You voted, and now, after over 1,000 ballots were cast (precisely three more ballots cast than four years ago), here are the results of your votes for your favorite comic book creator runs of all-time (this is the FOURTH time we've done this countdown. We're on an every four year schedule)! After this kick off, I'll try to post a new installment every day at 1:15 PM for the next month.

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

100. Dave Sim and Gerhard's Cerebus - 88 points (3 first place votes)

Cerebus #1-300 (Gerhard from #65-300)

Dave Sim’s Cerebus, which stars the short grey-skinned anthropomorphic aardvark, Cerebus, originally debuted as, if not a take-off, at least similar in tone to Steve Gerber’s Marvel comic, Howard the Duck, in that it was an anthropomorphic animal used for satirical purposes. In the original storyline in the late 1970s, Conan the Barbarian was the main target, although other pop culture figures were featured. Cerebus was a hard-living mercenary with little morality who got involved in various adventures.

This changed with the second storyline, the 25-part epic, "High Society," where Cerebus gets involved with politics, applying his rough and tumble style to the world of, well, high society. Through this, he ends up becoming Prime Minister, although that does not exactly work out, leading to the massive two-part epic, Church & State, which took about 60 issues, and involved Cerebus becoming Pope.

As you might imagine, Cerebus is corrupted by the power…

These stories saw a change in the series to becoming one of the most intelligent ongoing comic book series out there, with a great deal of wit and wisdom.

The rest of the series (Sim noted that he would do exactly 300 issues, with Cerebus dying in the last issue) have a series of slightly-less focused stories, although, as the title continued, the work took on an approach more similar to Sim’s own life, which included heavier religious overtones, plus specific attacks upon feminism and "homosexualism."

From #65 on, Sim drew the book with artist Gerhard, whose detailed backgrounds were absolutely stunning, and became a major attraction of the series.

Cerebus never stopped doing parodies, though, and throughout the run, comics and pop culture and life, in general, were given parody treatment (The Punisher and Sandman being two notable examples of targets Sim parodied a lot).

In 2004, the series ended, as promised, with issue #300.

99. Keith Giffen and Tom and Mary Bierbaum's Legion of Super-Heroes - 90 points (5 first place votes)

Legion of Super-Heroes #1-38, with the Bierbaums taking over until #50

When Keith Giffen rejoined Paul Levitz on Legion of Super-Heroes in 1988, the book was already in a slightly darker place, but it only got darker. Levitz and Giffen really began to stress that the Legionnaires were getting older. However, nothing prepared readers for what they were about to experience when Levitz left the book at the closing of that volume of Legion.

When Legion of Super-Heroes re-launched with a brand-new #1, Giffen was now the plotter of the comic as well as the artist, and he brought scripters (and long time Legion fans) Tom and Mary Bierbaum and finisher Al Gordon with him. And the book had moved forward five years into the future.

The world of the Legion was now a grim, desolate place, and the days of young men and women in colorful costumes were long gone. Instead, they were now, well, five years older, and no longer in costume - yet they all remained heroes. The story was an extremely ambitious look at a bunch of grizzled characters somehow coming together to reform some semibalance of the Legion they all once cared so much about.

One of the most notable aspects of the comic was how DENSE each issue was. Giffen used the nine-panel grid to great effect, making each issue filled with so much story that it would have easily twice as much stories as most other comics of the time (and that's not even counting the pages at the back of the issues, which they used to fill in readers on what was going on in the Legion world).

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this run to me, personally, was how they dealt with having to come up with a brand-new origin for the Legion (one sans Superboy, who was off-limits), without it really being too confusing.

The comics were dark, but they were also filled with humor and great character work.

Eventually, Giffen introduced apparent clones of the original Legion, still in bright and colorful costumes, and his original plan was for them to revealed to be the ACTUAL Legion, and Giffen's older Legion would get their own spin-off book. That fell through, and Giffen departed the title.

The Bierbaums stayed on until #50, and tied up a lot of loose threads.

Giffen drew the book at first and was followed by Jason Pearson, who did a wonderful job in his first (and only?) regular penciling assignment for Marvel and DC.

98. John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake's Spectre – 91 points (4 first place votes)

The Spectre #1-62 (plus a #0 issue)

John Ostrander had just wrapped up work on two of his acclaimed DC runs, Firestorm and Suicide Squad. Along with his Firestorm artist, Tom Mandrake, Ostrander began work on a run of the Spectre that was so definitive that DC allowed Ostrander to essentially end the character with the end of his and Mandrake's run.

Ostrander's run was built around the notion that Jim Corrigan had been The Spectre for about fifty years, and yet nothing had changed - HE had not changed. And that doesn't seem right, does it? You can't really become the embodiment of God's Wrath without changing, and Corrigan's quest for an understanding of good and evil is what drives the bulk of Ostrander's run, concluding with his final issue, where Corrigan's quest draws to an end.

A classic issue saw the Spectre running amok in a prison, killing the murderers there, but when he discovers an innocent prisoner, he leaves him be. The prisoner argues with him that that he is allowed him to be killed, then, and that's bad, too, right? The Spectre dismisses the concern, but thinks twice about it and later returns when the man is about to be executed...

Mandrake's dark, moody artwork fit the mood of the series perfectly, and Ostrander's ability to work with continuity has always amazed me, as he managed to constantly bring in characters from outside The Spectre, and always have them work well inside the story, particularly Ramban, the Jewish magician that Ostrander had created for his previous Suicide Squad run.

During their Spectre run, Ostrander and Mandrake also introduced the latest Mr. Terrific, who has gone on to become an important member of the JSA under Geoff Johns.

But mostly, as I mentioned before, this comic was Jim Corrigan's story - how he dealt with the ambiguous situations the Spectre was sometimes faced with, and also how a 1930s cop dealt with the modern world.

It was a brilliant run, and I am quite impressed with how much class DC handled the end of Ostrander's run.

97. David Michelinie and Bob Layton's "Iron Man" - 93 points (1 first place vote)

"Iron Man" #114-157

When David Michelinie and Bob Layton took over the writing chores on Iron Man, it was in the middle of a storyline – so they were not even in control of the plot they were writing. By the time they left the book, however, they had more than made their stamp on the title.

Easily the most memorable aspect of their run was their storyline where they had Tony Stark develop a problem with alcoholism. The “Demon in a Bottle” storyline was one of the most notable stories of the 1980s, resulting in one of the very first trade paperback collections (along with Dark Phoenix Saga) of a modern comic book story.

If all they did was the “Demon in a Bottle” story, Layton and David Michelinie’ would be notable, but their run had plenty of other notable stories, highlighted throughout by strong artwork, first by John Romita Jr., and eventually by Bob Layton himself.

Even before he began penciling the book, Layton’s strong inks gave the book a consistent feel, no matter who was drawing the book.

Their run had a great deal of memorable action stories, as the pair attempted to develop Tony Stark more, and in doing so, developed a new creation of theirs, Stark pilot and friend, James Rhodes. Rhodey would become important during their run, and would become even MORE important after they left, as he would fill in for Tony as Iron Man for awhile. Besides Rhodey, the writing pair stressed Tony’s ass-kicking girlfriend, Bethany Cabe.

During the run, Michelinie and Layton also introduced Justin Hammer, the rich industrialist who was secretly funding all the low-level supervillains who used technology for their powers.

Towards the end of their first run (they would return four or so years after they left for an extended second run, during which they would have the noted Armor Wars storyline, and debuted a new Iron Man armor), Layton and Michelinie had one of their most notable stories, which was just reprinted this past week (and a sequel to the story is due out next week), where Iron Man and Doctor Doom were trapped in the time of King Arthur. It was a total classic.

Just like their run.

See you tomorrow for the next installment in the countdown!