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)! I'll try to post a new installment every day for the rest of the countdown.

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!

68. Roger Stern and John Romita Jr.'s Amazing Spider-Man – 170 points (1 first place vote)

Amazing Spider-Man #224-227, 229-252

A funny thing about Roger Stern’s legendary run on Amazing Spider-Man is the fact that it followed an eighteen issue run on Spectacular Spider-Man that was almost just as good! Heck, Stern even introduced Roderick Kingsley (the man he had planned as as the secret identity of the Hobgoblin) in the pages of that run! The run (which went from Spectacular Spider-Man #43-61) was an important part of Stern’s overall Spider-Man work, as a lot of plots he began in Spectacular carried over to mazing Spider-Man.

That said, when Stern took over Amazing Spider-Man with Amazing Spider-Man #224, he clearly turned his work on to a whole other level. There was a clear change in how he wrote the “secondary” Spider-Man title and how he wrote the “main” title, as he was now in the driving seat for the Spider-Man books as a whole and he was a great driver.

Stern’s early issues re-introduced the Black Cat into the Spider-books, where he helped to make her the staple of the Spider-Man books she became for years. An interesting aspect of Stern’s books, also, is after a number of writers who tended to downplay Spider-Man’s powers, Stern went the other direction, highlighting just how powerful Spider-Man can be.

One of the most acclaimed issues in Stern’s run came early on when he had Spider-Man fight against the unstoppable Juggernaut in a two-issue story that did not CREATE the “superhero battles against a much more powerful foe,” but certainly put a twist on the theme that later writers have followed frequently. John Romita Jr.’s excellent action-packed artwork was on great display during the Juggernaut story arc.

Here’s a piece of it…

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What a wonderful sense of power and also such a feeling of dread. Stern and Romita really nailed the “unbeatable odds” thing here.

Stern brought Mary Jane Watson back into the Spider-books and did good work with Spider-Man’s supporting cast. Romita Jr. did strong work on the character moments, as well.

Stern also introduced the Hobgoblin, a mysterious new villain who used the Green Goblin’s devices and serum to become a powerful crime boss. The Hobgoblin was not just interesting because of the mystery of his identity, but also because of his off-beat approach to villainy. He was no mad man, he was a businessman and he used what he learned from Osborn’s in ingenious ways.

Even as his run came to a close with "Amazing Spider-Man" #250, Stern plotted two more issues of Amazing for incoming writer, Tom DeFalco, and one of them was the story of the alien costume in #252.

Perhaps Stern’s most famous story was a short story in "Amazing Spider-Man" #248, the tale of a young boy who we learn in a newspaper story is “The Boy Who Collects Spider-Man,” Spider-Man’s biggest fan. It is a real tearjerker.

67. Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin's Detective Comics – 171 points (3 first place votes)

Detective Comics #469-479

For whatever reason, Steve Englehart decided to leave Marvel in the late 70s, and quickly found work at DC, which was totally fine with taking on one of Marvel’s most prominent writers. Englehart began an acclaimed run on Justice League of America, and an equally acclaimed run on Detective Comics, with issue #469.

Initially working with Walter Simonson but ultimately with Marshall Rogers, Englehart’s Batman run was in many ways based on a similar structure to Jeph Loeb’s later "Hush" series, in that Englehart tried to work in as many major Batman villains into his story as he could, including re-introducing two early Batman foes that had fallen into disuse. Both of the villains, Hugo Strange and Deadshot, were rejuvenated by Englehart’s usage and later went on to prominent appearances in later stories. Deadshot, in particular, was an extremely minor villain that saw his coolness factor shoot up 736% percent when Marshall Rogers gave him one of the coolest costumes you ever will see (years later, it was that cool costume that piqued John Ostrander’s interest and got Deadshot a spot on the Suicide Squad).

Englehart had a good Penguin story, he had a good story involving Robin (he wanted at least one issue to involve Robin) and in the Laughing Fish, he had one of the best Joker stories of all-time (the Joker tries to get a federal trademark on fish that he has altered to have his Joker grin).

Englehart introduced a crime boss named Rupert Thorne who became a notable part of the Bat-mythos, as well as Silver St. Cloud, one of the best love interests Batman has ever had.

In one issue, Englehart even did some metafictional stuff by having Batman fight Deadshot on giant typewriters (evoking the 1950’s Batman comics) and in the fight, Silver makes a realization that few people ever had before…

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Rogers stayed on the book for three more issues as Len Wein came in to wrap up any loose ends from Engelhart’s run, including writing Silver out of the book (people have mostly treated Silver St. Cloud as Englehart’s baby, and usually only he writes her). Wein and Rogers also introduced a new Clayface.

Englehart and Rogers would return to Batman for an acclaimed sequel to their run in 2005, Batman: Dark Detective. Tragically, Rogers died in 2007.

66. Tom King and Gabriel Henrandez Walta's Vision – 176 points (4 first place votes)

Vision #1-12

Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta re-envisioned the Vision with their brilliant, if short-lived, series, "Vision," where the Avenger has decided to build himself the perfect family, building a wife and two children. They moved to the suburbs and live a seemingly perfect life, but things are shaken when the Grim Reaper suddenly attacked...

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Virgina, Vision's wife, then brutally murdered Grim Reaper to protect her family and the rest of the series became a taut psychological thriller, as Virginia does whatever she can to cover up her action and eventually pulls Vision down with her. It gets dark - very dark, btu at the heart of it all is real emotional depth. These characters are doing these things because of love, or at least what they think is love.

King also does a great job working in the Vision's actual continuity, looking at old events with a new eye. It's really brilliant, next level stuff. Walta and colorist Jordie Bellaire do a wonderful job on the artwork.

65. Garth Ennis and John McCrea's Hitman – 178 points (1 first place vote)

Hitman #1-60, plus a #1,000,000 and an Annual

The old saying goes, when you’re given a bunch of lemons, make lemonade!

Well, fifteen years ago, Garth Ennis and John McCrea were given a bunch of lemons, and they made Hitman.

Hitman was introduced as part of a storyline where the writers of each DC title would introduce a brand-new character in the Annual that year (oddly enough, Marvel did the same thing that same year), all of whom would have the shared origin of being bit by aliens whose bite, if it does not kill you, gives you strange powers. Most of these new characters disappeared faster than you could say Adam-X, the X-Treme, but Hitman, who debuted in the pages of Ennis and McCrea’s The Demon Annual, was the notable exception.

Tommy Monaghan. was just your typical, run of the mill hitmen, until the aliens gave him powers, and now Tommy was a SUPER-POWERED Hitman, with X-ray vision and telepathy.

With his powers, Tommy had a new confidence, and then decided to specialize in killing superpowered targets, the types most other hitmen would never attempt, due to the danger. Despite the bizarre nature of Tommy’s targets, Ennis really downplayed his superpowers, and played up the friendship between Tommy and the people of his Gotham neighborhood, “The Cauldron,” a place so bad that when No Man’s Land happened, no one noticed anything different in the Cauldron!

Most of the action in the series centered around Sean Noonan’s bar, where Tommy and his partner and best friend, Natt, hung out in with other hitmen, such as Ringo Chen and Hacken. Often visiting the bar was the drunk Sixpack, who was a superhero of sorts himself, leading the bizarre Section 8 (this is where Dogwelder came from).

The series was filled with hilariously bizarre storylines, like the one where Tommy and his friends have to take down an aquarium that was filled with zombie animals. However, the series was ALSO filled with dramatic scenes of friendship, particularly between Tommy and Natt.

There is a classic issue where Superman comes across Tommy during a hit (Superman does not realize that is why Tommy is on a rooftop), and the pair chat for the whole issue, and it is a wonderful tribute to superheroes from a writer, Ennis, who is not usually too fond of superheroes.

In the story, Superman is rattled because while he was saving a group of astronauts before the nuclear core of their shuttle exploded he noticed that one of the astronauts that they said had died trying to repair the shuttle was actually still alive. The core explodes, though, before Superman can save him. This does not sit well with Superman…

Impressive (of course, after a re-invigorated Superman leaves, Tommy then follows through on the hit).

Ennis and McCrea worked on the book for five years, and they finished it in a wonderfully poetic final issue.

A few years later, Ennis and McCrea reunited to tell an “untold tale” of Tommy and the JLA, and it was awesome. The team have reunited a number of times for series featuring the Sixpack.