Nick Fury and Namor (despite my earlier snarkyness) are both great characters and would've made my "15 Favorite Marvel Characters" list.

Should I be concerned that I could actually list my 50 Favorite Marvel Characters? In order?

Storm and namor are historically important characters, but that's not the same thing as being a great character. No matter how hard Claremont's tried to add an interesting backstory, Storm still comes off as a stiff cypher. Namor's annoying as hell, and only become moreso in recent years.

Nick Fury? If it wasn't for Steranko, I can't imagine anyone would care.

Nova? Hooray for the 70s version of Spider-man at Marvel! Can we expect Darkhawk too?

Ultimate Spidey? The best character on this list, but really not different enough for the original to bother voting for.

Hey Brian-

When this is through, you should have everybody send in their top 10 choices excluding the 50 who already made it.

And then repeat.

And again.

Then we can finally see who the more popular out-of-the-spotlight characters are.

And, I must also state that I have NEVER tried to CRITICIZE anyone’s picks.
Merely that they are not picks chosen from DEPTH.

OK then. It did sound to me like you were criticizing people's choices based on lack of knowledge. Which seems silly to me.

I didn't vote either, mind. But just 'cause lazy. And maybe a LITTLE bit that I hope comics evolve past these corporately owned character popularity contests.

(And I knew Stegron the Dinosaur Man wouldn't make the top 50. So screw all y'all.)

Actually I think only 2 of my top 10 have appeared so far (I may have missed one or two--I'd have to check.)

Of the other 8 I give 3 an excellent chance of still appearing, 1 a very good chance, and 2 a plausible, but not certain chance. Nick Fury is the only one in this installment that came close to making it. WHile I never really got into the SHIELD books, I did enjoy him as a guest star.

It seems as though the count is slightly off, here. Processing all of this information must be a real bear, though, so it's pretty understandable.

269 points total for Aquaman and only 222 for Namor.

Yeh, hooray for Namor ... heeheehee ...

And the Marvel list has already had Galactus. And Namor frequently counts, somewhat in the same way that Black Adam does.

I wonder if that means there is going to be a villains version.

"Lemmme put it this way.

People who tried to vote for ROM should not throw stones. I’ve read a BUNCH of early Rom, and I now consider myself to have suffered enough to absolve myself of 96% of my lifetime sins. (Although it’s cool that Ditko drew some later issues.)

Or, unless you’ve actually read a representative sampling of EVERY genre from EVERY era of comics published by the cluster of various brands under the auspice of Martin Goodman that later became Marvel, I don’t think you have the right to criticize anyone else’s picks. "

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Mark, (and Ryan H) while I WILL cop to the fact that a chunck of ROM stories were...eh...LESS than stellar, the character, artwork, story and supporting characters was so great as to negate the bad times.

Now, not to delve into just HOW much (or to list titles and years, etc...) I can honestly state, that I HAVE read "a representative sampling of EVERY genre from EVERY era of comics published by the cluster of various brands under the auspice of Martin Goodman that later became Marvel".

I've read old Golden Age Torch vs Namor stories, monster tales, romance genre stuff, pretty much EVERYTHING that Marvel put out in the Silver Age, since Fantastic Four # 1 (AND a GOOD helping of independent companies fare - although they were not the subject of the survey, it must be noted that I was not ALWAYS "just" a Doctor Strange devotee).

And, I must also state that I have NEVER tried to CRITICIZE anyone's picks.
Merely that they are not picks chosen from DEPTH.

I truly have NO problem with this being a "snapshot" of what's hot now.
My WHOLE POINT was to say that when someone says; "ADAM WARLOCK WHO?" that the choices they make are based upon a narrow (and most likely recent) batch of criteria.

As RyanH stated, there should be NO fault that this list would be different than one made 5 years ago.

Sure. That's to be expected.

But when I read in the comments that people either don't know WHO some of these characters are, OR they react with a "you gotta be kidding me" then it all becomes readily apparent that it's all a narrow-fielded popularity contest.

As Brian Cronin and I have mutually agreed; We all kinda KNEW that's what it would be GOING IN.
No problem.

I just didn't wish to vote in that sort of arena (where also some of the standards were wonky; how is Ultimate Spidey really a different character than the 616 version?).

My choice was to abstain.
But, I AM enjoying reading some of the reasons WHY people like their favorites.

It's an interesting exercise, and SHOULD be done annually (with the results graphed to keep track of the ebb and flow).

~P~
P-TOR