First 10 - Excalibur

This series came highly recommended to me by a friend who, upon hearing of my affinity for Alpha Flight, figured I would be as much a fan of the British X-Men as I was of the Canadian X-Men. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I hoped I would.

Excalibur has a lot going for it. For starters, two of my favorite X-Men are on the team: Kitty Pride and Nightcrawler. Secondly, Captain Britain is a whole lot like Guardian, who is my favorite member of Alpha Flight. There is a certain level of kitsch value in the comic, which makes for a lot of fun.

On the downside, Excalibur doesn't seem to have the larger theme that X-Men and Alpha Flight do. The X-Men are constantly battling bigotry and blind hatred while Alpha Flight uncovers the darker side of government bureaucracy and military funding. Excalibur just seems to fight whichever foe comes along without engaging in any other ongoing larger battle. That being the case, it felt like something was missing in the first 10 issues of Excalibur. I enjoyed them, but they could have been better. I'm sure I'm missing quite a bit by only having read the first 10 issues, but I'm basing all these series on their first 10 issues alone, so fair's fair. Here are the updated standings:

1. Batman
2. Amazing Spider-Man
3. Fantastic Four
4. Deadpool
5. Booster Gold
6. Daredevil
7. The Punisher
8. Golden Age Green Lantern
9. The Avengers
10. The Defenders
11. Captain America
12. Excalibur
13. Golden Age Captain America
14. Golden Age Blue Beetle
15. Doctor Strange
16. Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics)
17. Aquaman