The biggest thing any work of art can do it affect you emotionally in some way, really create a sense of resonance. My mind sometimes wanders to this moment from THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR #4. A little girl Matt is mentoring is kidnapped by human traffickers and the junkies that took her are trying to con the parents into a ransom. They're devastated and despondent, with no hope in the world. In real life, this would end in a very dark way -- but in the fantasy world of comics, there are forces to counter these vile, evil pieces of human trash.

I've basically combined two pages into one for this to focus on the moment. Seeing Matt Murdock standing in the rain, drawn only as Romita Jr can draw him, with the parents saying, "There's nobody that can help us." -- for some reason, it really hits home and gives me the chills. I almost get misty, thinking about an unstoppable white knight coming in to help these people. It's the kind of moment that makes me wish I could be a superhero.

Howard The Duck #3 still gets me. In it, a guy called 'Count Macho' stabs a young man to death and gets away with it - Bev tries to save the guy and goes with him to the hospital....but he dies and Bev is traumatised by this. Howard, meanwhile, is found by and studies with the mysterious Kung-Fu Master who had once trained Count Macho, but who now sees that his pupil has misused what he was taught. He teaches Howard what he knows, proclaims Howard the Master of Quack-Fu, gives him an outfit very much like Shang-Chi's, then mysteriously vanishes. While this is going on Bev is kidnapped by Count Macho and his gang as she leaves the hospital after the death of the young man whom she didn't even know. The gang leave a note for Howard, challenging him to fight them and save Bev. Howard confronts them on a building site, with Bev hanging by a chain, and Howard fights them all, eventually defeating Macho who falls to his death. It's one of those moments that hit me really hard when I first read it, and is even more impressive to me in the context of a comic that was intended as satirical. Amidst the usual Gerber silliness that makes up the bulk of this issue, Count Macho's death and Howard and Bev's response to it represent a moment of genuine pathos. Gerber was good at handling these kinds of shifts in tone, but this is so well done. It veers from ridiculous to sad so often, and it's a great example of why I love his writing.

I've got two different ones involving the Thing, and they are somewhat corny but I still get a little verklempt when I read them fresh.

One is from Marvel Two-in-One annual #7 (1982). It's really a whole sequence, the culmination of this god-powered boxer defeating all of Earth's champions one by one, and Ben Grimm making like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke. His spirit cannot be conquered, and he teaches this cosmic being a lesson that saves the Earth while the crowd looks on. The panels below are as good as any to represent the spirit of the sequence.

My pick for maybe the best comic of the last 30 years...Kurt Busiek's wonderful The Nearness of You from Astro City. All of the impact of the multi-verse crossover mega event boiled down to the level of the man on the street

Jason

For LSH fans of a certain age,"The Death of Ferro Lad" may still pack a punch.Its impact is blunted nowadays,since death has become a stunt. Even Ferro Lad got undeaded.

Let's not forget the death of Gwen Stacy. Scarred a generation.

Of course,the biggest funnybook tearjerker remains the "Dark Phoenix" finale.I came to the X-Men a couple of years afterwards,and fans were still wailing about it.Some are still wailing,even after Jean came back and died again.

Had a different reaction to the climax of the first storyline that kicked off Grant Morrison's great run on The Flash.The bad guy was beaten,Flash was running towards his girlfriend in high spirits,and I felt elated myself,as if I was experiencing a contact high.Then,in a final twist to the tale,the last page had another villain setting up another dilemma to be continued next issue.Seeing that,I thought,"This is why I still read superhero comics." Can't quite explain why I felt so pleased;maybe I was just glad to finish a Grant Morrison story and feel something other than confusion.