Comments on: Top 50 DC Characters #35-31

By: Comics Should Be Good! » Top 100 Comic Book Runs #25-21

Comics Should Be Good! » Top 100 Comic Book Runs #25-21 — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:47:05 +0000

[...] so here is the explanation reader Camilio Maheca gave for why Spider was his #1 pick in the Top Characters vote I had last year: Wellâ€¦Spider is the only cynic who can afford to give a damn, a sick miserable [...]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:50:53 +0000

Swamp Thing! I had a few close cuts on my DC list, so I'm not sure if I voted for him or cut him at the last second, but I'm glad he's done this well. Death and Catwoman too. Nice group. (Transmet never grabbed me.)

By: stealthwise

stealthwise — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 06:58:33 +0000

I voted for ALL of these guys! Unfortunately, I think that they include my top three, so I'm curious to see what ends up on the high end, although I'm sure that I can guess who the top five will be.

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 02:35:07 +0000

Great stuff, Danar. I have some answers to your questions, but you're right, it's probably better to just wait and see.

By: Danar

Danar — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:10:52 +0000

So, we're 60% through the top 50 list and I thought
I'd mention a couple interesting stats. (well, interesting to me.)

Marvel
50th place : 128 points
40th place : 152 points
31st place : 191 points

That's roughly a difference of 3 points between each place (with a couple ties).

DC
50th place : 144 points
40th place : 171 points
31st place : 250 points

That's roughly a difference of 5.25 points between each place (with a couple ties).

Comparison :
DC's values are much higher than Marvel's, however the rate of change between 40th and 50th place was both about the same (each place had roughly 2.5 more points than the previous one).
This changed between 30th and 40th where DC picked up to almost 8 points between each place and Marvel was almost 4.
Does that mean that Marvel's top spots have more votes than DC's top spots? Could it be that Spiderman is THAT much more popular than Batman? OR does it show than Marvel has more popular characters and split the points more? Time to wait and see.

I think one obvious trend here is that the lower tiers held a large number of people whose appeal was roughly equal but as we countdown, the differences seem to be increasing. aka the votes for each place will continue getting bigger. I suspect the top ten will narrow down again but we'll have to wait and see.

Another notable fact is that so far we've seen 3-4,000 points on each group. That leaves 27-28,000 points left. Each of the top ten will probably have more points than the sum of the 40-50th ranks, but still there are lots of points left.

By: Andrew Collins

Andrew Collins — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:22:53 +0000

Kristen said:
"Black Lutefisk â€“

Transmetropolitan ran from 1997 to 2002. The whole thing (60 issues) is available in 10 trades, plus an addendum volume."

Some of the trades are starting to slip out of print. Apparently DC has plans to start consolidating the series into fewer, thicker trades sometime in the coming year. They're just waiting on all of the old volumes to go OOP.

By: Andrew Collins

Andrew Collins — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:20:53 +0000

Gotta love Swampey. He was on my list too, thanks mainly to all the brilliant stories told by Alan Moore and Rick Vietch in the 80's. Mark Millar had a nice run on the book too towards the end of the second series, and the Brian Vaughan series was highly underrated and underappreciated. The less said about the Joshua Dysart series, the better.

I'm hoping DC finishes off the trade run of the Rick Vietch issues, and then returns Swamp Thing to the DC Universe, if only for a little while. Some of his best stories were the ones guest starring Batman. I'm glad to see many of the current DCU titles still referencing him, even if it's been awhile since he last showed up in one of their books.

Pleasantly surprised to see so many Vertigo characters on the list. I'm waiting to see if we get any of the Fables. And what- no Arseface?!

By: Patrick Zircher

Patrick Zircher — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:14:30 +0000

Thanks, DCD!

By: DCD

DCD — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:50:27 +0000

Love your stuff, Patrick.

By: Kristen

Kristen — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:49:51 +0000

Black Lutefisk --

Transmetropolitan ran from 1997 to 2002. The whole thing (60 issues) is available in 10 trades, plus an addendum volume.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:41:53 +0000

Way to go Vertigo! I love Death, so while she didn't make my list, I am particularly excited to see her, especially so low.

By: Black Lutefisk

Black Lutefisk — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:41:27 +0000

I'm embarrassed to say that I've never heard of Spider Jerusalem. How long ago was he published, and are there trade paperbacks of him?

By: Teebore

Teebore — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:30:46 +0000

I'm almost more relieved when characters I almost voted for show up than I am excited when characters I did vote for appear.

Custer and Catwoman both came very close.

By: M Bloom

M Bloom — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:28:06 +0000

Great to see Death here, although I'm a bit surprised at how low on the list she is.

By: Kris

Kris — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:26:26 +0000

I can't believe I forgot to put Spider on my list.

:bangs head on keyboard:

By: Patrick Zircher

Patrick Zircher — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:53:56 +0000

I voted for Swamp Thing and Catwoman (as well as Mister Miracle and Spectre). Both Swamp Thing and Catwoman have had exceptionally well-written runs. When I read an arc, and wish I'd drawn it, that's a big plus to me in making a list of favorites. Both of these characters have a lot to offer an artist. On the one hand there's the combination of organic, natural elements merged with horror and a sort of mysticism in Swamp Thing. And in Catwoman, there's that beautiful athletic female form cast onto a "street" version of Batman's world.

By: Kristen

Kristen — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:23:41 +0000

This is the first batch with no one from my list.

I considered both Jesse and Tommy, but discarded them both for the same reason -- I'm only halfway through their respective series. So just in case.

Yorick is Vertigo and he was in the last batch.

Alan Moore's Swamp Thing is one of the few horror titles I brought myself to read. Defining horror as deeply creepy and frequently gross. Not my thing. But the characters were compelling enough that I had to stick with it anyway. And he had all the best (ie, mystical) guest appearances.

By: Will

Will — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:47:29 +0000

For some reason I don't really think of Spider Jerusalem as a DC character, otherwise I'd have given him a couple of votes.

I was also torn between Jesse Custer and Tommy Monaghan. I gave my points to Tommy. It'll be interesting to see if he turns up.

By: will_butler

will_butler — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:06:49 +0000

All right. Spider Jerusalem, Jesse Custer, and Death all made my list, with Spider at #1. Cool beans.

By: Graham Vingoe

Graham Vingoe — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:58:25 +0000

Catwoman's relatively low position surprises me. personally, I like the character but I've always found it hard to pin down what I consider to be a definitive version of her. Stories featuring her like Brave and the Bold 131 I can read repeatedly but her current series never really clicked with me, despite the talent working on it.
All the Vertigo selections so far are logical and probably would have made my top 10 if I'd tried not to exclude them all except Morpheus himself.