This week, while I’m away for the week, I have prepared an extra special week long-edition of the 7. It’s more than 7.14 times better than a regular edition of The 7 cause it’s the 50 most influential moments in comic book history. These are the moments that we remember for their shock, awe, and influence. They shaped the industry to being the crossover filled, variant covered, month-long-delayed industry we all know and love. Here’s the moments…

40. John Byrne Recreates Superman - 1986
After years of convoluted, campy, and just plain bad stories, Superman needed some saving. Known for making the failing Fantastic Four a best-selling title, John Byrne started his run on Superman with a six-issue mini-series called Man of Steel where Byrne completely recreated Superman’s origins starting him in the 1980’s. His parents were still alive, Lois had her competitive attitude, and Superman again appealed to the masses. Byrne made all prior Superman stories disappear; the current stories were a smashing success. His retooling gave him the reputation of a Mr. Fix-it in the industry, though his later attempts failed to gain the same success. However, Man of Steel saved Superman. It made the Big Blue readable and produced some of his best stories. The industry also learned how much control creators had on the continuity of characters. From then on, characters were redesigned, replaced, and rebooted in the new trend plaguing and attracting fans.

39. Alex Ross Paints Marvels -1995
Comic book fans are known cheapskates ($2.25 cover prices are nothing but an outrage, even though we pay them anyway). So bow in awe of a single artist who can pry $9.95 from over one hundred thousand fan boy pockets for his comics. The uber-painter Alex Ross resembles the 600 pound gorilla in regards to getting what he wants in the comic industry. And it all began when, out of no where, this painter with a style near photo-quality, created the instant classic with Kurt Busiek, Marvels. Retelling key moments in Marvel’s history, Marvels touched audience hearts and made an over-night sensation in Ross who went on to create another classic for DC, Kingdom Come. He gave credibility to doing comics with more than just markets and pencils. Painting gain credibility as did creativity. Now, Ross does what he wants, whether it is over-tabloid-sized comics, bringing the 80’s sensation Battle of the Planets to comic form, or being the plotter and creative director on Marvel’s Earth X and subsequent sequels, Alex Ross has the comic industry wrapped around his finger. When he speaks, we listen. When he draws, we spend our money.

38. Marvel Comics Goes Bankrupt - 1995
The first reaction: fear. Fans worried that Marvel was going to sell its characters to the highest bidder. But that didn’t happen. Instead, after a lengthy reorganizing, Marvel weathered the storm to become stronger and more successful than it had been in years. Like in therapy, one must reach the bottom before he or she can work back up - same for business. Once Marvel hit the bottom, it changed everything it could to regain its audience. The results have been nothing short of stellar. Marvel replaced its President with Harvard Law School alum Bill Jemas and named a new editor-in-chief in Joe Quesada. Almost all of Marvel’s main characters dominate the Top 50 sold comics with nine of them being in the top 10 for December of 2002. Movies started becoming more than just rumors. The unexpected side-effect was that Marvel let Stan Lee go from his exclusive contract. As a result, Lee went on to write a series of DC Comics as well as starting his own internet company.
After falling flat on its face, Marvel realized where it went wrong and did well to replace their mistakes with risks that paid off in not only sales, but fan satisfaction.

37. Mad Magazine Spoofs Superman - 1953
Mad Magazine began as a comic book published by EC Comics that spoofed and satire everything possible. Eventually, the comic invented their interpretation for DC’s big gun, Superduperman. Outraged, DC sued to prevent Mad from ever poking fun at Superman again. The courts ruled in favor of Mad saying that spoofs were lawful under the First Amendment. This ruling allowed Mad to remain a strong product for years to come. In addition, Mad inspired hundreds of imitators including Not Brand Echh, Sick, Crazy, and Arrgh. Even the underground comix owe their creative juices to reading pages of Mad. Furthermore, Mad Magazine (eventually bought by DC Comics) became a pop culture symbol receiving press on Star Trek, the Simpsons, as well as its own sketch comedy show.

36. Superman Dies –1993
With sales lagging for DC’s flagship character, the publisher needed a miracle. When they couldn’t find one, Superman creators took the opposite extreme and decided to kill him off, something that Superman creators always brought up but never acted upon. Superman’s death became a reality. Mainstream news and entertainment programs devoted massive amounts of attention to the sensational event. Fans and non-fans piled into the comic stores to buy Superman #75 where Big Blue died, expecting the specially bagged issue to skyrocket in value. Almost six million copies were sold, sparking DC to continue a long line of epic storylines hyping to retain the stellar audience. Sadly, DC’s subsequent stories failed to do anything but scare away fans. Superman became nothing but a stream of watered down gimmicks for sales, inspired by the success of his death. DC has finally rejuvenated the franchise, but for about seven years, the damage had been done.

35. Joe Madureia Draws the X-Men – 1994
With manga becoming increasingly popular in America and greatly influencing the art of a few titles, Marvel decided to trust its best selling title with a no-name talent, Joe Madureia, who started on Uncanny X-Men #312. Quickly, Madureia went on to become one of the most popular comic book artists and paving the way for manga to find success in the mainstream. Pat Lee and Adam Hughes and many others made their names from a deep influence from manga and starting to take over American styles.

34. Secret Wars Happen – 1984
Marvel Comics created the idea of a universe where all of their characters interacted. Their limited series, Secret Wars, brought that universe to the next level. Marvel took its top heroes and its top villains, placed them on an alien planet, and pitted them against each other. The result spawned spin-off stories in each character’s respective titles, a sequel series, dozens of toy lines, the alien costume that would eventually become Venom, and, above all, the concept of a maxi-series. DC’s eventually Crisis on Infinite Earths owes itself to the Secret Wars as that series showed publishers could find major sales in manufactured events that everyone knew would eventually end. Epic story lines that dominate the major publishers came because of the commercial success of the Secret Wars.

33. Spider-Man Combats Drugs - 1970
The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare asked Stan Lee to add an anti-drug message into one of Marvel’s comics. Lee incorporated the theme into Marvel’s best selling title, the Amazing Spider-Man. When Marvel sent the comics to the Comic Code, the Code refused to approve them. Marvel published the comics anyway, to the industry’s dismay.
The story was still an enormous success and brought into question the validity of the code. As a result, the industry revised the code allowing for more political commentary and reflections of the real world. With the world changing, comics needed to match the trend. Spider-Man and Marvel led the way.

32. Robin Sets the Standard for Sidekicks - 1940
One of the most popular trends during the Golden Age of comics was giving superheroes a teenage sidekick. This appealed to the youthful readers who dreamed of being superheroes themselves. Robin, Batman’s sidekick, became the most popular and only one to last past the fifties, let alone until the present. The relationship of Batman and Robin set the cliché of superhero sidekicks that went on to be imitated and spoofed in hundreds of sources. Almost all superheroes during the 40’s and 50’s had sidekicks. Robin inspired the trend what became a staple in the medium.

31. Superman and Spider-Man Team Up - 1976
This idea was so simple, even the Hulk could have thought it up. Marvel takes its most popular character, Spider-Man, and teams him up with DC’s most popular character, Superman. The result? The first company crossover…EVER. After this manufactured tale of great heroes teaming up against their worst villains, Marvel and DC continued the trend, even to today when the publishers recently announced their JLA/Avengers team-up. Since then, almost every publisher has participated in a crossover with another, whether for a gimmick or great storytelling. Nevertheless, the idea became common practice.

Come back every day this week for the full list of the Most influential moments in comic book history