A Transit Museum exhibit called "Undergound Heroes" shows the subway through the eyes of more than 120 artists.
"It's everybody's story, and this is just another way of telling everybody's story through 'Underground Heroes' and the venue of comics," said Concetta Bencivenga, director of the New York Transit Museum.
The exhibit displays drawings from the 1800s, when streetcars carried New Yorkers, to the delay-plagued system New Yorkers endure today.
Some of the themes are eternal, like the plague of overcrowding and the difficulty of getting a seat.
There is satire. "Houston, we have a pronouncation problem..." says one cartoon.
And, of course, fantasy: Superman, Spider-Man, The Punisher, Daredevil and Brooklyn's own "Red Hook."
"There's superheroes, there's monsters and there's regular people just like us," said Jodi Shapiro, associate curator with the New York Transit Museum.
The subway has long been fertile ground for cartoonists, and not just because many of them live here. It offers a chance to create intracate drawings and, with nearly 6 million daily riders, weigh in on the human condition.
"The more often you take public transit, the more a part of you it becomes. And if you're an artist, the way that you express yourself is by your hand, by drawing something," Shapiro said.
Tony Wolf's comic book series "Greenpoint of View" is represented. It was inspired by unusual encounters on the G train, like the time a stranger offered him some eats.
"He had pre-sliced kielbasa pieces, and he offered me a slice of kielbasa on the Nassau Avenue subway platform as we both waited for the subway. And I sort of politely declined, but I thought, 'I got to put that in the comic!'" Wolf said.
Though he now lives just outside the city, Wolf says the G train remains central to his work.
"I never really expected that transit comics would be a niche that I would fall into. But I did," he said. "I had so many stories."
Stories that have now gone from comic books to museum walls.
"Underground Heroes" will remain at the Transit Museum through January 2019. For museum hours, go to nytransitmuseum.org.