Comic Book Resources

At a time when the phrase teen hero almost always means some mentally damaged misanthrope or grouping of weepy eyed teens who fight about their personal, often times self inflcited issues, it’s nice to have a character like Jaime “Blue Beetle” Reyes who is, at the end of the day, a well adjusted nice guy and a good person. He didn’t want powers but understands and lives up to his repsonsibilities as a hero with no angst. He doesn’t forget his human friends or family and his view of the super hero life is wonderfully real: a mix of awe, fear, and best of all a bemused sense of humor at the absurdity of fighting giant women or homicidal satelites or the Batman.

Raven’s in the top three-fourths? That makes me oddly happy, somehow.

Amanda Waller’s a great character. I like Jaime Reyes but didn’t vote for him because a lot of what I like about him is not him himself but how well-written his comic is, if that makes any sense.

I’m very happy to see Jaime on this list. He’s a great new character with an incredibly fun book. Hopefully he’ll be around for a long time to come.

Awesome, I’m glad to see Jaime finally show up. He’s a fantastic character and his series is deserving of so much more love than it is getting.

That just leaves two more characters from my DC list, Crazy Jane and Captain Atom. Ironically, Cap’s WATCHMEN equivalent, Dr. Manhattan made it ahead of him. LOL.

Two more of my DC 10: Mary Marvel (although I specified the pre-Countdown Mary) and Jaime Reyes.

Anyone who thinks comics should be good should be reading Blue Beetle.

At last!

While I think all of these are great choices, I still can’t believe there’s no Sgt. Rock! Didn’t he win the ISB’s Badass contest? His own comic lasted hundreds of issues. He was frequently drawn (and I believe created) by Joe Kubert, for pete’s sake. Where’s the love?

Finally the Wall shows up! voted her #2 behind Constantine.

a few more statistics

It is interesting that after several entries in the 60’s where the two lists were within a point or two, DC is again pulling ahead.

It is also worth noting again that the list is really tight. Everything lower than #39 has had less than 10 points above the next position and there hasn’t been an entry with 5 or more points since #60. The average gap in the #11 through #75 positions is roughly 5.4 points between each entry, but this drops to only 2.2 points for #50 through #75.

The DC hate of villains continues with only 10 villains in the top #75. The argument could be made that some of those 10 (like Deadshot and Catwoman) have actually crossed the line to being heroes (but I’d argue against it).

The Legacy is starting signs of slowing. Nine of the top ten characters were “legacy” characters with multiple versions of the character (such as Earth 1 and Earth 2 Batman, Robin who shared his identity with several others, etc). Only 7 characters above position #50 have been legacies.

The Teen Titans are finally getting some respect. While only Bat-members from the TT made the top 50, since then they’ve had 7 members make the list.

I thought it was interesting that Dr Manhattan at #75 is the first non-continuity since Yorick Brown at #39.

Cassandra Cain, Kate Spenser and Jaime Reyes get to join the elite group of characters who made the list within a decade of their introduction. Let’s give the newbies a cheer!

Amanda Waller! The toughest woman in all of DC finally made the list. She faced down both Batman and Granny Goodness, but only made #72? Actually, when you look at it, she’s a non-powered character who can’t really fight and she STILL made the top 75! While her protege (Oracle) is five times more popular, I still think Waller is the best! We’ve only had 16 women on the list (21%) so far, but the percentage has gone way up after the top 50. There have been 8 in the last 25 spots (32%). And I’m not even sure Waller should count since she’s got a pair of brass balls.

Joe- Joe Kubert has stated that he did not create Sgt. Rock, the writer did. I believe it was Robert Kanigher (sp?). Still, Kubert’s art defined the series as much as, or more than, the writing.

That was really classy of Joe. Too bad Stan Lee can’t do the same regarding Spider-Man, but in reverse.

Favorite Wall moment–when Harvey Bullock asked her. “How’s it hanging?”

Favorite Wall moment–when Harvey Bullock asked her. “How’s it hanging?”

Nice! I’d probably never have noticed that joke it you hadn’t pointed it out

Is Waller the best ranked character of color? That’s sad. Marvel wasn’t great in terms of minority representation, but they do have big names like Storm, Cage, and Black Panther. I am happy that Waller made the list; a bad ass, non-costumed, hefty, black woman with no powers. She is awesome.

U what!
why Is Raven so low, she mabye have as well knowen as some of the DC characters but her powers r just as great n to boot her history n life of the character r twice as good as any other, it covers history n myth, human n supernatural, dark n light(good n evil in plain) she rules, making superman my personal least fav seem even more shallow n rubbish then usal.

I know there r people that will disagree and I understand that, but i feel I have a just case so there:)