Ilya Trepliov

Ilya Trepliov stepped onto the DC stage in 1988, a Copper Age creation of writer John Ostrander and artist J. J. Birch, debuting in Firestorm the Nuclear Man #70 amid a cast that reads like a who's who of Cold War-era Soviet characters — Stalnoivolk the Steel Wolf, Rusalka, Perun, and others. With only a handful of appearances to his name, Trepliov is the kind of deep-cut figure that rewards the dedicated reader willing to dig into one of DC's most politically charged runs of the era. For collectors who love the gritty, globe-spanning storytelling that defined late-'80s comics, he's a fascinating piece of that world.