After nearly 1,100 ballots were cast, YOU the reader ranked your favorite comic book characters from 1-10. I assigned point totals to each ranking and then tabulated it all into a Top 50 list. We're revealing that list throughout the rest of the month. The countdown continues now...
20. Harley Quinn - 662 points (8 first place votes)
Introduced in the Batman: Animated Series as Joker's love interest/sidekick, Harley Quinn became so popular that she ultimately made the move over to the DC Comics Universe.
She wasn't even originally meant to be much more than a background henchmen in the cartoon, but voice actor Arleen Sorkin did such a wonderful job that the writers on the show wanted to use her more and fans soon asked for even more. Slowly but surely, her character was developed on the show, especially her offbeat friendship with Poison Ivy and her toxic relationship with the Joker. TV adaptations are interesting because they sometimes create opportunities that did not exist in the comics. They needed a henchmen with some personality and soon, they had a breakout character.
Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, the driving force of Batman: The Animated Series, later got a chance to collaborate on a graphic novel for DC Comics and they chose to do an origin story for Harley called Mad Love (it was later adapted for an episode of the cartoon).
Originally a therapist, Harleen Quinzel fell in love with Joker while interning at Arkham Asylum. In the DC Universe, she was committed to a mental institution but escaped during the great Gotham City earthquake. She then joined Joker as part of his gang. The Joker betrays her, though, and leaves her for dead, seriously injuring her. Poison Ivy comes across her and saves her life and then gives her enhanced abilities. Harley goes to get her revenge on the Joker, but as it turns out, she just can't turn on the guy...
She then works with the Joker for a while more and eventually goes off on her own to have her own ongoing series, where she tangles with Batman some more...
In the new 52, much of Harley Quinn's origin is the same, although she was slightly deadlier and had been working on the Suicide Squad for a while.
This revamped version of the Suicide Squad later had their own film, with Harley playing such a major role that she was even given her own spinoff film that is due out soon.
After being established with the Squad, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti revealed the character again, now leaning into the comedic elements of the character, effectively making her the Deadpool of the DC Universe. They also further developed her relationship with Poison Ivy, moving the romantic subtext between the two friends into more of the forefront. During Heroes in Crisis, Ivy was killed and Harley was framed for her murder (and that of a number of other heroes). Ivy came back to life and Harley was able to clear her name.
She and Ivy are now starring in their own miniseries dealing with the effects of Heroes in Crisis.
19. Red Hood (Jason Todd) - 672 points (11 first place votes)
Jason Todd was introduced by Gerry Conway and Don Newton as essentially a Dick Grayson clone. Honestly, in retrospect, it just seems kind of odd. Dick Grayson was slowly growing out of his role as Robin (mostly because of the great success of New Teen Titans, where Robin played a starring role in a series much different than Batman) so they replaced him with...a young circus acrobat whose parents were murdered and then Bruce Wayne takes in the orphaned circus acrobat. Kind of odd. Obviously, the take on the situation was that readers of Batman just wanted Dick back the way that he used to be, and this way, Jason being basically a clone of Dick would make the transition an easy one. Eventually Jason becomes Batman's new partner, but without a name (he dyed his hair black to match Dick's - as then-new Batman writer Doug Moench promptly removed the one unique thing Conway had done with Jason)...
Finally, Dick decides to give up the Robin identity and give it to Jason...
Jason then basically plays the Dick Grayson role until after Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Then DC decided to revamp Jason and give him a new-non-Dick Grayson origin. Now he is an orphaned streetwise kid who meets Batman when he steals the tires to the Batmobile! Under Jim Starlin's pen, though, Jason gets more and more reckless. This eventually leads to his death at the hands (and the crowbar) of the Joker (plus a bomb)...
When he was resurrected years later, he was a villain for a time. Over time, though, Jason has mellowed and Batman even found a place for him in Batman Incorporated!
Currently he is a flat-out hero in the New 52 in the pages of his own book, Red Hood: Outlaw, which followed the second volume of Red Hood and the Outlawa, starring him, Bizarro and Artemis. That team, in turn, followed Red Hood and Arsenal, which followed Red Hood and the Outlaws, with Arsenal and Starfire.
18. Catwoman (Selina Kyle) - 693 points (8 first place votes)
Catwoman (created by Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson) was one of Batman's most popular villains throughout the 1940s and early 1950s. She was introduced in Batman #1 and what's interesting is that right from the start, there was a sexual tension between the two characters, as Batman actually lets her get away (she was called The Cat in that first appearance). In their first few appearances, they continued their sexual banter together as he kept being willing to let her go.
After making a comeback, of sorts, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the early 1980s saw Selina Kyle make her longest sustained attempt at reforming.
First, as Selina Kyle, she began to date Bruce Wayne. Even after they broke up, though, Catwoman was now a legit costumed adventurer, teaming up with Robin and King Faraday for a mission in a far off land...
Crisis reshaped Catwoman and gave her more of a hard edge. Even after she got her own ongoing title in the early 1990s, she was pretty much a hero but did not interact with Batman that often, except when the whole Bat-line of books would have crossovers.
That changed during "Hush," when Batman and Catwoman gave their relationship a real go...
She even tried to stop him from killing the Joker...
Ultimately, though, the relationship stalled, partially, I presume, because of her then-ongoing book, where Ed Brubaker re-established her as the protector of Gotham City's East End (it was a really good book).
In the new 52, Catwoman continued her complex relationship with Batman as well as balancing her life a hero versus her life as a crook.
During his long run on Batman, Tom King has now fully committed to a Batman/Catwoman relationship, with Bruce and Selina nearly getting married before it fell apart. They recently got back together and will soon star in their own maxiseries by King and Clay Mann that will draw King's run to a close.
17. Black Canary - 752 points (7 first place votes)
Black Canary debuted during the Golden Age, created by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino. Dinah Lance, like a lot of her soon-to-be Justice Society of America teammates, was basically just a brawler.
When the Justice Society began showing up again in the 60s, and teaming up with the Justice League, Black Canary (Dinah Lance)'s husband was killed by the villain Aquarius. Distraught, Canary decided to leave Earth-2, where the Justice Society resided, and move to Earth-1, where the Justice League was.
While there initially was an attraction between Dinah and Batman, she eventually began a long-term romantic relationship with Green Arrow.
The two stayed in the Justice League for years, until Green Arrow quit the League, and Canary ultimately joined him.
Along the way, we learned that Canary had a superpower - the ability to emit a piercing sonic scream. We ALSO learned, through a pretty convoluted way, that Canary was actually in the body of the DAUGHTER of the first Canary. Yep, they moved her memories into the mind of her secret daughter no one knew about.
After Crisis, they just made it so that there were ALWAYS two Canaries. One was the mother, and she was in the JSA. The daughter had the superpower, and was in the JLA.
Amusingly, Green Arrow went from being the December part of the relationship to being the May part!
After Dinah left the Justice league (shorty after the Justice League International version started), she was captured and tortured by some bad guys, leaving her without her sonic scream.
After Green Arrow was presumed dead for awhile, Canary became an operative for Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl.
Dinah stayed with Barbara for quite awhile, even when Green Arrow returned.
Eventually she left to join a new Justice League (where she even became the leader of the team) but then returned to the Birds of Prey soon before the New 52 happened.
In the New 52, she and Green Arrrow never had a relationship. She was a member of the government operative team known as Team 7, along with her husband, Larry Drake (she goes by Dinah Drake in the New 52). And after his death, she eventually formed the Birds of Prey herself. She then began fronting a rock and roll band in an ongoing series by Brenden Fletcher and Annie Wu...
DC Rebirth saw her and Green Arrow finally establish a romantic relationship again.
16. Zatanna - 765 points (9 first place votes)
Created by Gardner Fox and artist Murphy Anderson, Zatanna first appeared in a cool storyline where she visited a number of DC books looking for her lost father, Zatara. Zatara was a famous magician, and his daughter followed suit.
A funny story about her debut storyline is that Batman was retconned into it!
Justice League of America #51 is the conclusion of Zatanna's Search, the classic Gardner Fox experiment in the comic book form. Fox had a new character, Zatanna, appear in all sorts of different comics looking for her father. It was a rather novel approach for a DC Comic at the time and it seemed to presage DC's attempts to have more of a shared universe like Marvel Comics. Anyhow, after meeting various heroes, she gathers all of the heroes who helped her in previous issues together in Justice League #51.
However, Batman says he never met her. She reveals that she met him in a disguise awhile back in Detective Comics #336.
This was almost certainly a retcon by Gardner Fox designed to get Batman into the Justice League story at the height of his popularity.
Check out the witch in Detective Comics #336...
Gardner Fox never confirmed it, but come on, there is no way that that is not a retcon designed just to find a way to get Batman into a Justice League issue at the height of his popularity. After all, DC certainly began to shove Batman into prominence in the Justice League after years of him playing a lesser role in the title, so it is not surprising to see DC editorial be disinterested in Fox doing an issue of Justice League of America without Batman in it, as this issue promised to be before the retcon.
Zatanna is a world famous stage magician, but that belies her real power, which is as one of the most powerful magicians on Earth. She casts spells by saying words backwards.
Zatanna spent most of her time in this state - doing stage work and occasionally doing some hero work, but that changed when she joined the Justice League for a long stretch (almost 100 issues worth!).
After she left the League, Zatanna basically went back to relative obscurity, although due to revelations that Zatanna had mind-wiped some bad guys years ago, she played a major role during Identity Crisis and its aftermath.
She was also one of the Seven Soldiers in Grant Morrison's awesome Seven Soldiers crossover!
In the New 52, she was a key member of the magic-inspired Justice League Dark.
Add Comments