peter john rios

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

#81 part 1:

Avengers West Coast (1992)

Birds of Prey (2005)

DC Comics Presents: Ambush Bug! (1985)

Firestorm (1989)

Flash: It may only be the cover, but Nightwing and Starfire drawn by Alan Davis? Yes, please. (1993)

Green Lantern: Following the events of the Final Night, the DCU holds a funeral for Hal Jordan. In attendance? John Constantine and Swamp Thing. Suddenly the ending to Brightest Day doesn’t seem so out of the blue. (1996) 

JSA: Geoff Johns run on the title comes to an end. Eventually, this series will end and turn into Justice Society of America with Johns, Dale Eaglesham (who drew this issue) and Alex Ross as the main creative team. (2006)

To be continued in part 2…

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PS/ If that GL cover looks familiar, here ya go:

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

#83

Birds of Prey (2005)

Daredevil (2006)

DC Comics Presents: BATO! Man I loved that group/series back in the day. (1985)

Firestorm (1989)

Flash (1983)

Green Lantern: First appearance of Fatality. (1997)

JSA (2006)

Marvel Comics Presents (1991)

New Titans (1992)

Superman: The Death of Superman event comes to a close. (1993)

Image limit reached:

X-Men (1999)

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Oops missed one file!

Catwoman: During the Blackest Night crossover, a handful of canceled titles were “brought back to life” for an issue - this being one of them. Issues from this volume of the title character will pop up in this series soon. (2010)

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

#86:

Birds of Prey (2005)

Daredevil (2006)

DC Comics Presents: Another Crisis cross-over issue, this one featuring Blackstarr, a villain from the Supergirl series from around this same time. I always liked her design. All that cosmic stuff wrapped up in a cape. Under Infantino’s pencils in the Supergirl series, it was especially bizarre. (1985)

Firestorm: Oh the Janus Directive. I’ll talk more about that when Suicide Squad eventually shows up. (1989)

Green Lantern: Jade felt like more a fit for Kyle than Donna Troy ever did. Still never really liked how established characters with fully realized personalities were reduced to “Kyle’s girlfriends” in this series. (1997)

JSA (2006)

Legion of Super-Heroes: An homage to the classic Ferro vs the Suneater story from Legion lore. Although this is a post-Zero Hour Ferro who survives the encounter. (1996)

New Titans: Oh Image, look what madness you caused. (1992)

Teen Titans: This is the variant cover by Mike Allred - it always feels like it’s an homage to some other cover. I just can’t figure out which. For shame! (2010)

X-Factor: X-Cutioner’s Song. Both loved and hated this at the time. It was full X-Men frenzy at this point in comicdom, but those damn polybagged issues were silly. I think I still have some of the trading cards. I forget which chapter it was, but one of my issues had two trading cards in one polybag. Score! (1993)

Image limit reached, final issue:

X-Men: So Joseph isn’t Magneto at all. That was anti-climactic! (1999)

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

#99 part 1:

Birds of Prey (2006)

Cerebus (1987)

Defenders: A holdover from my uncle’s collection. (1981)

Excalibur (1996)

Firestorm (1990)

Flash (1995)

Green Arrow: Oh, Ollie. Always falling for the dangerous ones. (1995)

Green Lantern: Although not her first appearance (she only had three!), future GL Cary Wren shows up on a cover. A descendent of Kyle Raynor, she’s an obscure character from an Earth that no longer(?) exists. (1998)

To be concluded in part 2…

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

The great #100th edition!

Two things to note before we kick off the festivities: First, I use www.comicbookdb.com as a reference guide to the madness that is my 365 Tumblr series. It’s user generated content, which means if there’s a particular 100th issue that hasn’t been posted there yet, then it will be (unfortunately) absent from this post (and all posts before and after this one actually). While I’ve been enjoying this countdown (and trying furiously to catch up), I like the one-stop-shopping aspect of going just to ComicBookDB without having to go to multiple sources. Second, I’m sure are many, many 100th issues I haven’t read or owned that have significant noteworthy events. For the sake of space and time, I’ll no longer be adding the “never read/never owned” sections. To be blunt, if I want to catch up, I gotta cut that sh*t out. Haha.

With all that said, Here we go with part one!

Avengers West Coast: Special embossed red foil cover! All to celebrate the death of Mockingbird! I found this in a back issue bin years after it was released and since it’s an anniversary issue, and has a shiny Ooooo look at me cover, I picked it up. But it’s still West Coast Avengers to me! (1993)

Birds of Prey: This issue marks the first time the art of Nicola Scott graces the title. I like this issue especially for the opening sequence where Oracle offers up invitations to the group to various female DC characters as potential replacements for Black Canary. It’s all the first appearance of a new Spy Smasher, granddaughter of the original Golden Age espionage character. (2007)

Excalibur (1996)

Firestorm: The 100 issue (plus Annuals) run of Firestorm joins this series. It’s one of those 80s runs that I really enjoyed although the final fourth of the run is a bit wonky, especially at this point where Firestorm is more of an elemental than anything else. Thankfully that eventually went away. By the end of this run, John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake were part of the creative team, paving the way for their eventual collaboration on the Spectre and Martian Manhunter. (1990)

Flash: I no longer have the Terminal Velocity storyarc that includes issue 100, but somewhere in all of this is the first appearance/mention of the Speed Force! And in this issue, the cliffhanger is Wally West learning how the Speed Force can change a speedster. (1995)

Green Arrow: Several titles turned 100 at the same time in DC’s line around the same time. To celebrate, they gave them similar cover treatments. This issue marks the penultimate chapter in the eventual death of Green Arrow story. (1995)

Green Lantern: Including the first appearance of the new, younger Air Wave, son of the Golden Age version. To add to the oddity of the character, the new Air Wave is part of the Hal Jordan family tree, even though the original is from Earth-2 and Hal is from Earth-1. Go look it up. It’s too convoluted to explain here. (1978)

Green Lantern: The current GL, Kyle Rayner, winds up in the past and meets a younger Hal Jordon. After a battle with Sinestro, the Guardians send Kyle back to his proper future. Only, Sinestro manages to send Hal there as well kicking off a short run where a younger Hal shows up in a time where his older self has long since died as his evil Parallax counterpart. (1998)

To be continued in part 2…

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

#101

Avengers West Coast: The penultimate issue of the run, although it’ll always be “West Coast Avengers” to me. (1993)

Birds of Prey (2007)

Excalibur (1996)

Green Arrow: Rather than lose an arm at the hands of Superman, shades of Dark Knight Returns, Ollie Queen goes boom! It would take another six years for his return at the hands of Kevin Smith. (1995)

Green Lantern: The X-Men have traveled from the past to a future they don’t like! Oh wait…I mean Hal Jordan! A novice, first-year Hal Jordan travels from the past to a future he doesn’t like. Sorry. I don’t know why that happened. (1998)

Marvel Comics Presents (1992)

New Titans: If ever there was a signpost along the way that dictates where a series goes wrong, this issue is it. (1993)

Nightwing: Scott McDaniel returns to the title to draw the six-part Chuck Dixon/Scott Beatty Year One storyarc! (2005)

Superman: The last consecutive issue I would pick up following all the various arcs of the Death of Superman years. From here until the Loeb run it’s all random issues, anniversaries, short arcs, etc. (1995)

Thunderbolts: Featuring artwork by Dave Ross, who, thirteen years earlier, also drew the AWC issue above. (2006)

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Limit reached, continued here:

Wolverine (1996)

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Wonder Woman: This issue kicks off the three year, two-star pantied, John Byrne run. I look back on these stories as a solid work with a few wonky tales here and there. The Donna Troy/WW connection that Byrne kicked up was never my favorite, but I really dug his restoration of a Golden Age Wonder Woman into the DC mythos. If you can find them cheap, it’s definitely worth a read. (1995)

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X-Men (2000)

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And from the never read/never owned file:

Amazing Spider-Man: First appearance of Morbius, the Living Vampire!

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Uncanny X-Men: Thirty-six years before the events of Avengers vs X-Men, the Phoenix makes her first appearance! And although it’ll be retconned ten years later, as far as readers knew at this time, Phoenix is Jean Grey. (1976)