Great work on shock and awe, I love it. Only thing I would change there is the borders.. I'm just a small border type guy so don't listen to me..

#1 has some great flow but no blending, erase the edges of the master chief with a 65 px brush on like 25% opacity and then I'd like it a lot more.

I see SOME traces of flow on the SOTW one, or attempts at flow, but like papa said the effects on the edges make the effects in the background seem like they are from a completely different sig...

Overall nice job, Shock and Awe is teh bomb.