Alessandro Vitti

Secret Warriors was Jonathan Hickman's first sustained Marvel work, written while Nick Fury was off the board and S.H.I.E.L.D. had been dismantled. It is the run where Hickman's structural habits — long games, hidden org charts, betrayals planted issues in advance — first appear at full scale. The central reveal — that Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. grew from the same root — reshaped Marvel espionage permanently and set up everything Hickman later did on Avengers and Secret Wars. It also stands alone: a complete twenty-eight issue story with a beginning and an ending, which is rare for a run of this influence.