. Does he know how to the change the oil in his car? No! Can he explain the convoluted history of the X-Men comic book series? Listen, bud: no one can!