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)! The first few days will be ten storylines a day and then it will be five a day until we hit December!

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

90. "The Surtur Saga" by Walt Simonson (Thor #349-353) - 118 points (1 first place vote)

All throughout the early issues of Walt Simonson’s run on Thor, we keep seeing someone (seemingly a blacksmith) forging a sword. Every time the sword is clanged on to continue the forging, we see a big “DOOM!” sound effect, showing that whatever this sword is, it is bad news for Thor. This continues for a number of issues (always for one page per issue) until slowly we learn that it is the gigantic demon Surtur, and we see that he is raising an army of dark elves to attack Asgard.

And again, we learn this slowly but surely over a number of issues, one page per issue.

Finally, in Thor #349, Surtur shows up on Asgard, and so begins an amazingly epic battle that involves Earth AND Asgard, and ends up ultimately with Odin, Thor and Loki being forced to team-up against their common foe, Surtur.

The defeat of Surtur would also result in a major status quo change in the Thor title, and one of the coolest last pages of the 1980s.

Simonson’s art was extremely powerful throughout the story, adding the dynamic grand quality that the epic battles required.

And it’s impressive as all heck that Surtur’s attack begins in #349, but it doesn’t feel dragged out, due to a whole ton of other little attacks and obstacles in between.

89. “The Eternity Saga” by Steve Ditko, Stan Lee and Denny O'Neil (Strange Tales #130-146) - 120 points (4 first place votes)

Pretty early on, it was becoming clear that the ten or so pages that Steve Ditko had to work with in every issue of Strange Tales wasn't getting the job done anymore, so he slowly began to take a larger approach to his storytelling, telling more and more serialized works until he finally broke out with his epic 17-part final storyline during his run on Doctor Strange (Stan Lee scripted most of this run, but Denny O'Neil finished it out).

The main gist of the story is that Doctor Strange finds himself stuck against his two greatest enemies, Dormammu and Baron Mordo, teaming up. Sensing that he is screwed, he decides to seek out Eternity itself to help him. This leads to some of the most surreal visual work of the era. This is the sort of thing that made Doctor Strange such a cult classic among college students of the 1960s...

It was the stuff that launched a thousand black light posters. Not only that, though, but Ditko was a master at balancing both the larger narrative while making each snippet of the larger narrative work on its own. It's a remarkable story. I've heard it referred to as an adult Wizard of Oz story, and I think that that works pretty well as a description.

88. "The Kindly Ones" by Neil Gaiman, Marc Hempel, Richard Case, D'Israeli, Ted Kristiansen, Glyn Dillon, Dean Ormston and Charles Vess (Sandman #57-69) – 122 points (1 first place vote)

The Kindly Ones is the climax to Neil Gaiman’s original Sandman series and as such it draws upon so many different earlier stories of the series, primarily the idea that Morpheus, over the course of the series, has made ALL sorts of different enemies. And now, all of those debts are going to have to be paid with Morpheus’s life.

A fascinating aspect of the story is that the whole time Morpheus understands what is the ultimate end to his story, yet he cannot turn away from his responsibilities to avoid his untimely end.

Meanwhile, Lyta Hall (the former superheroine known as The Fury) believes that Morpheus is responsible for the death of her son, Daniel. She is in a total daze, as demonstrated in this page from early in the story…

Lyta is a perfect patsy, of sorts, to arrange Morpheus’ ultimate fate and, just like all great tragedies, she understands too late that her son is actually alive.

Meanwhile, we get to check in on pretty much every major character from the series, from Lucifer to Thessaily the Witch, as they all play a role in the story…

It’s a truly wonderful climax, bringing in all of the various plots and awesome characters that Gaiman had created during the series’ run. All of the favorites check in at one point or another.

Go to the next page for #87-84!

87. "Olympus" by Alan Moore, Rick Veitch, John Totleben, Tom Yeates and John Ridgway (Miracleman #11-16)– 123 points (4 first place votes)

Olympus was the conclusion to Alan Moore’s tenure on Miracleman, and it completed the journey of Michael Moran (Miracleman) from his days as being a regular guy who happened to have fantastical powers to being, basically, a god on Earth.

The path to this state came via a very bloody battle.

You see, Miracleman’s former sidekick, Kid Miracleman, had sort of gone insane. Miracleman had defeated him by forcing him to turn back to his alter-ego, 13-year-old Johnny Bates. Johnny is an innocent, but he knows what he did as Kid Miracleman, so he sort of goes nuts.

Well, later on, Johnny is sexually assaulted at the group home he lived at – this causes him to snap and become Kid Miracleman again, and he goes on a bloody rampage through London that John Totleben draws with such horrific detail that, well, it’s pretty damn unsettling.

Miracleman and a group of good guys (aliens known as the Warpsmiths, created by Moore and artist Garry Leach) fight Kid Miracleman, and in the end, they succeed, but not before the whole world is informed by what Miracleman had striven to keep secret – that superheroes exist.

With the cat out of the bag, as they would say, Miracleman decides to basically impose his will on the world, and he slowly retreats from humanity (and his human wife that he was married to in his Michael Moran alter-ego) and as the story ends, he is living as a benevolent tyrant over the people of Earth.

It’s really a brilliant transformation of the character by Moore, and the art is superb.

86. "Ultron Unlimited" by Kurt Busiek, George Perez and Al Vey (Avengers #19-22) – 125 points (1 first place vote)

The concept of the storyline (written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by George Perez and Al Vey) is that Ultron IX has decided that he does not want to simply wipe out humans from Earth – he wants to repopulate the world with his own people: robots. He begins this attempt in horrific fashion as he enters the small European country of Slorenia and proceeds to slaughter the entire human population in three hours. He sends a message to the horrified public watching at home – do not come into this county or suffer the same fate.

Meanwhile, he has also kidnapped the Avengers that he considers “family” and intends to use their brainwaves to base his new world population of robots on, much like the way he earlier based his intended robot bride Jocasta on Wasp’s brainwaves, the android Vision on the brainwaves of Wonder Man and the robot Alkhema on the brainwaves of Mockingbird.

It is during this story that we learn for the first time something that probably should have been evident to readers earlier (it’s somewhat surprising it took decades until Busiek came up the concept), which is that Ultron’s mind was based on the brainwaves of his creator, Hank Pym, who happens to be among the Avengers kidnapped by Ultron.

The Avengers ultimately decide to invade Slorenia, resulting in many interesting battles within the country as the small band of heroes seem to be overmatched by Ultron’s apparently unending supply of robot drones (hence the “Unlimited” part of the story’s title). During the course of this war, the Avengers have to face off against all the earlier Ultrons, each of whom was enough to fight them to a standstill in previous years.

Ultron is quite confident that his minions are more than enough to defeat the Avengers. That same confidence leads to one of the coolest dramatic entrances ever (and winner of a Wizard Award that year for Best Moment) when the Avengers burst into Ultron’s lair, looking quite ragged, with Thor speaking for the entire team when he declares “Ultron, we would have words with thee!”

Very cool.

85. "The Man Without Fear" by Frank Miller, John Romita Jr. and Al Williamson (Daredevil: The Man Without Fear #1-5) – 127 points

Frank Miller's last work on Daredevil was an examination into Matt Murdock's transition into becoming the hero known as Daredevil. The series, which was originally designed to be a graphic novel, was then broken down into a miniseries instead. Drawn by John Romita Jr. and Al Williamson, the series re-envisioned Matt's past, including giving us some insight into Matt's relationship with Elektra (in her pre-assassin days) as well as the Kingpin floating around there on the periphery. Remember, since Elektra was a retroactive character, we never got to spend much time with her and Matt in the past.

Just like Miller's take on Batman, Matt's earliest vigilante days did not go according to plan, with a prostitute seemingly dying in the process, a death that would haunt Matt for years to come.

Of all the various Daredevil comic books out there, it seems that (besides Bill Everett and Stan Lee, of course), the comic book series that the first season of the Netflix series drew the most content from was The Man Without Fear, right down to the costume Matt wears right before he gets his superhero costume...







Look at those Romita pages! WOW! Such dynamic art! So much energy!

Miller really knows how to weave a complex tale with interconnected characters and give everyone a chance to shine.

84. "High Society" by Dave Sim (Cerebus #26–50) - 128 (4 first place votes)

A previous story in Cerebus (“Mind Games”) was the real demarcation between “Cerebus: silly satire book” and “Cerebus: more serious satire book,” but High Society was the most prominent storyline in establishing Cerebus as a more serious satire.

In this volume, our aardvark protagonist (for lack of a better descriptor for him) gets caught up in, well, high society. He is chosen to be a representative of the city-state of Palnu in the large city-state of Iest (where the comic would be set for the next six years or so). Much of the humor in the storyline is derived from Cerebus’ seeming obliviousness to the standard tropes of high society. In a lot of ways, it is similar to the great Jerzy Kosinski screenplay, Being There, only Cerebus is certainly not an innocent – he just views things in a more mercenary fashion than most, and fails to play political games, although he is certainly willing to try.

He is latched on to by Astoria, the ex of Lord Julius (the head of Palnu), and she uses Cerebus’ charisma as her own, and uses him to further her agenda, and in the process, makes him a popular political figure. As Cerebus’ political ambitions broaden, the book takes an almost frantic nature as Sim makes the book much like an election story – you really begin to care if Cerebus’ campaign will work.

At the same time, though, there are plenty of wacky gags, too (Sim couldn’t divest himself of the early Cerebus stories TOO much, I suppose), including this roach who is manipulated into becoming Moon Roach, a parody of Moon Knight.

When the dust is settled, Cerebus is a changed aardvark, and he is quite ready for the next storyline, Church and State.

Honestly, while there would be some confusion at the start, I think I would probably recommend beginning reading Cerebus with this volume and skipping Volume 1. The book improved THAT much with this story.

Go to the next page for #83-81!

83. "The Golden Age" by James Robinson, Paul Smith and Richard Ory (The Golden Age #1-4) – 130 points (1 first place vote)

Before he blew up with Starman, James Robinson's first big "Hey, everybody, check out how good my writing can be!" moment came in the 1993 prestige format miniseries, The Golden Age, which he worked on with the brilliant artist, Paul Smith (colored by Richard Ory).

The story was about the superheroes of the DC Universe adjusting to life after World War II, and how Tex Thompson, the Americommando, who came home to become a powerful politician, was obviously involved in something dark and twisted, but no one was able to get to the bottom of it because they were too busy dealing with their own problems.

Robinson took a stark look at the lives of these heroes, including his powerful examination of Hourman's life as a drug addict...

And Paul Smith, what more do you need to know about this then Paul Smith drew it and it is GORGEOUS?

The main hero of the volume is Manhunter, who returns to America with amnesia and as he regains his memory, he realizes he knows a secret about Thompson that will turn the whole world upside down. Let me give you a four word sample - "They saved Hitler's brain!"

Fans of Starman will recognize this Robinson, the kind of guy who will give every little minor character a ton of characterization. It's a wonderful standalone work. I believe Geoff Johns once credited this miniseries to getting him interested in the JSA and getting him to be willing to write that series.

82. “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 1" by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #1-6) – 131 points (1 first place votes)

Alan Moore’s America’s Best Comics line tended towards “high concepts,” you know, really cool ideas that you can get across in a sentence.

“Cops in a city where everyone is a superhero.”

“A living story becomes a superhero.”

“Classic literary characters from the 19th Century form a team of heroes.”

That last one, of course, is what The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is about. A number of classic British literature characters join together on a team, notably Allan Quatermain (from the novel King Solomon’s Mines), Mina Harker (from the novel Dracula), Captain Nemo (from the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), Griffin (from the novel The Invisible Man) and Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde (from the novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).

While that’s a great high concept, there are plenty of great high concepts that can be ruined by bad writing (see, for instance, the movie based on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), and Moore manages to evade any pratfalls by taking the concept of a book actually set in 1896 very serious, and with a brilliant design artist such as Kevin O’Neill by his side, the look and feel of the book is very much of that time.

The series tells a fairly straightforward villain story (with perhaps a bit of a mysterious villain), but it’s HOW Moore and O’Neill tell is that’s the best part of this tale, as they cleverly incorporate numerous classic literary figures into one cohesive universe – it’s Wold Newton near its best.

Like how Dr. Hyde is tied in with Inspector Dupin of Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (SPOILER! In the original story, the unbelievable murders were done by an orangutan - here, they're done by Mister Hyde)…

Or how the Invisible Man is introduced by sneaking into a girl’s school and sexually assaulting Pollyanna (from the novel Pollyana) before he is captured…

And so on and so forth. For any fan of 19th century and early 20th century literature (particularly English literature), the book is an absolute delight.

81. “Avengers Forever” by Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern, Carlos Pacheco and Jesus Merino (Avengers Forever #1-12) – 134 points

This time-travel classic stars a unique team of Avengers plucked from the past, present and future, who have to take on Immortus and the Time Keepers, a powerful group that has been manipulating the Avengers for years. Each member of the team is chosen at a very specific moment, as Busiek, Pacheco and Merino demonstrate in this sequence from the second issue of the series…

As you can see, Pacheco is a master at giving each character a distinct look and best of all, when you put the disparate heroes together, there is this great sense of visually being able to figure out how each character is reacting to a situation. So much personality in each drawing. Boy, he’s good.

Busiek and Stern’s epic tale brings this rag tag team of Avengers on a journey through history and the Multiverse itself as they try to take hold of their own destinies. They are aided on this journey by one of their greatest foes, Kang the Conqueror, who ALSO wishes to break free of the control of Immortus and the Time-Keepers. Anything should be possible and that possibility is what the Avengers and Kang fight for (although, in the end, can you really trust Kang?)

Along the way, Busiek also ties up some looses ends of Avengers continuity. The whole thing is an epic action adventure steeped in Avengers history but centered the whole way through in real, identifiable human reactions.