While graphic novels became more popular throughout the decade, most comic-book stories were still sold as periodical series. The following are my selections for the best periodical comic books of the ’00s.

1. Y: The Last Man

A virus kills all the men on earth, save escape artist Yorick Brown and his monkey, Ampersand.  Writer Brian K. Vaughan takes a science-fiction cliche and explores its socioeconomic results in a fast-paced thriller.

2. Demo

Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan examine the trials of youth, through the lens of young people with unusual powers. Each issue is a complete tale, with an entirely new cast and different art style. From issue No. 4’s blue-collar James McMurray, third-generation factory worker, to No. 5’s Kate, a young woman cursed to fulfill other’s expectations, to No. 8’s Nick, a man dealing with a lost love, Wood created fully realized characters in 32-page installments.

3. All-Star Superman

Writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely capture the charm of comics’ Silver Age with their take on Superman, a Man of Steel who creates Superman robots, and whose best pal Jimmy Olsen finds himself gaining strange powers. Several story tropes from the 1960s come full circle, as Morrison boils them down to their essence and represents them with modern flair.

4. Action Comics

Geoff Johns and co-writer Richard Donner (director of “Superman: The Movie”) wrote an epic tale featuring the Kryptonian villains Zod, Ursa, and Non — and introduced a new supporting character to the Superman mythos.

With artist Eric Powell (“The Goon”), Donner and Johns reinterpreted the Bizarro World.

With artist Gary Frank, Johns took Superman to the future to meet up with the Legion of Super-Heroes. And again with Frank, Johns provided a masterful Superman tale as he faced off against the menace of Brainiac. Superhero comics done exactly right.

5. New X-Men

Morrison melded wild ideas with the art of Frank Quitely (“The Authority”) and Ethan Van Sciver to make the X- Men more accessible to the masses.

6. Captain America:

Ed Brubaker’s run on Captain America was perfectly orchestrated, from the return of Captain America’s former sidekick, Bucky, to the death of Captain America following the superhero “Civil War,” to Bucky’s eventual growth into the “Captain America” role.

7. Or Else/Ganges

Indy comics creator Kevin Huizenga is one of the breakout indie creators of the decade. Huizenga’s everyman, Glenn Ganges, is one of the most remarkably real characters in comics, regardless of the strange situations he encounters.

8. Top 10

Alan Moore and Zander Cannon created the world of Neopolis, where everyone is a superhero or supervillain. “Top 10” chronicles the daily lives of the police officers of that world, at the 10th Precinct Police Station.

9. Queen and Country

British Minder Tara Chace stars in Greg Rucka’s spy series from Oni Press. Dealing with everything from industrial espionage to high-stakes office politics, Rucka and a host of artists kept “Queen and Country” consistently a top read during the decade of the 2000s.

10. Daredevil

Writers Brian Michael Bendis and Ed Brubaker charted the adventures of blind lawyer Matt Murdock, secretly the crimefighter Daredevil, for much of the past decade, and the quality of the title was consistently high. With action, romance and shocking revelations, “Daredevil” remained a must-read, ably aided by artists Alex Maleev and Michael Lark.

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