was hoping when the list got to sinestro that the issue where he and hal are charging their rings like a mirror would be on the list did not think it would be number one.

Hmmm….surprisingly weak bunch. I’d stick with #5 and #4.

I don’t see how it’s possible that there’s not more Sinestro Corps War and other Johns covers on the list. That storyline made Sinestro who he is today. Before that, he was the Snidely Whiplash, mustache twirling villain. Now, he’s a real force. Like John’s work on the title or not, he made Sinestro a A-Level villain in the DC Universe.
And it’s not a question of iconic covers, those 60′s covers aren’t that well-known either. Sinestro = Sinestro Corps War for the most part.

Gil Kane reproduced the #1 in Sinestro’s 1985 Who’s Who In the DC Universe entry; the change in his art style is quite evident.

Joe Staton recreated the cover for #2 as an action shot in the 1990 looseleaf Who’s Who entry for Sinestro.

Can’t really argue with any of these. I always thought this one was a pretty powerful image, too: http://comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=44161&zoom=4

I love the Sinistro Corps war one. What I think of when I think of Sinistro.

Love the Gil Kane covers. These days Sinestro is GL’s Lex Luthor in the over-exposed, tired of him sense. Main reason why I didn’t care for the GL dvd.

Our first repeat cover!

I guess this cover doesn’t count because it’s on the TPB:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0e/Sinestro_Corps_Cover.jpg

I’d say cover #4 should be #2. And I’d consider this one over the current #2, #3, or #5:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3582/3570626811_69c0815c37.jpg

“I don’t know if any other cover on this list has even been homaged once!”

My silly suggestion: Neal Adam’s “green arrow though the lantern” cover making use of the poses from Gil Kane’s “Sinestro zapping the lantern” cover.

I don’t know if that can be called a homage though.

Yep, I thought of that GL/GA Neal Adams cover when I saw #2 as well.

I must be the only guy who greatly prefers Sinestro’s old costume to the new Yellow Corps copy of the GL suits.

All in all, though, that’s a great bunch of covers.

Nice set of covers — and I’m glad you went with Kane for four of the five.

One minor quibble with the third choice where the explanatory text reads:

The introduction of Qward!

Qward was introduced with this issue: http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=15804&zoom=4 .

[...] 25. Sinestro [...]

Sinestro = Sinestro Corps War for the most part.

If you’ve only been reading comics a year or two, that might be true. Sinestro has been one of my favorite villains for about 30 years now, and the Sinestro Corps is only mildly interesting to me. To me it makes him just a face in a crowd — although it’s amusing that his crowd was largely made up of overblown “big bads” from past mega-event crossovers: the Anti-Monitor, Superbrat Prime, Cyborg Superman, yadda yadda yadda.

@ Ryan A. Brandt

You’re not the only one. The yellow suit clashes with his skin tone.

A fine list … although I’d put both the Reis and Van Sciver covers from Sinestro Corps War in there.

Brian, you mentioned, “I don’t know if any other cover on this list has even been homaged once!” — and actually, the Sinestro Corps War cover that you chose has been homaged twice: Once in GL and once in GLC, with a cast of green ringslingers flying out from the page (well, GLC also had Ice) in the same formation as this one with Sinestro and his crew.

Another Sinestro cover I really love (though it’s super recent and anyone would be hard-pressed to call it iconic already) is this one, from just a few months back:

http://comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=603604&zoom=4

I know the 60s was a big era for alliteration, but isn’t it a cheat to pair the word “sinister” with “Sinestro” and act like you did something cool? I don’t mean to be a spoil sport (<– proper alliteration, btw), but his name was constructed of that word. It's tantamount to a cover reading "Beware the Magnetic Magneto!" or "When Strikes the Jocose Joker!"

Be on your guard X-Men! There's no escape from "The Island of Sinister Mr. Sinister!"

Sinestro’s old costume always seemed out of flavor for the character(kind of like Alan Scott’s purples and reds) but that mirror-image cover uses the colors to great effect.

#1 has also been homaged as a Mattel DC Universe Classics action figure two-pack with a half-green/half-yellow power battery