On the flip side, I’m loving the current run of Superman books, so good stories can trump any dislike.

Waaaaay overated.

I loved every panel of his death during Final Crisis.

Bring him back so we can see him killed off again.

Wonder Woman is a cute girl, so one can’t vote for her. But Wonder Woman sucks. I agree with whoever said her character is a mess, a hot mess.

Aquaman I always kind of liked.

Manhunter. He’s a mess of a character as well. The origin’s all screwy, his weakness is fire and I’ll repeat that FIRE.

Tell you I WON’T for and that’s Hal Fucking Jordan, the Green Lantern of Sector 2814. I don’t understand hate for Green Lantern. Wonder Woman hate, I understand. I love her but she sucks, especially in the Justice League. She was the freaking secretary of the Justice Society. Green Lantern is awesome.

Reluctantly Manhunter.

Brian: If I’m so banned then HOW AM I WRITING THIS, BEEYOTCH?!!?

¿Que?

Superman is probably my favorite fictional character, ever. Batman is easily in my top five.

I think Wonder Woman is an awkward fit with the modern comic book fan, but she is a great character in her own right. The concept is really rich and interesting. It is a shame that she is not currently appearing as a solo character in another medium.

Neither Barry Allen, nor Hal Jordan, are great characters. However, both the Flash and Green Lantern are amazing premises. Also, both were great in NEW FRONTIER, which was one of my favorite comics of all time. On balance, I would say the potential outweighs their limitations and they bring interesting stuff to the team.

Aquaman is tough. There is really nothing intrinsically wrong with him. His weakness on the SUPER FRIENDS made him a Gen X punch-line, but you could make variations of the Aquaman joke using most superheroes. I mean “Spider-Man spins webs, right? What is the deal with that? The Green Goblin should try defeating him with a BROOM. Da-Da-DUM!”

It is weird to object to a character solely on that basis.

That leaves the Martian Manhunter. J’onn has a weird grab bag of powers. The stuff that he brings to the team that are unique are his telepathy and shape shifting, but they get buried under the barrage of his other abilities.

That said, I loved J’onn during the Giffen-DeMatties era and during the Morrison run. On the whole, this was like choosing my least favorite between chocolate, vanilla and strawberry cupcakes.

Not to mention Superman vs. Lex Luthor, the Prankster, the Toyman–heck, anybody this side of Darkseid, Mongul, or Doomsday. Wonder Woman is a lot closer to Cheetah in power than Superman is to most of his foes. Ergo, you must hate Superman even more than you do WW.

Oh, and I think the best Wonder Woman runs established that Ares and Circe are her major villains, not Cheetah. Which leads me to wonder how much WW you’ve read. Cheetah is more of an annoyance to her, like the Toyman is to Superman.

You really think it’s a CHARACTER weakness that DC retains a costume that it has licensed for 10,000 or so products? I believe Amazons traditionally fought bare-breasted, so WW is actually less naked than she should be. Moreover, Perez gave her costume a plausible origin. I’m sure she’ll get a permanent new outfit right after Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man do.

Meanwhile, the Martian Manhunter is wearing a 1920s bathing suit and Aquaman is wearing a gaudy orange shirt. Power Girl, Supergirl, Black Canary, Zatanna, the Huntress, et al. have similarly sexist outfits. I’m guessing Big Barda is your favorite DC heroine because she’s about the only one not showing skin.

As for Wonder Woman the warrior ambassador of peace, Ted said, “That contradiction at the heart of her character is what makes the character so interesting.” Exactly. The best WW writers addressed this contradiction explicitly. If you think they ignored it, left it open as a festering flaw, you must not have read their runs.

I can understand many of the criticisms of Wonder Woman here, although I don’t necessarily agree with them. What I don’t see is that “preach peace but practice war” as a problem. To me, that contradiction at the heart of her character is what makes the character so interesting. Declaring war to create peace is something that happens all the time, almost every war has at least one side who are fighting for peace. I doesn’t make sense with an absolutist world-view, but Wonder Woman is a consequentialist, and so it’s just the ends justifying the means. With so much absolutism in the DCU, Wonder Woman provides an interesting counterbalance. (In theory, in practice it depends on the writer).

My actual vote, though, was for Aquaman. I actually like all of them just fine, but he’s the one I’m least enthusiastic about.

I decided to read it as the later, because I just didn’t read much 1960s DC.

I don’t get all the WW hate, and hope it’s just the usual “vocal minority.” Wonder Woman has had some excellent writers since I’ve started reading her stories, with George Perez, Greg Rucka, and Phil Jimenez.

I like all the others too, except for Barry Allen. Well, it’s not like I really dislike him or anything, it’s just that Barry seems to be a bit like Jean Grey. He is great when he is dead, alternately casting a shadow over Wally and inspiring him.

I’m a real unusual fan, in that it’s very rare that I will dislike a character. I reserve my disdain for writers who mishandle characters.