I could continue to mock Wizard at length about their selections (Mirror Master at 181, eh? Couldn’t find anybody better than Mirror Master there? Superboy-Prime at 200? Suuuuuuure!) but that seems kind of besides the point.
So instead, here’s my completely scientific1 list of the top 50 greatest comic characters of all time. No explanations, because honestly, I don’t think most of these demand explanations.
1.) Superman
2.) Spider-Man
3.) Batman
4.) John Constantine (Hellblazer)
5.) Scrooge McDuck (Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck Adventures)
6.) Asterix
7.) Spider Jerusalem (Transmetropolitan)
8.) The Comedian (Watchmen)
9.) Cerebus
10.) The Thing (Fantastic Four)
11.) Maggie Chascarillo (Love and Rockets)
12.) Tintin
13.) Lex Luthor (lots of DC comics)
14.) Akane Tendo (Ranma 1/2)
15.) Fone Bone (Bone)
16.) Guy Gardner (Justice League International, Green Lantern Corps)
17.) V (V For Vendetta)
18.) Captain America
19.) Crazy Jane (Doom Patrol)
20.) Emma Frost (X-Men)
21.) Iron Man
22.) Cassidy (Preacher)
23.) Golgo 13
24.) 355 (Y The Last Man)
25.) Dr. Strange
26.) Concrete
27.) Darkseid
28.) Namor (lots of Marvel comics)
29.) Buddy Bradley (Hate)
30.) Yorick Brown (Y The Last Man)
31.) Professor X (X-Men)
32.) Plastic Man
33.) Hopey Glass (Love and Rockets)
34.) Molly O’Reilly (The Books Of Magic)
35.) Daredevil
36.) Jack Knight (Starman)
37.) The Punisher
38.) Dream (Morpheus)
39.) Beast (X-Men)
40.) Dr. Doom (lots of Marvel comics)
41.) Amanda Waller (Suicide Squad)
42.) Shotaro Kaneda (Akira)
43.) Deadpool
44.) Tulip O’Hare (Preacher)
45.) Conan The Barbarian
46.) Rorshach (Watchmen)
47.) Kitty Pryde (X-Men)
48.) Tommy Monoghan (Hitman)
49.) Hawkeye (Avengers, Thunderbolts)
50.) Brainiac Five (Legion of Super-Heroes)
EDIT TO ADD: As per commenter request, character names appended with series titles where the character isn’t in a self-titled book.
- By which I of course mean that I kidnapped a scientist and had him affirm my findings at gunpoint. Now, then, Mr. Science, CURE CANCER! DO IT! YOU CURE THAT CANCER! OR I’LL SHOOT YOU! [↩]
Related Articles
75 users responded in this post
Maybe you could indulge me by explaining Scrooge McDuck.
Not crazy about Emma Frost, I’ve never found her “redemption” to be anything more believable than, “Ooh, it’s the 90s and reforming our villains into anti-heroes equals $$$$$$$!” Nobody’s ever been able to convince me she gives a damn about another human being, and that includes Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon. I’d replace her with either Delirium or Destruction of the Endless…Delirium gets all the great lines, but Destruction’s arc is fascinating, even though we only see the barest hints of it in the story itself.
Darkseid…I think you misspelled “Thanos” there. 🙂 Darkseid is poetic, but very one-note. He’s evil for evil’s sake, just grinding endless darkness and the defeat of the human soul. Whereas Thanos, though originally created to be “Marvel’s Darkseid”, was so much more…the central concept (of someone who literally took Death as a lover and wanted to present her with the universe) was fantastic, and then Starlin brought the character to a whole new level by having him question his own philosophy and find it empty (in Infinity War.) The whole “all my lame appearances were clones” thing was a little weak, but he’s a character with serious legs.
You put Superman two slots above Batman. You have reaped the whirlwind, my friend, and may God have mercy on your soul. Also, I never really got the fascination with The Thing. He always struck me as a more one-dimensional Incredible Hulk – all the angst, none of the intellect. The Fantastic Four, collectively, could swing the number 10 slot for me. The Thing in particular? Not so much.
Pretty good list. You know you’re not going to be able to resist explaining at least some of these in greater detail when things are more settled with your move though don’t you? 😉
Main quibble – I don’t agree with V’s inclusion on the list. Undeniably great comic, but V is a deliberatly enigmatic cypher rather than a character. Evey, Finch or even Mr. Susan are the real characters in that book.
i totally agree with that scrooge mcduck placement. he is damned awesome, and the life and times of scrooge mcduck reaffirms that with every glorious illustration.
Regardless of the hate I could have towards you for Spider Jerusalem, you put Amanda Waller on that list, and for that I will have tons of gay sex with you.
Scrooge McDuck invented Ballin’. He swims in a bin full of money. He goes on crazy ass adventures. He is balls nasty. The life and times of Scrooge McDuck is a guide to the most outrageous things possible. Even Ducktales in it’s water down version of Scrooge was still more amazing than half the shows of my childhood. If I couldn’t be myself, and I had to be someone else, it would be either Scrooge McDuck or bongo player in Fania.
Akane Tendo….
You are going to have to explain that one, because as much as I liked Ranma 1/2, I never understood why everybody and their damn sister wanted to marry Akane. But I was always more of a Nabiki man anyway, I guess…
Dude. Well, as long as it’s scientifically accurate…
But, seriously, Scrooge McDuck? At #5?
He and Constantine should totally swap levels.
Well, not a bad list at all, even though I really loathe most of everything Ennis does (and no, I’m not a crazy fundie Christian who’s mortally offended by Preacher, people) and his characters most of the time, I would put Tommy and his Punisher on the list…His Hellblazer was rather good, too.
One glaring omission, I feel: Lucifer from Sandman and his subsequent spin/off series…rarely do I ever see him included on official ‘top’ lists…
Scrooge McDuck at number 5 makes me so very happy. He’s always been my absolute favorite.
Deadpool, again, and no Ambush Bug.
I reject thee, Satan!
Asterix should be higher.
No Judge Dredd?
I’m mildly depressed by the fact that I know who at least 45 of these are.
You get points for including Asterix and Tintin, which you instantly lose for leaving out Judge Dredd. (Johnny Alpha or Halo Jones would also have been acceptable.)
I’m pleased to see Emma Frost on the list, and so high, too. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a story featuring Emma that didn’t make me love her a little bit more.
THANK YOU for the inclusion of Scrooge, Asterix, and Tintin. Though, technically, I think it should be Captain Haddock instead of Tintin, if we’re talking actual most entertaining and interesting characters. And probably Obelix instead of Asterix. Nevertheless! Acknowledgement of the fact that there are such things as great non-superhero characters in comics is a very good thing.
And anyone who doesn’t understand the inclusion of Scrooge needs to go and read some of the original Carl Barks comics RIGHT NOW. That’s one of the tragic blind spots in today’s comic fandom. Did you know Lucas got the idea for the opening sequence of “Raiders” from an Uncle Scrooge comic?
Cerebus at number 9?
You have my eternal respect.
Jason B. beat me to it. Kudos. Pity no Astoria, though.
Great stuff. I haven’t read any Scrooge, Asterix, or Cerebus comics, but I understand why they’re there.
I am happy to see characters from my two favorite series on your list, too.
Bigby Wolf better be in the top 150, AT LEAST.
My favorite Scrooge Moment of all time actually doesn’t center on Scrooge at all. See, Gladstone Gander (for those of you who don’t know, G.G. is a deadbeat who lives high on the hog because he has incredible luck) happened to be really rubbing Donald Duck the wrong way (Donald being the playa-hata’ we all know and love, hate hate hate hate).
So Donald goes out and confronts him, and G.G., true to form, brags that he’s so lucky that he can do just about anything.
Donald, completely unimpressed, tells him where to stick it:
“Oh, yeah? Well then why don’t you go ask UNCLE SCROOGE for some money?”
The look on Gander’s face is absolutely priceless. That’s when you know you’ve been CALLED OUT, son.
It turned out that Gander did get a big bag of money from Unca’ Scrooge, but that’s because the Pimpin’ Mr. McDuck was feeling depressed, and Gander happened to suggest a little charity might lift his spirits–he didn’t keep it though, because true to form, A Pimp Named McDuck realized he was depressed because he wasn’t RICH ENOUGH, and promptly took the money back.
Re: Emma Frost. I actually agree with her being so high on the list. The comic where she realizes the Hellions are dead, and explains everything she’s done to Xavier, while possessing Iceman’s body, is one of the hidden gems in the history of X-Men stories. The revelation that she was practicing a sort of mutant social darwinism, and that her goal was to teach the Hellions how to be tough and ruthless so that they could stand up to the world, was an absolutely ingenious and in-character plot twist.
It catapulted Emma, who was a nasty and major villain mostly in the sense that she was a mutant out to profit off of BEING a Mutant, into a character with motivations and interests on par with Xavier and Magneto themselves. It was a jump to the A-List that TOTALLY WORKED. And a character reform that was so good that the mere hint that she might go bad again puts X-Fans in an uproar; “Early Frost” beat the status quo, and that’s pretty damn impressive.
It’s just a shame that they never picked up the thread that was laid out in that story: If Emma hid mutant children around the world so that Xavier and Magneto couldn’t find them… how many did she hide, and where?
Not that it really matters anymore.
But man, get Hitman out of the top fifty. Fuck Hitman.
Does anything bring people out of the woodwork like a top list? I don’t think so.
Cool that Cerebus is on here; I was reading that series long before it was appropriate for me to be doing so. Sad that Dave Sim went sort of (i.e. totally) off the rails.
CandidGamera: It’s like I was saying yesterday. Deadpool is a more rounded character. Ambush Bug, even if he is the better fourth wall character (which I won’t comment on what I think of that since I haven’t read anything of his) doesn’t seem to have much going for him other then “he breaks the fourth wall” from what I know about him (maybe his new mini we flesh him out). Where Deadpool has a very long and storied redeption/hero’s journey that started way back in 1997. Given the “characters that mature and grow” pretext that Wizard used as a front. Wade counts, Bug doesn’t.
You win my eternal love for placing Emma Frost as the highest rating X-character on the list.
…
Though I am wondering at there being no Judge Dredd.
*sigh* never any Nightcrawler love.
The Punisher? Really?
You’ve got a duck and an aardvark but NOT A SINGLE monkey, ape or gorilla? FOR SHAME! FOR SHAME!
I dunno about MGK, but Grodd is easily in my top 10 DC villains. That said they really need to take Geoff Johns ‘Savage People-Eating Ape-Monster’ and combine it with the older presentation of Grodd the Super-Genius Gorilla and combine the two.
The result should wind up like an amalgam of the worst traits of Idi Amin and Hannibal Lecter and HOO BOY.
…Man, there needs to be an edit function on these posts. I’m supposed to be educated!
Ha ha! Like it Bentarc, like it very much.
fuck yes, fone bone!
I assume by comics you mean comic books–otherwise I don’t see how you leave out Charlie Brown.
Bill Burns: Or Pogo, L’il Abner, Opus, Calvin or Hobbes, for that matter. Yes, comic books only.
Say, MGK, wondering what you thought of:
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/04/18/the-top-100-comic-book-runs-master-list/
This and what your top runs’d be?
I think the only thing missing from this list is a mention of what comic book series each character is (primarily) from, when it’s not the same as the character name. That way, those of us who haven’t read everything you have can more easily rectify that before quibbling over a particular character’s inclusion or ranking.
(I.e., while I do happen to know better, really, my first reaction to seeing “Tulip O’Hare” on the list was “Wasn’t she one of the heroes in Bucky O’Hare and the Toad Warriors?”, as I’m just not used to seeing her full name.)
Oh, sure, 30 seconds on Google will turn it up in most cases, but to go through the entire list like that, that’s quite a bit of research, and you obviously must have had that info at your fingertips in order to have included a given character in the first place.
Plastic Man? Really? You’re shitting me!
Just a glance, but why the Comedian love?
Akane Tendo as your top manga pick?
I motherfucking approve, even if Rumiko Takahashi has no idea how to end a series.
I will admit I have a weird hatred for Akane Tendo, I found her WAY to predictable, Ranma does something and Akane gets mad even if he is doing something to help her she gets pissed and then starts hitting him, if I , or probably anyone else for that matter, was in that situation I would have told her to fuck off years ago or broken everything she tried to hit me with, except maybe and that’s a big maybe, herself. Then again I saw about 3 different anime at the same time that involved the same kind of relationship between the male and female leads, which I already have a problem with the way males are portrayed in modern television anyhow (typically overweight, stupid or borderline retarded, with their only saving grace being that they are decent people) while I do know a few guys like this, they are definitely a minority and only a small % of that minority are actually decent people, the others just phone in the decent because they know they have already gotten on everyone’s collective nerves, and they are being watched for any excuse to expel them from our favorite hangout.
OK, the lack of Rex the Wonder Dog in the top 5 confused me at first, but then I realised the problem: you started counting at 1, which any computer programmer can tell you is the second number. Rex is the first, so he’s number zero! Obviously!
Rex isn’t on the list because he is the list. Each number is actually measuring X number of deviations from Wonder Dog.
The last page of the Uncle Scrooge story “Only a Poor Old Man” is one of the greatest moments in all of comics. Poignant without being even slightly sentimental. Also reads like a rejection of the very idea that characters need to be angsty and mopey to be interesting, decades before that would even be an issue.
Is Shotaro Kaneda from Akira? I’ve only seen the anime version, but I thought that Tetsuo was a much more compelling character in that, at least.
Guy Gardner at 16? Really? For all your ragging on Hal, it’s not like Guy had more than a one-note personality (an uber-jerk, unless he’s been hit on the head recently) until the last couple of years.
I mean, I like Guy, but I think he’s at best a top 75-100 character.
I love the list, but I do think Hope Glass deserves to be somehwere in the top ten.
Thok: Guy, even in full-on-jerk mode, is a lot more complex than Hal is. Witness the issue where he sits down with Ice just after they believed Mr. Miracle had died, and he explained to her how she was “probably mad” about Scott dying and basically walked her through his entire thought process without ever admitting that he felt sad. It was masterful writing.
Or his reaction to Ice being alive:
She can take all the time she needs–he’ll wait for her. Forever, if he has to–just the fact that Tora’s alive is enough to make him happy. That, ultimately, is a sign of Guy’s real depth and heroism, and it’s a ray of light in an otherwise seriously mismanaged DC Universe that people seem reluctant to mess with that aspect of his character.
Wasn’t Molly Hayes (34) the girl from Runaways?
For slapping Duke motherfucking Togo on your list, you have earned my undying respect.
And as for Scrooge, that really is what’s best about him; he’s a massive tightwad, but that’s only because his money is more than just lucre, to him/ The money itself isn’t what gives him status, it’s what he went through to get it. When people try to loot him, they’re plundering a life of adventure and a history of hard-won triumphs.
Which also gives resonance to his (arguable) number one enemy, Magica De Spell–everyone else is after his money because it’s money, but she wants his Lucky Dime because she understands exactly what it represents: As a sympathetic object, it’s been imbued with the power of Scrooge’s personality, energy, and brilliance. There are worse items for a black magician to go after.
Prankster said. “The last page of the Uncle Scrooge story “Only a Poor Old Man” is one of the greatest moments in all of comics. Poignant without being even slightly sentimental. Also reads like a rejection of the very idea that characters need to be angsty and mopey to be interesting, decades before that would even be an issue.”
100% agreement here, I still love that story. I’d like to see a good Uncle Scrooge movie based on Carl Barks work.
Thumbs up for putting Concrete on the list BTW.
Actually most of the Ducktales series is, from what I remember, a pretty good representation of Classic Scrooge in all the ways MGK described. And the movie, Treasure of the Lost Lamp, was actually pretty good too. It was very pulp in a lot of ways (Scrooge squaring off with an ancient sorcerer over a fantastic magical item and a genie) but as a character it’s the kind of adventure that suits Scrooge very well.
Shotaru Kaneda was the biker kid from Akira, I like to think of him as the main protagonist, others disagree with that assessment, he was still cool.
I admit, probably the only reason I don’t care for Kaneda is the dub I watched… God, such a typical annoying 15-year-old-white-kid voice.
I know mocking Wizards list is easy…but I’d still like to read it. It’s a cheap laugh, but oh so satisfying.
I very much approve this list. It’s quite accurate, even though I am more of a Nabiki Tendo man myself.
And for all the people (I can bet you’re American because Disney comics ain’t so hot over there) that don’t understand why Scrooge McDuck is so high on the list: Please read Carl Barks’ or Don Rosa’s Scrooge McDuck Comics(you can easily find the paperbacks), you won’t regret it. They’re awesome adventure comics.
Batman is higher on the list only because he is better known and has blockbuster movies (i kid, i kid) =P
But seriously, Batman, Wolverine and many other can only wish to be half as badass as Uncle Scrooge. Why do you think Spiderman is so Emo? Because he knows he will never be so awesome as him.
😉
I second the confusion over Molly Hayes. I only know of the one from Runaways. And isn’t Buddy Baker Animal Man?
Addendum: my own list would look pretty similar, though I haven’t read (nor am I interested in reading) a whole lot of manga, so I wouldn’t feel qualified to judge any of those characters. Probably a few more X-Characters, like Cyclops, Madrox, and Colossus. I’d definitely put Oracle and Black Canary up there too.
Molly Hayes from The Books of Magic? Don’t you mean Molly O’Reilly?
El_Gran_Pancho: Spidey could be emo because writers have forgotten he is a genius capable of talking to Reed Richards about science and not be proven wrong every other sentence, the last time I’ve seen this used is when he hacked his iron-spidey suit or in Spiderman loves Mary Jane where he is seen walking away from a pile of books of which at least one had been written by Reed.
One of my friends has been saying Reed Richards is a villain for, literally, years and how he is being portrayed now proves him right, I don’t like that at all, it’s like the writer is channeling him. I don’t care how Reed is portrayed I just don’t want my friend to be right or to remind me of it every time we get together.
The lack of Molly Hayes from Runaways is disturbing!
WHAT THE FUCK ABOUT HELLBOY!
WTF is Golgo 13 doing on the list?
You were just bashing wizard for placing Byronic hero’s so high on up on there list and then put a bland unresting killer for hire at 23?!!
Lister : If you’ve read nothing of Ambush Bug, you may not be in the best position to judge. Wade has been more fully developed, simply by the virtue of having more appearances, but Ambush Bug’s role is utterly unique. Even Deadpool, for all his nods to the fourth-wall, stands amongst the characters of the MArvel Universe, where as Ambush Bug stands perpetually apart from the DC universe.
That should be Buddy Bradley at No. 29.
MODOK. No, wait, I don’t care. He’s MODOK. Giant head in a chair. Can’t get more out the other side of awesome than that.
Deadpool is awesome, for a guy who has only been written decently for about 50 issues he is amazingly well developed as a superhero (christ I think I just lost my soul, or some organs…maybe both) especially for a Deathstroke the terminator knockoff crafted by Rob Liefeld, and Fabian Nicieza.
I actually have no problem with Fabian, it’s Liefeld I don’t like.
No Ray Dominguez?
Haven’t been online that much this week (acid washing a pool, pulling carpets, etc.), but I saw you mention that you can’t find a download for the Miracleman work. Isohunt, dude.
Thanks for the Akane love. If I didn’t have to type, I’d post my own reasons for her position on your list. And, NCallahan, re-read the Strength Sapping Moxibustion arc. Akane travels across Japan (by herself) to find Ranma. She sets herself on fire, for his benefit. She (once again) stands between Ranma and a person with enough strength to palm boulders. And, just to make her position perfectly clear, she helps him fight against one of the most powerful characters in the series, culminating with her desperate leap into _a fucking tornado_, so that she could recover the cure for the aforementioned technique. And she doesn’t complain, or cry, or worry about her safety, she just does it. For him. And Nabiki? She’s made a decent amount of money by selling naked pictures of him, using him as a personal gigolo, and giving all of his enemies _the place, directions and schedule of his wedding_.
I would have stuck Oktane in the top 10. He was a Dark Horse character that was published for four issues back in the early 90’s. If you read it today, you would have thought it was just published yesterday.
Oktane was beyond description brilliant. He was seen as the enigmatic loner, but what was different about Oktane is that he used that sense of social enigma to get whatever he needed and he was intelligent enough to tell each individual person exactly what they wanted to hear without any sense of personal ego. He was cynical and ultimately uncaring about what he meant to others. He was credited with the destruction of Detroit, but if what happened in Las Vegas was any indication, he merely caused some destruction and fed the masses desire for revolution, which took care of the rest.
In the series, Oktane travels through the desert with the ex-mayor of Detroit who is on the run for his life from the shattered remains of the US Government. To get the ex-mayor where he’s going, Oktane has to head through Las Vegas and needs to square off against a CIA agent who is trying to regain control of the general populace by shooting gang members (who are now controlling federal interest rates) and sending out viral videos by re-inventing the image of Uncle Sam. In the CIA’s pocket are the elderly remnants of the mafia, an army of inbred rednecks known as the Tight White Posse, and a gigantic shape-shifting mass of protoplasmic Air Force Generals known collectively as God Zero. Also, there is an encampment of Native Americans (led by a charming woman who smokes the peace pipe during meetings only because she needed the Tobacco Lobby) who are looking to capture the ex-mayor and and fulfill their own plans regarding Las Vegas. For four issues, this is one hell of a good read.
Plus, you just gotta love a guy with an 8-track player implanted in his head.
Conan isnt a comic book character.
Mmm, most of those I can’t dispute for the life of me.
I CAN, however, dispute the lack of Galactus, Fin Fang Foom, and Beta Ray Bill! Oh, and I most definitely believe that Doom should be in the top 20, at the very least. Still, overall looks like a DAMNED solid list!
@ bentarc: dont you mess with tommy monhaghan or i’ll unleash BAYTOR on you
and hey no guy gardner warrior?that series was the devlpt summum of guy he had powers of his own so he can flip off the smurfs, he’s friend with kyle & john and the supporting cast was brilliant! & no Gambit? go read Nicieza’s run dude and you ‘ll see why remy can really work on his own
Please tell me you guys are just trolling with this piece of crap list…..
Uh, are u stupid or something Wolverine does deserve to be number one your just another stupid superman fanboy. YOUR LIST SUCKS