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.

#85

Birds of Prey (2005)

Daredevil (2006)

Firestorm: I’m a mean ol’ Liooooon! (1989)

Green Lantern (1997)

JSA: This Perez cover piqued curiosity - mostly for Batman of Earth-2’s appearance. Technically he shouldn’t exist - and yet it was a clue to what was going on in Infinite Crisis. (2006)

Legion of Super-Heroes (1996)

New Titans (1992)

Warlord (1984)

Wolverine (1994)

X-Factor (1992)

Image limit reached:

X-Men (1999)

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.

#87:

Birds of Prey: The revamp and reworking of Calculator is still one of the best things to come out of Identity Crisis. (2005)

Cerebus: This issue’s cover is an homage to Frank Miller’s cover to Dark Knight Returns 1. (1986)

Daredevil (2006)

DC Comics Presents: The issue that gave us Superboy-Prime. During the chaotic events of the Crisis, our Superman travels to Earth-Prime (where, outside of a few powered characters, the DC heroes live on in comic books) and meets Clark Kent of Earth-Prime. Eventually Kent-Prime would go on to fight in the Crisis, helping to save the Multiverse, and then would go bonkers and become a menace during the Infinite Crisis days. This is the same Superboy-Prime that showed up in the Sinestro Corps War, Countdown and Blackest Nightoftentimes acting as a metaphor for the most extreme members of comic book fandom. (1985)

Excalibur: The team is back from the Age of Apocalypse - and I start collecting this title just as I would all the X-related titles post AoA. Not that I remember much about this run outside of Pete Wisdom, the UK Hellfire Club, Carlos Pacheco, etc. (1995)

Firestorm (1989)

Green Lantern (1997)

Legion of Super-Heroes (1996)

New Titans (1992)

Peter Parker, Spectacular Spider-Man: The first PP issue I ever picked up off the shelf. Peter wants to reveal his identity to the Black Cat but when he does, she recoils. She wants to love Spider-Man, not Peter Parker. (1984)

Image limit reached, the rest are as follows:

Warlord: That’s a skimpy ass costume! (1984)

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X-Men: Magneto gains control of Genosha in this issue. (1999)

And from the “Oops, missed one” file:

JSA: This issue marks the end of the great JSA title that started under James Robinson and David Goyer, continued with Geoff Johns and ended with Paul Levitz. A brilliant run, for the most part, full of many tributes to previous JSA titles and Earth-2 concepts. A lot of wrongs enacted on the JSA were righted in this series. Good stuff. And a Perez cover to boot. (2006)

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

#88:

Birds of Prey (2006)

DC Comics Presents: Crisis. Creeper. Keith Giffen during that “experimental” (Munoz rip-off) art stage. Yummy. (1985)

Excalibur (1995)

Firestorm (1989)

Green Lantern (1997)

Jonah Hex: The first issue of this series I ever picked up off the shelf. Not sure what the impulse to pick it up other than “Ooo! A new title”. (1984)

Legion of Super-Heroes (1997)

New Titans (1992)

Peter Parker, Spectacular Spider-Man (1984)

Teen Titans: JT Krul and Nicola Scott take over the book for the remaining run of this volume. (2010)

Image limit reached, final issue:

X-Men (1999)

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

#89:

Birds of Prey: Barbara Gordon reveals to her father that she is Oracle and that she was previously Batgirl, the latter which he already sussed out. (2006)

DC Comics Presents (1986)

Excalibur (1995)

Firestorm (1989)

Green Lantern (1997)

Jonah Hex (1985)

Legion of Super-Heroes (1997)

New Titans (1992)

Peter Parker, Spectacular Spider-Man (1984)

Spider-Man (1998)

Image limit reached, final issue:

Teen Titans: Damian Wayne joins the team. (2011)

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

#90:

Birds of Prey: Again, in the throes of Infinite Crisis, the Birds go up against Deathstroke and Black Canary gets some revenge for the recently murdered Phantom Lady. Great issue and great storytelling connecting this issue to the larger happenings around the DCU. (2006)

Excalibur (1995)

Firestorm: The Elemental War - a precursor of sorts to what was happening last year during the Brightest Day weekly series. Firestorm and Swamp Thing as earth elementals - very similar to how they brought Swamp Thing back into the DCU last year. (1989)

Green Lantern (1997)

Jonah Hex: Mark Texeira channeling Clint Eastwood on the cover. (1985)

Legion of Super-Heroes (1997)

New Titans (1992)

Peter Parker, Spectacular Spider-Man (1984)

Strangers in Paradise: Because of it’s upcoming ending at the time, this final issue is the only issue of SiP that I purchased off the rack at the time of its initial release. (2007)

Teen Titans (2011)

Image limit reached, final one:

Wolverine: Just moments away from everything going crazy as the Age of Apocalypse falls, Wolverine pops a claw right through Sabretooth’s brain. (1995)

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

#91 part 1:

Birds of Prey: During the height of Infinite Crisis, most DC titles cover dated Aug’06 ended with a splash page showcasing various alternate versions of different characters and teams (and even a headquarter or two!). This issue ended with alternate versions of the Huntress from DC’s multiverse. (2006) 

Cerebus (1986)

DC Comics Presents: Featuring one of my favorite DC cosmic heroes: Captain Comet! (1986)

Excalibur (1995)

Firestorm (1989)

Green Lantern (1997)

Jonah Hex: I don’t think I mentioned last time that Jonah Hex would be joining this series for awhile. I really did read as much as I could in the 80s. By the way, I referenced this cover many many posts ago. You can read the reason why here. (1985)

To be continued in part 2…

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

#91 part 2:

Legion of Super-Heroes: If you ever needed an image of why this era was called the Archie Legion, this is a pretty good example. (1997)

Marvel Two-in-One: Tell me that’s not the greatest bait-and-switch cover ever? Usually the title logo features “Thing and…” and lists a secondary character. This one doesn’t do that. That omission plus the “pointy ears” shadow just screams that Marvel was playfully hinting at Batman. Can you see it? It wasn’t that way in the issue itself, but the cover alone demanded a place in my collection when I found it in back issue bins. (1982)

New Titans: See how closely the costumes of Nightwing and Pantha resemble each other? That always bothered me. Especially since Pantha’s came first. You would think they would look at the new Nightwing version and say - Oh no. Can’t use it. It wasn’t even like they were trying to do some subtle character connection either. Bleh. (1992)

Peter Parker, Spectacular Spider-Man: I’m not 100% certain but this may just be the earliest comic I ever read that featured Blob. (1984)

Teen Titans (2011)

Warlord (1985)

Wolverine: With this issue, Wolverine returns from the Age of Apocalypse story. I collected every X book once that event wrapped up. This one didn’t go over too well with the new starting point. (1995)