peter john rios

Covers of comics that are (or have been) in my collection at one point or another.

#84

Birds of Prey (2005)

Daredevil (2006)

Firestorm (1989)

Green Lantern (1997)

JSA (2006)

Legion of Super-Heroes (1996)

Marvel Comics Present: The end of Barry Windsor-Smith’s Weapon X saga. And the beginning of constantly going back to the well and trying to layer even more origins on the character by other creators trying to emulate this story. Outside of Origin, Weapon X is really the only origin needed. (1991)

New Titans: The Titans Hunt comes to close killing off a few members of the Titans Universe. It wasn’t the best ending but I enjoyed the storyarc overall. (1992)

Warlord: Something about this cover I really dig. (1984)

X-Factor (1992)

Image limit reached:

X-Men: The storyline that introduced a sentient Cerebro comes to a close, years before Joss Whedon’s “original” take on a sentient Danger Room. (1999)

Covers of comics that are (or have been) in my collection at one point or another.

#150

Flash: It’s the end of the Chain Lightning storyline that will kick off the Dark Flash saga. Crisis-philes need to pick this issue up! (1999)

Girls Love Stories: No idea where this comes from. Perhaps a hand me down from my uncle? I just saw the cover and knew I had it in my collection. Haha. There are no credits that I can find for this issue inside the pages itself but there is a pin-up page encouraging girls to wear short skirts so as to expose more of their legs. Sounds right to me. (1970)

Iron Man: Handed down from my uncle, this is probably one of the earliest, if not the earliest, Iron Man issues I ever read. And with that John Romita Jr art with Bob Layton inking, and taking place in Camelot, yea - this captured my childhood imagination. Doom and Stark working together, marveling about each others’ brilliance as they use their suits to get back to their own time, was such a great sequence. (1981)

Marvel Team-Up: The final issue of the series with a subtle Barry Windsor-Smith cover. I knew it was a Greg LaRocque drawn issue, I didn’t realize Louise Simonson was the writer. (1985)

New X-Men: Jean Grey dies. And has been dead (more or less) since this issue. We shall see, hm? (2004)

Nightwing (2009)

Robin (2006)

Covers of comics that are (or have been) in my collection at one point or another.

#186

Cerebus: From what I can research, it appears this is the issue that would forever mar Dave Sim’s reputation. (1994)

Daredevil: Stilts. (1982)

Fantastic Four: As kooky as they may seem, I have such a crush on the Salem’s Seven. They are so bizarre and practically cookie cutter villains and yet I dig every moment of them in this issue. (1977)

Flash (2002)

Green Lantern: The final issue of the short Len Wein/Dave Gibbons run that I dug back at this time. (1985)

Iron Man (1984)

Justice League of America (1981)

Uncanny X-Men: Lifedeath. This is one of those issues that has become more than simply a classic X-Men event or story. It was a benchmark issue for all mainstream comics at the time. The art, the idea behind it. Great great stuff. It’s also one of those issues that proves that Chris Claremont alone really was a major part of why the X-Men became popular. He could write the X-Men as the soap opera super-heroes that they are far better than anyone else after him. And the Barry Windsor-Smith art is amazing. Find it. Read it. Absorb it. Like Bill Sienkiewicz on New Mutants, this issue went a long way to opening my mind to different ways to present comics. (1984)

Wonder Woman (2002)

Covers of comics that are (or have been) in my collection at one point or another.

#198

Avengers: Mutha-flippin’ Red Ronin!!! Or Ronan if you go by the mistake on the cover. (1980)

Brave and the Bold: Chalk this up to trying and collect all the Legion appearances I can get my hands on. (1983)

Flash (2003)

Green Lantern: GL as a title was knee-deep in Crisis crossovers at this time. And Hal Jordan never even appeared in the actual Crisis… issues! (1986)

Justice League of America: JLA travels back once more to DC’s Wild West! I’m a sucker for these kind of mash-ups since some of the earliest JLA issues I picked up during backissue hunts had guest stars from around the DCU (Jonah Hex, Viking Prince, Enemy Ace, etc). (1982)

Uncanny X-Men: Storm. Barry Windsor-Smith. Lifedeath II. Get it. (1985)

Covers of comics that are (or have been) in my collection at one point or another.

#205

Green Lantern Corps (1986)

Justice League of America (1982)

Superman (2004)

Uncanny X-Men: Beautifully drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith. (1986)

X-Factor (2010)

X-Men (2008)

Covers of comics that are (or have been) in my collection at one point or another.

#236

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear returns! I forgot that I once had this issue. The cover border was a standard across the Marvel line in this month celebrating their 25th Anniversary. The artist is Walt Simonson (which I guess you kind of see), strange because the interior is Barry Windsor-Smith who provided the cover for Fantastic Four during this month (issue 296 incidentally). The interiors are beautiful - probably an early exposure for me to BWS’s work after his Machine Man run and his random Uncanny X-Men issues. This is Ann Nocenti’s first DD issue - although not the first that would start her run. I thought I had missed her run completely but I guess I did sneak in at least one issue. An issue featuring the Black Widow, the two turn out a pretty good comic. (1986)

Fantastic Four: The F4 celebrate their 20th Anniversary. Stan’s on the cover. Where’s Jack? Go look for that story. It’s pretty interesting. I mean, only practically the entire Marvel Universe was created in the first 50 issues of F4. Hmph. (1981)

Justice League of America: The final chapter of the storyarc that introduces the new Detroit JLA. They go up against the Cadre, a relatively generic supergroup for the most part, but it does provide a great scene with Aquaman picking an energized crowbar out of the air mid-throw and tossing it back to his opponents. See that folks? Aquaman was cool long before Peter David got his hands on him. Keep watch on the next three entries as the covers form one giant image. (1985)

X-Men Legacy (2010)