The Origins of the Great Machine?
Of all the books I pick up, I think this is the series that is most overlooked and yet delivers with each issue. The creative team has been the same since issue #1 (Vaughan & Harris) and that helps a lot. Although Tony Harris is by no means the greatest artist out there, he has a few things going for him. First off the quality of his art is consistent from issue to issue. You don't have to worry about him getting sloppy. Secondly his characters are distinct. There is no confusion on who you're looking at, which sometimes actually happens in comic books that don't feature any costumed super heroes (well for the most part anyways).
Vaughan does what he does best in this series, and that's writing about interesting characters. Even when there isn't much going on in the story, I still find the character interactions extremely entertaining. I would have never thought that reading about the mayor of New York City would be in my monthly pull list. First of all the premise of having a former super hero as mayor is just great... even though we've been shown he wasn't all that great as a super hero.
Although the series has been more about the characters then the plot, the current story arc shows that we might find out exactly how Mitchell Hundred got his powers in the first place. It's funny that the series is approaching it's 30th issue, and there's been no real demand to find out the origins of the powers simply because the series has been entertaining without going into that territory. This story arc marks the first time that the series is going into some weird super hero stuff as well. We've got a visitor that seems to come from the future, or an alter reality or something... and he seems to have all the answers about what is going on with Hundred. Of course BKV can't do a simple super hero showdown... so Mayor Hundred has also lost his powers... a long with the entire East Coast.
If you want to read something that's a bit different and self contained, you should really pick up this title. It has done no wrong to me thus far.