You voted, and now, after over 1,000 ballots were cast, here are the results of your votes for your favorite comic book storylines of all-time (this is the third time we've done this countdown. We're on an every four year schedule)! We started with ten storylines a day, and now we're down to five storylines a day (until the last week, which will be three storylines a day). You can click on the Top 100 Comic Book Storylines tag either here or at the end of the post to see the other entries, in case you missed one.

To recap, you all sent in ballots ranking your favorite storylines from #1 (10 points) to #10 (1 point). I added up all of the points and here we are!

25. “The Court of Owls” by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion (Batman #1-11) – 412 points (12 first place votes)

This story is about the revelation that there has been a secret organization controlling Gotham City from behind the scenes called the Court of Owls. They collect and train agents known as “Talons” to do their dirty work. Naturally, they take issue with Bruce Wayne having such an influence upon how Gotham City so they decide to kill off Bruce Wayne. Obviously, Batman takes issue with this and soon finds himself trying to take down the organization.

Greg Capullo is a magnificent action artist and Scott Snyder smartly alternates between the mystery of the Court and all out action sequences where Capullo’s pencils practically explode upon the page. Take, for instance, this sequence where Batman discovers one of the Court’s nests and they try to kill him…

Wow, that is a striking sequence. I especially like how Snyder really nails Batman's attitude to these circumstances - analytical, calm under pressure and just, "Screw this, I know that this is not a good situation to be in, but I'm the goddamn Batman, I Know exactly what to do here."

After the Court's chief Talon, William Cobb, almost beats Batman to death (after forcing him to go through a gauntlet that teaches Batman the history of the Court), Batman shocks Cobb and the Court itself by managing to not only escape death, but to beat Cobb nearly to death. This lets the Court know that Batman is far more formidable than they ever knew. They had been worried about Bruce Wayne, but now they had to destroy Batman and also show Gotham City that it was ruled by the Court. So this led to the Night of the Owls, where they activated all of their Talons and sent them to assassinate pretty much every major Gotham City figure. Batman had to call in all of his various Bat-related agents to save the day.

Batman then seemingly took down the Court for now, while also discovering that one of its members might actually be RELATED to him!

This was the re-introduction of Batman into the New 52 and Snyder’s intricate plotting and bold new characters quickly made it the centerpiece of the Bat-books.

24. “V for Vendetta” by Alan Moore and David Lloyd (After beginning serialization in Warrior, V for Vendetta #1-10) 431 points (8 first place votes)

At the heart of V for Vendetta is an engaging and difficult dilemma – if you HAD to choose, what would you prefer? Fascism or anarchy?

In the former, yeah, you’d be ruled by dictators, but after they had finished culling their opponents, the odds are that you personally wouldn’t be directly affected anymore. You'd just be a cog in the machine.

In the latter, yeah, you’d be free, but there would be no protection from chaos.

It’s a beautiful dilemma, and while we would all love to answer that we would prefer the latter option, in real life, people very often choose the former, and Alan Moore milks the dilemma for all that it is worth in this alternate reality where a “terrorist” named V (who wears a Guy Fawkes mask) tries to bring down the government, hopefully with the help of a young woman named Evey.

Moore and his brilliant artistic counterpart, David Lloyd, create a lush, dark and vibrant world that is too scary to want to live there, but too interesting not to want to read more about.

Here is one of V’s notorious attacks on a government agent, introduced first with a discussion between V and Evey…

The centerpiece of the story is the evolution of Evey from a perpetual victim to becoming directly involved in V's revolutionary actions. What's great about these bits is that Moore lets us see how Evey vacillates on her opinion about V. Like Evey, we never really know too much about V, as his enigmatic nature allows Evey (and we, the readers) to place upon V are own viewpoints - we might see V as too sadistic, we might see him as a hero, we might see him a psycho who just happens to pick a good cause - Moore doesn't lead Evey or us to any specific point of view. We get there all on our own.

23. “Batman R.I.P.” by Grant Morrison, Tony Daniel and Sandu Florea (Batman #676-681) - 445 points (7 first place votes)

Batman R.I.P. is the conclusion of Grant Morrison’s initial Batman run, and it basically is as straightforward of a “Good” versus “Evil” story as there is out there (which is particularly interesting seeing as how it came out concurrent with another major Good vs. Evil story, Final Crisis).

Batman has been fighting against the criminal organization the Black Glove, but by the beginning of Batman RIP, the Black Glove has struck at Batman through various methods, some physical but mostly psychological, all designed to destroy Batman’s virtue (like argue that Bruce Wayne's father was still alive and had, in fact, planned the murder of Martha Wayne).

Then Batman essentially goes insane, becoming a twisted form of himself…but is that REALLY what’s going on?

Morrison teases the reader with the question – could anyone go through the events that Batman has gone through over the last 60 plus years and NOT go insane (that was one of the major twists in Morrison's run, the revelation that everything that had ever happened to Batman in the comics has actually occurred, even the outlandish stuff from the 1950s - it just did not necessarily actually occur to him in person, but rather some of it might have happened to him while he was testing himself in isolation)? That is the question posed to Batman by his girlfriend, Jezebel Jet, who becomes close enough to Bruce Wayne that he reveals his secrets to her and she, in turn, tells him of her concerns over his sanity. Her seemingly legitimate concerns lend a great deal of dramatic tension to Batman’s seeming insanity, especially when he transforms into the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh (the aforementioned twisted version of himself).

But really, R.I.P. is basically a love letter to Morrison’s view of Batman as “Batgod,” as when the bad guys think that they have broken Batman mentally and physically…well, they forgot one thing…

The whole story turns on its head when you realize just HOW prepared Batman is. I love that the story even forces you to go back nearly twenty issues and see exactly when Batman figured out one part of the plan. It’s all there in the story.

Go to the next page for #22-21!

22. "Civil War" by Mark Millar, Steve McNiven and Dexter Vines (Civil War #1-7) – 451 points (8 first place votes)

Mark Millar, Steve McNiven and Dexter Vines reshaped the Marvel Universe for years with this storyline that pitted Captain America against Iron Man over the question of whether superheroes should be forced to register with the government (and thereby trusting the government with their secret identities). Essentially, are superheroes so dangerous that letting them run around without supervision is almost as dangerous as the supervillains that the heroes fight on the street? The question was driven in great part by an incident at the start of the series where the New Warriors get into a fight with some supervillains and the villainous Nitro explodes, killing most of the Warriors but also hundreds of innocent bystanders, including dozens of school children (as the fight took place near by a school). If the Warriors were better trained, would they have known not to start a big fight next a school like that? That's the question that drives Iron Man as he reluctantly agrees with the government and becomes the face of registration (along with Iron Man's then-protege, Peter Parker, who shockingly reveals his secret identity to the world to support Registration).

Captain America, however, feels that it is a violation to force superheroes to give up their privacy, not to mention the fact that he has had enough history with the government not being trustworthy to know that it doesn't make sense to trust it with your secrets. Eventually, Captain America and the heroes who think like him have to go on the run and do their superhero actions as fugitives. Iron Man and Mister Fantastic, meanwhile, embrace their new situation as being part of "The system" by using it to form new innovations (along with some sketchy ones, like building a prison for un-registered super beings in the Negative Zone).

One of the best things that Millar does in this series is know when to let Steve McNiven's stunning artwork just take over, like this sequence where Cap's team sneaks into the prison and gets surprised by Iron Man...or ARE they?

This series massively shook up the Marvel Universe as a whole but especially the Avengers, who ended up splintered into two teams, an officially sanctioned one and a rogue one. Naturally, the government was also soon taken over by the evil Norman Osborn, so Cap's fears came true.

21. "The Sinestro Corps War" by Geoff Johns, Dave Gibbons, Peter Tomasi, Ivan Reis, Ethan Van Sciver, Patrick Gleason plus a whole lot of other pencilers and inkers (Green Lantern Sinestro Corps Special #1, Green Lantern Vol. 4 #21-25, Green Lantern Corps #14-19) – 466 points (12 first place votes)

This epic crossover brought to fruition a number of ideas first introduced during Green Lantern Rebirth (the storyline where Geoff Johns returned Hal Jordan to life and the Green Lantern Corps to existence). Sinestro had returned during that storyline and in this story, he returns to vex the Green Lanterns with his OWN Corps – the Sinestro Corps! The idea of a Corps of yellow-ring wielding villains (chosen because they possess the ability to instill great fear in others) was an amazing high concept and this storyline opened with perhaps one of the most over-the-top thrilling debut issue you’ll see in superhero crossovers.

Kyle Rayner had temporarily been the host of “Ion,” the entity that essentially powered the Green Lanterns. In the debut issue of the story, Sinestro not only removed Ion from Kyle, but substituted Parallax, the YELLOW entity (that Johns had introduced in Green Lantern Rebirth)…

What a stunning sequence. Kyle is transformed into the same entity that he was basically empowered to defeat back in the 1990s, and all while wearing a twisted version of his iconic 1990s outfit. What a way to start a crossover!

This was very much the end of the first "book" of Geoff Johns' Green Lantern run, as the idea of yellow power rings would soon influence the expansion of this concept, into a whole rainbow of colored Corps (that story would ultimately end up in the Blackest Night crossover event). Another major aspect of this story is that it led to the Green Lantern Corps becoming darker and more militaristic - their views on killing, for instance, were ultimately forced to be relaxed to deal with the wife range of attacks that they were suffering form the sadistic Sinestro Corps.

The storyline featured a number of major battles, but the final one, naturally, took place on Earth, with the forces of both armies colliding together on the planet that has given us way more Green Lanterns than any other planet. Ultimately, Johns uses the story to get to a fascinating statement about the power of fear and what a group of people can do when they can collectively stand up to fear. It's awe-inspiring, honestly.