Die Hard

Few characters embody the raw energy of Image Comics' early 1990s explosion quite like Die Hard, who burst onto the scene in Dollman #3 in 1992, courtesy of creator Tom Mason. A Copper/Modern Age original through and through, Die Hard has proven genuinely enduring — 159 catalog appearances across more than three decades is no fluke, and 11 of those are recognized as key issues, making this a character serious collectors keep an eye on. The pages Die Hard calls home are packed with heavy hitters — Shaft, Badrock, Vogue, and Prophet's own Jeff Terrell among them — and titles like Youngblood, Team Youngblood, and Prophet represent the bold, kinetic heart of what made Image such a phenomenon. If you're tracing the DNA of that era's most ambitious superhero universe-building, Die Hard is a name worth knowing.