No Who’s Who this week, because my home PC with Photoshop does not have net access yet. Instead, a few points about some of the more contentious characters on the list (man, it seems like this entire week has been about one lousy article in Wizard):
Molly O’Reilly over Molly Hayes. Runaways Molly is cute and a great character concept who’s been executed well, but she hasn’t really gone through enough for me to give her a spot on the list yet. (That one issue where she dreamed her parents were still alive and everything was all right, though – that was heartbreaking. I think she’d make top 100 easy.) Molly O’Reilly is awesome, a supporting character in a series about somebody else entirely who ended up being more interesting, brave and intelligent than the supposed lead. After she loses prominence, the comic really starts to blow.
Kaneda. Everybody seems to be talking about the movie in referencing whether they like him or not, which is besides the point; the enormous Akira manga is better on so many levels than the movie. (And the movie was pretty great.) Kaneda is a character who, upon learning that the girl he loves is about to sacrifice herself to defeat a horrific evil in a battle of unspeakable psychic power, goes and grabs a laser and a motorbike to go pick a fight with God. How that does not make the list is beyond me.
Akane Tendo as chosen Ranma 1/2 representative. Ranma is so highly regarded in manga both for being really goddamned funny and for having really deep characterization beneath the slapstick, and really, you could pick any one of Ranma, Ryoga, Akane, Nabiki, or even maybe Genma (when he is a panda) and all would be worthy picks. But Akane gets my vote for having the deepest character; Ranma’s a bit of a cliche, Nabiki too much of a stereotype, and Ryoga’s close and presents the most interesting choice. (Plus he turns into a pig.) But Akane has to be the adult in the entire series more often than not, considering most of the adults in the comic are twits or cowards or both, and watching her balance that with being a teenager, watching her balance being feminine with being a martial arts tomboy at heart – Ranma might get the obvious dichotomies but she gets the subtle ones.
ALL RIGHT NO MORE TALKING ABOUT THE LIST.
(next week: “MGK Versus Some List From “Cracked”)
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21 users responded in this post
Ah, if I only had a laser and a motorbike. My fights with god would be so much easier.
Also, I think I didn’t see Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes in your list. What? Yeah, enough with the list already, ok.
Have you SEEN the list on Cracked about the killer bugs??? Jesus wept.
Why doesn’t your list include any characters from B.C.?! Obviously you’re anti-christian!!!!
….okay, I’ll shut my shithole now…
Any “Greatest Comic-book Character” list that features a talking duck and not Wolverine is not worth talking about!
🙂
… How did I not notice you’d included Molly? The single most awesome thing about The Books of Magic, and I’d managed to forget her existence.
She rescued a unicorn by kicking an evil magic chimney sweep in the balls!
Kaneda was a total badass, that kid knew full well what he was doing when he did any of his crazy stunts (going out starting a bicycle gang to fight other gangs, stealing a laser rifle and hopping on his bike to beat the bad guy and get the girl, etc.
I still hate Akane, if she would have just treated Ranma better I probably wouldn’t hate her so much, sometimes he deserved it but more often than not he was trying to do something sweet for Akane and he’d get a broom to the back of the head. I would however like to think I hate Akane as an irrational knee-jerk response, not for any logical reasons that I can get over, it borders on a prejudice which is probably not a good thing.
The entirety of the rising popularity of anime as a genre was created by some kind of gravitational effect surrounding Kaneda’s enormous balls.
This is known.
Too bad the list discussion’s over…I was kind of hoping you’d elaborate on your placement of Beast. I’d put him in the top 10 of my favorite characters, but I don’t know if I’d consider him objectively as one of the “greatest,” so I was curious about your thoughts on the character. Maybe a subject for another time, though.
But….but…but…Plastic Man?
And no Legion people (that I saw)?
Did Manji from Blade of the Immortal make any of these lists? I have to admit, I wasn’t really paying attention.
if she would have just treated Ranma better I probably wouldn’t hate her so much, sometimes he deserved it but more often than not he was trying to do something sweet for Akane and he’d get a broom to the back of the head.
Don’t you know? In Japan, taking a broom to the back of the head is like saying ‘thank you.’ Just like rape is like saying ‘hello.’
@ Andrew
4chan represent, yo!
@Kais86
Seriously, Ranma tended to oscillate between noble martial artist and jerkass on the drop of a dime. Sure, he didn’t deserve a lot of the hits he got from Akane, but man oh man did he ask for several of them.
I’ve already posted my reasons for loving Akane on the original listing’s page. But here’s a little insight into Akane’s reactions toward Ranma. Rumiko Takahashi, in one of her 80’s interviews, flat out said that the conflict between Ranma and Akane was a result of their first male-female meeting. In the bath. While the two of them were naked. I don’t know about you, but I’ll say one thing: If I were a girl, and my daily routine involved fighting off the rabid advances of dozens of horny boys, I don’t think that I could easily forgive the unexpected appearance of _yet another boy_, in my bathroom, with me naked, and him doing the thing that almost all boys do when they see a naked woman. 😉 And, whenever she was getting closer to him as a person,
A. Yet another fiance/stalker/naked woman makes her debut
or
B. Yet another rival/monster/challenger shows up
or
C. Yet _another_ incredibly crass statement shoots out of Ranma’s mouth
and
D. Then she gets kidnapped/shanghai’ed/challenged to a fight.
To be honest, it’s a testament to Takahashi’s storytelling that the percentage of Ranma /2 fans who supported the Akane/Ranma pairing was so high.
Regarding Plastic Man: While visiting my cousin, his wife and their four kids last year, he decided that a fun way to amuse the kids on a 10-minute car ride would be to let them ask me trivia questions about superheroes or Star Wars. The discussion quickly turned to questions like “Which superhero can eat the most?” because the kids range in age from 10 to 4 (one’s adopted). Anyway, one of ’em asked, “Which superhero is the craziest?”, I said “Plastic Man,” and of course none of the kids had ever heard of him. So I explained some of his stunts from the circa-1980 cartoon and they laughed.
Anyway, I violated my family’s informal rule not to buy Christmas gifts for cousins (I’m a Smith; that’s too many cousins), and I got the two oldest boys Kyle Baker’s first volume of “Plastic Man”. The next generation gotta keep that flame alive, darn it.
(Incidentally, we settled on Flash for the eatin’est superhero, and Galactus — whom they knew from the movie — for the eatin’est supervillain.)
@Brian Smith
You settled on Flash and Galactus for eating the most? Did you forget about a certain Legionairre by the name of Matter Eater Lad? I mean, his ENTIRE THING is eating. It’s right there in the name. If it’s matter, he eats it. That what he does.
(Incidentally, we settled on Flash for the eatin’est superhero, and Galactus — whom they knew from the movie — for the eatin’est supervillain.)
Unicron beats Galactus in a straight-up eating contest because he consumes planets whole instead of just draining them of life energy.
Over the long term though Galactus does consume more as he is driven constantly to feed whereas with Unicron it seems like more of an optional “Hey I haven’t eaten any planets lately I think I’ll go do that” kind of a thing.
Why is REX, THE WONDER DOG not #1?
The Matter-Eater Lad/Unicron arguments are both excellent, and I wish I’d thought of them. The key word, however, is “settled” — I was previously unable to convince the 10-year-old that Superman was stronger than Metamorpho, so I was frankly happy that the kids could agree on Flash and Galactus and move on to the next question.
But who’s the better character — Granny Goodness or Hillary?
Akane’s too much the abusing spouse for me to ever like her. I’d have to go with Ukyo over her any day.
Hey EvilAbrahamLincoln, don’t worry I never really mistook you for a girl. You always struck as a guy to me the moment you said you liked Akane. Ranma 1/2 was supposed to be aimed at little boys but the reason why it had such a large number of female audience was because he could turn into this hot chick and all the horny guys would go crazy over her. Its that whole slash fiction and yaoi thing that girls love so much. And that Kuno and Mikado Shanzenin; wow, are they hot or what?!
So, shocked are you? If you guys think lesbians are hot; why cant girls think gays are hot? Its only natural after all. Plus Akane is mean, mean, mean. Shes the one who insulted Ranma in the beginning; its only natural that he be cold towars her from then on. Wouldn’t you? He tried to be nice but she threw it back at his face.
Only the guys can stand her. Thinks every time she beats the crap out of him, she loves him. Pathetic. Its the same reason why we hate Sakura Haruno. Naruto adores her, saves her multiple times yet she insults him & beats him. Pathetic. Which is why we fantasize Naruto embarking on a hot gay love with that hottie Sassuke. Theres a petition to kill off Sakura, ya know? Many signed. If Akane were real, I’m sure even she would sign it.
Ranma 1/2 got cancelled cause in the end there weren’t as much of other hot guys falling for Ranma. It was just him & Akane and their blosoming love. Bleaaargh! It lost about half its viewers. Not cool.
Rumiko Takahashi is a girl. Only she could’ve had the guts to add so many of those gay scenes. Would’ve been a whole different story if she had been a guy though…
As for Ranma, he never beat Akane. If she was nice then maybe we could’ve tolerated her. But she wasn’t. And we hate her.