RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Rate your top 10 comic book characters ever:

This might be completely random.

1.) Wonder Woman
2.) Wolverine
3.) Batman
4.) Ghost Rider
5.) Psylocke
6.) Colossus
7.) Venom
8.) Spider-Man
9.) Black Widow
10.) Apocalypse

Thatt was harder than I thought...Fuck that list might be completely different if I were to do it again. Ah well.

1. Amanda Waller (from Suicide Squad) - best character development ever. Evil government spook who undergoes redemption.

2. Elijah Snow (Planetary) - I like the way he evolved over the century, from hillbilly to mystery man

3. Rorschach (Watchmen) - great origin and intriguing moral insanity

4. The Midnighter (Authority) - he's the guy who can always get out of a jam, and has some of the best lines (under Millar's pen, that is)

5. Mazikeen (from Lucifer) - warrior general of the Lilim. She takes no absolutely crap and she's a brilliant strategist.

6. Jenkins (from The Losers) - funny guy, with great one-liners

7. Wolverine - I probably like the movie version best. The early Claremont/Byrne one was good too. Dangerous to the point his team mates have to restraint him in combat.

8. Lucifer - arrogant son of a bitch you just have to admire

9. Captain America (from Ultimates) - inspirational leader and moral bastion. I just really like this character.

Stumped for 10th spot. Destruction of the Endless? Happy go lucky guy who turned his back on the most powerful position in the universe. Got to like that.

I also like Gaudium in Lucifer. Smart arse fallen cherub who always gets into trouble, makes me laugh.

In no particular order:

Superman: Just because.
Wally West: From Kid Flash to newbie Flash courtesy of Marv Wolfman, from newbie arrogant Flash to heroic Flash courtesy of William Messner-Loebs, and from heroic Flash to THE Flash courtesy of Mark Waid.
Dream: The only character I know capable of being cold and emotional at the same time. "She has decided she no longer no loves me." Lucifer: "Do you fear me?" Dream: "Yes."
Delirium: I can't imagine what was so delightful about her before she turned into Delirium. She's delightful enough as she is.
Lucifer: I haven't read his series yet, but I love him in Sandman. Bowie meets Satan.
John Constantine: The way Moore and Ennis use him. The ultimate manipulator, doomed to stay alone forever because he ends up dragging everyone he knows into his world.
Rorschach: Hurm.
Matt Cable, a.k.a. Matthew the Raven: In Swamp Thing he was a cowardly secondary character who turns into a pervert and redeems himself before dying. Through Sandman he was Dream's loyal companion raven. But during the last Sandman arc, The Wake, we see his real personality in his mourning of Morpheus' death.
Lex Luthor: The Wolfman version (often credited to Byrne). He wasn't an ansgty rich young man who turned evil because his father didn't love him: he was an ambitious poor teenager who saved money for years to buy his parents an insurance policy, only to murder them and get the money to start his own company. He's always used to get things his way, which is what makes his relationship with Superman, the only person who can stop him (and he knows this), so interesting.
The Joker: Ever since I watched the The Bat-Man movie as a kid I've been fascinated by the Joker's origin. I was pissed that they never revealed it in the Animated Series, and I was always intrigued about his comic origin. Then I read the Killing Joke (shortly after reading the silver age story it's based on), and it all made perfect sense. It wasn't the chemicals what made the Joker go crazy, it was losing everything he had and becoming a man with nothing else to lose.

In random order...


Jack Hawksmoor - Without a doubt, one of the most original character concepts I've ever seen. I mean, c'mon! The guy lives off of cities! That, and he completely kicks ass! It's also kinda cool seeing a guy running around a city, leaping from building to building in a suit and bare feet. Classic!


Elijah Snow - A fabulous character made even more intriguing by the style in which his story unfolds in the pages of Planetary. He started out a mystery bastard and ended up the leader of the global anti-conspiracy! Plus, he's just fun to see in action.

[image]http://phausenentertainment.com/boards/comicbooks/Animalman/Pics/rorschach.bmp[/image]
Rorschach - The ultimate detective! Willing to get down and dirty to sort through his own skewed perspective of right and wrong. In my mind, this is what every vigilante should strive to be - cold, righteous, and insane!


Dr. Henry Jekyll/Mr. Edward Hyde - I have a particular fondness for characters with obvious dualities. Alan Moore's depiction of the original separated character is, quite simply, beautiful. An external portrait of the interior of everyone who suffers from the human condition, Moore's Hyde is haunting, distrubing, and - most frightening of all - likeable despite his despicability.


Hulk/Bruce Banner - I didn't like this character as much until I read Brian Azzarello's Banner!, which cemented in my mind how the Hulk should be written - an internal struggle of one man against the demon within that threatens to rear its head at any given time. Of course, this is even more obvious in the case of...


Jason Blood/Etrigan - It's quite obvious that Jason Blood is plagued by his inner demons - or just the Demon. The reason I like these tortured dualistic characters is that I see them as literal pictures of mankind as it really is. Whenever one of these characters is written well, they are automatically endeared to me.


Prometheus - Bar none, my favorite villain! Here is a man with the resources to take out the JLA - the World's Greatest Heroes! That's quite an impressive feat, no matter how you slice it! In fact, the only way he's ever lost is because of poor planning and not preparing for surprises. Just think of what he could accomplish if he covered up for those flaws in his master plans!


Dream - Neil Gaiman masterfully weaves you through the history and present of the Lord of Dreams, so much so that, as you read it, you are him. You feel his pain, care about what he cares about, and want to see him succeed just as much as he himself does. I've encountered few characters I'm that much unlike that I relate to so much...


Plastic Man - My favorite comic hero! Forget Joe Kelly's treatment... my favorite takes on the character are those of the original Jack Cole and second JLA writer Mark Waid. In these portrayals, Plas isn't simply a clown, but a serious character who understands that the world's gone completely off it's nut. I mean, who wouldn't crack wise with that kinda knowledge, huh?


Bat-Mite - Say what you will, but he makes me laugh!

Batman
Hulk
Spiderman
Jack Hawksmoor
Daredevil
Tom Strong
Black Panther

That's all I could think of for now.

1) Silver Age Lois Lane..shut up she's my dream woman. The wooing woman and the independent woman wrapped in one schizophrenic package. And beautifully drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger.

2) Flash...Wally West first, Barry Allen then Jay Garrick. The greatest lineage of hero in any universe or continuum. Real men with complex personalities.

3) Adam Strange...a man that isn't a comlete part of either world he inhabits who is constantly ripped away from the woman he loves and his second home that he continuously saves. Julie Schwartz at his finest.

4) Spider-Man.... up until he married Mary Jane. Was there ever a person in the universe as stricken with bad luck? A person who was as geeky and cool at the same time? Sci-Fi fans have John Crichton, but comic fans have Peter Parker. He takes Clark Kent to another level.

5) Captain Marvel..Shazam!..the original. A boy who turns mystically into a man- given the powers of a Superman like deity. Did he turn into a punk?..No. He was who he was. A great character that has been severely misused until recently. What a great set of powers and origin.

6) Kara Zor-El, Supergirl. I like characters that have agreat deal of power who still retain every sense of their basic persona. Who could do that? A person who can do nearly anything, have nearly anyone bow before them- remaining endearing and innocent.

7) Mary Marvel. For basically the same reasons as Supergirl.

8) Colossus. I just loved the character until they killed him. One of the coolest visuals, and one of the greatest personalities. My favorite X-Man.

9) Captain America. Up until they screwed him up. I love My country. Steve Rogers used to exemplify everything I hold dear. He wasn't the darkside of America. He wasn't the politician, he wasn't the industrialist, and he wasn't the slacker. He was the farm-boy ..filled with common sense, compassion, and a sense of right and wrong. more importantly he understood what freedom was.

10) Elijah Snow. For every adult impulse I ever had. for every time I wanted to see a realistic superhero. He is the new bar that every other deconstructionist hero should try to be.

Snow has scored a couple of nods here. Not surprisingly. He starts off as a self-centred curmudgeon, who doesn't give a fuck about anything. As his memories return, you (and he) realise that he is in fact one of the planet's most altrustic and dedicated defenders.

In addition, he is the man who knows all the secrets, which is pretty high on my coolness radar.

Oh, and he snapfroze Dracula and then kicked his balls off, which has got to be one of the best moves in comics ever. And he kicked an unconscious William Leather in the face, just because Leather is a genocidal piece of shit who deserved it.

Got to like this character.

We've disagreed a lot lately Dave-as far as comics. But I agree with elijah snow. I also like midnighter a great deal, but as written by Ellis-not as written by Millar.

We are so opposed on Millar it isn't even right

Ellis' Midnighter was a little bit too much like Batman, except, of course, he killed people.

Millar's Midnighter is a character who tortures people with industrial equipment and cattle prods, and uses ninja weapons in battle (scoring the odd shuriken shot at the groin of opponents just for the hell of it).

Rather than maintain his cool in an alien attack (the God thing in the last arc of Ellis' run), Midnighter in the fight with the Iron Man surrogate totally psyches him out.

Millar's version is another few steps away from the ever-altruistic Batman.

I think his message board and interviews soured me too much with Millar the man, as opposed to Millar the writer. I can no longer seperate the 2. Although his Superman Adventures comic was the best Superman in years.....

I don't really follow Millar the man. I like his contemporary take on things. His writing is anti-old skool and stodgy tradition. He generally pushes the boundaries on things. Some of that is hype-driven, but some of it is innovative.

The torture of the old Doctor with a cattle prod is a good example. Another book would have made a big deal out of the morality of it. Millar just makes it a standard tactic for a former black ops superhuman. It demostrates that the line between "good" and "evil" is very blurred, and says more about Midnighter's character than a dozen school bus rescues by Spider-man et al. ever will.

How many school bus rescues has Spider-Man been through..???

Alot!

Like 10?

Millar can't write dialogue, so I never cared for his Midnighter one-liners.

In no particular order:

Batman
Midnighter
Prometheus
Wolverine
Rorshach
Hal Jordan
Barry Allen
The Quiz("she has all the powers you're not thinking of...")
T.A.O
Karnak

Karnak? Really?

Thanks man I love the support!

I'm the real Barry Allen!

Conceptually I think he's really cool. I like the dark, methodical, strategist type characters. I was just listing the characters I found most interesting.

Strangely enough, the last time I did a top ten character thing and listed him(on the DC boards), someone else asked me why I liked Karnak. They said he was just a Karate Kid(from the legionnaires) ripof.

Quote:

---

History: Karnak is the second son of Inhuman priest/philosopher Mander and ocean biologist Azur. Having sent their firstborn, Triton, into the Terrigen Mist when he was an infant, Mander and Azur decided to raise Karnak without mutation. The youngster was enrolled in his father's religious seminary in the Tower of Wisdom, where he trained in various physical and mental disciplines until he was 18 years old. Karnak's mother died in a mysterious undersea mishap; his father still teaches at the seminary.

---

http://www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/k/karnak.htm

Well...yeah, most older characters have their goofy costume stage. I was referring to the Karnak portrayed in the Jenkins/Lee award winning mini-series for Marvel Knights.

Kinda reminds me of Reducto on Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law

I know of Prometheus, but not of the others.

I really should check out WildCATS, but my comic shop doesn't have any tpbs in stock.

It's good stuff. The artists switch, which kind of disrupts the story a little(to me, at least), but Kevin Maguire's few issues made up for that.

I don't recommend anything that came before Moore's run(well, maybe James Robinson's stint), though, and perhaps nothing after it. There are two Moore TPB's, "Gang War" and "Homecoming".

In no particular order of preference:

Henry Bendix (Stormwatch)

For a while Bendix led the Stormwatch Team, who later mutated into The Authority. Bendix was certainly no hero but he wasn't a bad guy either: He supported Jenny Sparks' plan to build a finer world but was also prepared to have teams of black ops hidden away in the background doing the dirty work that needed to be done. If Bendix had a flaw it was that he wanted a better world, but he wanted it on his terms - he wanted to be in charge.

Castenado (Just A Pilgrim)

Possibly the greatest villain Garth Ennis ever wrote: Castenado is a land-locked pirate living in the wreck of an aircraft carrier on the floor of a dried-up ocean, on a post apocalyptic earth. He looks and dresses like Captain Hook, having gone a few more rounds with Peter Pan - two peg legs, a pair of hooks for hands, eyeholes burned out of their sockets. Early on in the story he can be seen debating the fate of three prisoners, wondering whether they should be thrown into the buggery pits or "the room with the hairy walls."

Later, as his aircraft plummets towards the ground he calmly asks his crew to be good boys and "jump to your deaths for your Captain." Castenado is such a great character because he's completely insane but he doesn't realise it.

Detective Frank Carpenter (The Mystery Play)

It's difficult to say too much about Carpenter without spoiling the plot of The Mystery Play. Grant Morrison wrote a very sympathetic portrait of a man struggling to come to terms with something that happened in his past.

Mr Branch (100 Bullets)

Mr Branch is a fat, sweaty, balding ex-journalist who is hiding out in Paris after digging too deeply into the affairs of The Trust - the organisation of thirteen families that controls America.
100 Bullets is loaded with cool characters - even the bums and the losers are cool. There are smart talking wise guys, machiavellian agents, small time crooks and gang members and of course there are the Minutemen who are able to take out rooms full of people without missing a beat.

Branch is the antithesis of all these characters. There's the pathetic way he brandishes a loaf of French bread like a club when he realises that he's being followed through the streets of Paris; his compulsive gambling habit; his attempt to spy on Dizzy while she gets dressed in his squalid Parisian flat and the way he continues to research The Trust even though he's already had his fingers broken and is well aware that they could easily have him killed.

Mr Branch is a man at the mercy of his own impulses but he possesses a kind of rumpled dignity and when he tells Dizzy to use his body as a human shield, during their encounter with Minuteman, Cole Burns, you can see that in spite of his many small flaws, he is fundamentally a good person.

Ric the Vic (Hellblazer)

The unorthodox vicar from Ennis's run on Hellblazer was blatantly modelled on the British Comedian - Stephen Fry. He was last seen in a flashback in Ennis's Hellblazer story - Son of Man - begging an elderly member of his congregation to share her hymnbook with the demon sitting on the pew next to her, in the interests of peaceful relations between heaven and hell.

Batman

Of all the old-school characters, Batman seems to have adapted to modern times the best. In my opinion, he's still the most believable and also the most relevant of all the costumed heroes. I occasionally dip into Gotham Central and I've come to realise that the less I know about Batman the more I like the character. In GC you see him from the outside through the eyes of detectives, who are just frail men and women with no super powers. Viewed from that perspective Batman is a really menacing and intimidating presence.

Sarissa (MEK)

Sarissa was a key player in the MEK movement on Sky Road, where young people first began experimenting with cybernetic augmentation. Later she went to Washington lobbying in support of Mek culture while opposing Bad Mek - Military grafts and concealed weaponry.

In flashback, you see her wide-eyed and evangelising on the potential of MEK culture. In the aftermath of her return to Sky Road you are left wondering if she's a hypocrite, a realist or just someone who wanted everything her own way and was prepared to tear it all down if that didn't happen.

Dane McGowan/Jack Frost (The Invisibles)

The future Buddha, a lot of Jack's appeal lies in his total lack of either fear or respect for authority figures, be they human or pan-dimensional demons.

While everyone else is fighting for their lives, Jack's wandering around like a kid visiting other dimensions and dancing for the Harlequinade with Brazilian transvestite _ Lord Fanny. A typical Liverpudlian, he also gets to have the last word at the end of The Invisibles: Volume Three.

Starr (Preacher)

Jesse Custer, the Preacher in Garth Ennis's epic graphic novel, was a self righteous prick who would go on and on interminably about what it takes to be a man.
His adversary - Starr was a much more interesting and well rounded character. Throughout Preacher Starr suffered endless humiliations, including the gradual loss of various body parts, but still came out looking twice the man Custer was.
The tragedy of Starr was that his rise to power was driven by the intention of making the world a better place, after witnessing the death of a little girl in a hostage situation. By the end of Preacher the one person who has stuck by him, through thick and thin, is calling him a monster: "You can't say I don't look the part," replies Starr with the resignation of a man who's just realised that somewhere along the way he lost sight of his ideals.

John Constantine (Hellblazer)

Although he's lost a lot of his rough edges over the years, Constantine remains the ultimate anti-hero - a man who is quite prepared to sell-out his own mates for the greater good. John (one of a long line of bastards) is shouldered with the responsibility of clearing up, not just his own, but everyone else's messes. The end results are never completely tidy and often cost the lives of those closest to him.

I forgot Hitman.

Oooh! Good call, Mxy!

1. Rick Jones (seriously)

2. Captain America

3. Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner for the most part but I like Alan Scott and John Stewart a lot as well. The REAL Hal Jordan is slowlygrowing on me as he pushes the Superfriends version out of my head)

4. Jakita Wagner

5. Doctor Doom

6. Flash (Wally for the most part, I haven't seen much with Barry and I like Jay a lot too.)

7. Nightwing

8. Beast

9. Juggernaut

10. Impulse/Kid Flash

I like Impulse a lot too. I don't like what Geoff Johns is doing with him now though. Kid Flash seems like a step back.

I think so too, I usually like Geoff Johns a lot as a writer but I don't think he's handling Bart as well as he could. It seems like he's getting lost in the shuffle. All he seems to do is read stuff really quickly these days.

The characterization is all wrong. In a preview I read Bart says something like "Watch out for that spider, they have a deadly vemon and yadda, yadda, yadda...". The real Bart would say "Spiders are cool."

I like Doctor Doom a lot, too.

....and, believe it or not, Animal Man. Crazy, I know....

Who would have thought it.

bw7 - I also like Herr Starr. He's such an arsehole you just have to like him. He can be stared down, he's pompous and he's socially inept to the point of brutal stupidity. But he thnks he's doing the right thing, and has a vital sense of humour. Alone amidst the tank regiment, realising that it is his to command, Starr says to the reader: "I have an erection." For a villain, he's very well rounded.

As for Jesse Custer... I agree. He was the least interesting character in the series. Sometimes you just feel like kicking him in the nuts.