Comic Book Resources

Gonna be interesting to see how Wonder Woman vs. Superman shakes out. Either way, interesting early round knock out.

Here are my votes, same criteria (character interest plus story engine) as before. Again, as before, my evaluations will be confined to a given character’s Golden Age history and not to subsequent developments. My evaluations are confined to the Golden Age so as to compensate for varying publishing histories:E.G., Batman and Superman have been continuously published since the GA, while Captain America and Captain Marvel have both experienced significant periods of dormancy.

1. Batman/Luthor: No contest. The GA luthor is a a walking cliche with no discernable character traits (even his own creative team confused him with the Ultra Humanite).Batman, in contrast, has the rudiments of a personality (driven by the murder of his parents) and a solid story engine.

2. Joker. Tough call. Joker wins on the basis of being the best villain of the GA (although some would give the crown to the great Iron JAW). Dick, while a solid character, is a bit too close to Batman as a character type.

3. Superman: Very, Very tough call. Both characters are very poorly developed, but Superman has the advantages of clarity and simplicity.I.e., as Grant has shown, the essence of superman can be conveyed in one page, maybe even in one sentence. WW, in contrast, is a confused jumble of elements (WW2 patriotism, bondage, female superiority, superhero, mythology, etc.).

4. Captain America: A very tough call. Captain Marvel was the best super powered hero of the GA, anf he easily outclasses the GA Superman in every way (Hence DC’s need for the lawsuit).CAptain America, however, just seems slightly more versatile, as evidenced by the fact that his book actually managed to transition out of WW2 and move on to a civilan based strip after 1945.

1. Lex Luthor: I like Batman just as much as the next guy, but it takes a lot of balls to find the one guy capable of throwing planets out of their orbit and setting people on fire with his eyes and going, “I’m going to mess with him.” Gotta respect that.

2. Joker: Joker always beats Robin, we have science to back us up on this.

3. Wonder Woman: Superman has better overall stories, and villains, and supporting characters. But Wonder Woman has an invisible plane, and is friends with talking gorillas. Thinking twice about it now, most of Superman’s villains are stupid and couldn’t survive as a member of Wonder Woman’s rogue gallery. I think she’d twist the head off of Prankster on general principle.

4. Captain America: I looked at this as who would win in a fight, Billy Batson or pre-steroids Steve Rogers. I know Rogers looked malnourished back then, but you have to figure even he could take a ten year old kid. It was the 40′s, he probably did a couple times.

My votes, based solely on how much I like the characters. Nothing more complex than that:

1 defeats 9. Batman — I’m not a huge Batman fan, as I said in my first round voting, but Lex isn’t great shakes for me either. Bats gets the nod in a close one.

5 defeats 4. Dick Grayson — I like Joker as a concept but I haven’t actually liked him as a character since, say, The Killing Joke. He’s cool in the movies, but Dick Grayson is more intresting on the page.

6 defeats 3. Wonder Woman — Superman is too one-dimensional for me. what trajan cites as clarity and simplicity I term lack of depth, while the “jumbled elements” of Wonder Woman make her more interesting with more potential for me. Agree with his analysis, disagree with the conclusions.

2 defeats 10. Captain America — My favorite superhero, so this is no contest. I do like Captain Marvel though.

For the record, I picked Bruce Wayne, Joker, Wonder Woman and Captain America. A few pretty tough calls there ,though.

I voted exactly the same as the Crazed Spruce (though I was really torn about the Big Red Cheese), but I’ll be very surprised if the next round doesn’t wind up being Bruce, Dick, Clark and Steve.

Wow…is death an option for this bracket?

Bats, Supes, Bats 2, and Cap America by default. Bats and Bats 2 have depth as characters to me over Lex and Joker (who are pretty static on the whole). Supes/WW is like putting a gun to my head to choose, but I frankly never cared for Diana in any era. Cap America/Captain Marvel is even worse for me, but I’ll take America just on history alone…

Wow, this is a tough round. A lot of frisky contenders are going to go home early in this bracket.

My picks:
- Batman over Lex Luthor. Lex can be awesome. He was fascinating on SMALLVILLE, lots of fun in ALL-STAR SUPERMAN and truly menacing when Byrne worked on him. However, you can tell half the great Luthor stories with Bruce Wayne and not miss a beat. The reverse is not true.
- Dick Grayson over The Joker. Dick does a lot of things pretty well. The Joker does one thing better than anyone. Tough call, but I am going with the leader of the Teen Titans.
- Superman over Wonder Woman. Both characters have become under-rated recently. I adore WW, but Supes brought me to the comic book party in the first place.
- Captain America over Captain Marvel. I don’t really care about either, but one does carry the Kirby DNA.

how did captain america sneak his way in here… clearly the people voted for captain americs

Cool, some interesting match ups. The Batman Lex Luthor one is going to be interesting.
I think Dick Grayson will be Joker.

Yeah, I said it!

bryan h your comments make me laugh.
bats/lex: a fun fight of who cheats first. bats btw
nightwing/ joker. joker with a crowbar in the library
supes/ww: ww supes would get distracted and seriously she doesnt get enough props. supes maybe stronger but shes a better fighter and works better when pissed.
cap/shazam: cap can out think a ten year old fan boy. but if the fanboy just charges well cap would beat him anyway.

Batman beats Luthor, in the toughest choice of all four. Someone had to win, and he’s Batman.

Joker beats Robin with a crowbar.

Superman is the original. Wonder Woman herself would gracefully concede this one.

And Captain America beats Captain Marvel narrowly due to his cultural impact. The Big Red Cheese’s awesome wish-fulfillment fantasy had me hesitating for a moment there, but Captain America is iconic in a way few characters are (and Captain Marvel isn’t).