Comics that make you smarter/better/inspire

Hey I'm new to comics. I need some serious inspirations/motivation to keep going, I work so much and I need a healthy escape such as comics. I need some recommendations.

What comics, more so than others, have someone coming from almost nothing and then being a huge success? Overcoming extreme adversity? Powerless, then achieving extreme success? Make you think about what's truly important?

And can we also discuss comics that make you smarter - extremely strategic thinkers, innovative technologies, huge imagination, etc.?

I work 9 hours a day at an ad agency then work on my startup at night so I need a form of escape. Thank you very much in advance for helping me out, it means a lot!

I hope it's not too early to bump

Silver Surfer: Requiem

Saga

Mark Miller's MPH

Stray Bullets

Sweet Tooth (happy ending done right.)

Daytripper

@roboshark: this looks cool. I love Silver Surfer. Anything else more like him? Marvel or DC

Carl Barks Scrooge Mcduck's comics
Complete Peanuts
Flex Mentallo
Animal Man
Daytripper
Hitman
Battlefields
Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest kid on Earth
All Star Superman
Kingdom Come
Blankets

Sweet Tooth

Black Science (Love it)

Life After

Bedlam (Very Interesting)

Not sure if this is exactly what you're after but we3.

iron man, batman etc

A manga called Maouyuu

http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Maoyuu-Maou-Yuusha-Be-mine-Hero-I-refuse

makes you look at war a little differently if you don't pay attention in class.

Justice by Jim Krueger

Kingdom Come by Mark Waid

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore

Batman: Knightfall (1-3) by Chuck Dixon

And many more

Read them while listening to Daft Punk.

Bump.

This.

Cassandra Cain's early Batgirl run.

Batman No Man's Land. Gotham is laid to waste after an earthquake making it a no man's land and to make matters worse Batman ain't there so i guess it goes with the themes you're looking for.

This is a very interesting thread. Comics are sort of a mixed bag of these kinds of things between dark subjects and sprinkles of optimism.