Criminal

From 2008 onward, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips brought their signature noir sensibility to Marvel's Icon imprint with Criminal, a gritty, standalone crime series that eschews superheroics for hard-boiled heists, double-crosses, and flawed characters navigating a shadowy underworld. Over its initial seven-issue run, the book established a rotating cast of crooks, cops, and con artists, with each story arc exploring the brutal consequences of a life of crime. Leonard Cohen and Marc Andreyko later contributed to the series, but the core creative heartbeat remains Brubaker's taut scripts and Phillips's moody, atmospheric art. Criminal matters as a landmark modern crime comic, proving that Marvel could publish mature, genre-defining work outside its shared universe.