Spawn

I love this book. I didn't start reading until the late 90's and started with the trade paperbacks. I loved the whole concept of the book: A soldier named Al Simmons is betrayed and killed by his comrades. He is sent to Hell since he's a trained killer (later on in the series we'd discover that Heaven and Hell take turns picking souls for Armageddon, and some people that should have gone to Hell are in fact in Heaven) and he cuts a deal with Malebolgia to return to Earth to see his wife again. What Al doesn't know is that five years have passed. His wife is remarried to his best friend and they have a child together. To make matters worse, underneath his costume, he is something that isn't human anymore. And there's a lot of people and creatures on both sides who want him dead.

My personal favorite of these early issues is issue #5. In this issue, a convicted child molester and murderer named Billy Kincaid gets set free (let's hear it for justice!) and when Spawn learns of this, he thinks back to the time he got a contract to kill Kincaid, but was beaten to the punch by the authorities who arrested him.

Now, five years later, Spawn sees a chance to right this wrong. The last page in the book is a shot of a dead Kincaid chained up with a note stabbed into him. It'll stick with you, trust me.

This book is almost to its 150th issue, which is damn good considering most other Image titles started around the same time as Spawn don't exist anymore.
Spawn is still a better read than most other comics, since it manages to tell a complete tale in one issue instead of spreading it out over six issues like Marvel. The book still has a continuity arc of Spawn/Al trying to get his memories back after Mammon stole them from him. I think the writing of the book is above most mass-amrket titles, though many may disagree with me.