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...
25. Darkseid - 548 points (2 first place votes)
Darkseid was the first of Jack Kirby's notable "Fourth World" characters to show up in comics, debuting in, of all places, Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen!
Darkseid is an evil cosmic tyrant who reigns over the dreaded planet, Apokolips.
He is constantly waging war against the other New Gods, who are much nicer than him. He also does this very slyly at times, like the classic "The Pact" where he sets up a peace treaty that involves giving up his own son, Orion, as part of a truce that he KNOWS must be broken (because he plans on creating a scenario where Highfather's son, Scott Free, would be forced to escape from Apokolips, thus breaking the deal)....
Darkseid is fascinated with Earth, because Earth contains somewhere the key to the Anti-Life Equation, which Darkseid desires. A number of his storylines have involved his quest for the powerful equation. In the classic Final Crisis crossover, Darkseid actually succeeded in acquiring the Anti-Life Equation and, for a time, was even in total control of the Earth itself!
Darkseid is known for his Omega Beams, which are laser blasts from his eyes that can seek out and destroy a target from countless distance away.
Darkseid has been featured prominently as a DC villain since Kirby's Fourth World titles folded, most prominently probably during Jim Starlin's Cosmic Odyssey and in Levitz/Giffen's Legion of Superheroes (as Darkseid shows up in the future).
In the New 52, invasions of Earth by Darkseid inspired not only the regular New 52 Earth but also the New 52 Earth 2. The classic storyline, The Darkseid War, was the conclusion of Geoff Johns' long run on the Justice League.
24. Deathstroke – 563 points (4 first place votes)
Marv Wolfman and George Perez created Deathstroke the Terminator (Slade Wilson) as an interesting menace for the New Teen Titans to face. Deathstroke's son, The Ravager, took a job to kill the Titans. However, he died before he could complete the task, forcing Deathstroke to be honor-bound to complete the task.
Deathstroke was experimented on in the army, and is now a peak human. He is smarter, faster, stronger, etc. than a normal human. He is very tough. However, his home life was a mess. His other son was kidnapped by one of Slade's enemies and was held hostage with a knife to his throat. Slade was so confident in his abilities that he tried to kill the man before he could slice the child's throat. Slade killed the man, but not before slicing open the boy's throat enough that he became permanently mute. Slade's wife than shot him in the eye in revenge for his cockiness getting their son injured. Again, he is so confident in his skills that he incorporated his injured eye into his costume, letting people know that he is missing an eye as he figures it doesn't matter if they know that or not, he'll still beat them with one eye or two.
Over the years, while Deathstroke has done plenty of evil things, he seemed to be working under a weird code of honor. Which showed after he worked with a traitor within the Titans, Terra, to capture them for HIVE. Changeling wants revenge, but finds that Slade is not the man he thought he was...
For a time, he was practically a superhero, even being personally recruited by Superman to lead the heroes of Earth against an alien invasion from Warworld.
Towards the end of the Post-Crisis DCU, he had become more and more a traditional sadistic supervillain.
In the New 52, he was more of a mercenary. Recently, in his current ongoing series, he has vacillated between villain and anti-hero. His home life is still a mess, of course, as his children are major parts of the series and their relationship with their dad is a bit complicated.
23. Robin (Damian Wayne) – 592 points (2 first place votes)
Grant Morrison, Andy Kubert and Jesse Delperdang introduced Damian Wayne, the bratty son of Batman and Talia Al Ghul. Damian continued to be a bit of a thorn in Batman's side, especially when the kid (who was trained by the League of Assassins) tried to nearly kill Tim Drake so as to replace him as Batman's Robin.
Damian is seriously injured and leaves with his mother to be treated. Originally, Morrison planned on having Damian killed off at the end of his original arc, but he proved to be such a strong character that Morrison changed his mind. During Batman R.I.P., Talia and Damian return to aide Batman in his fight against the Black Glove. Soon after, though, Batman is presumed dead.
Dick Grayson takes over as Batman, but with Tim Drake now becoming Red Robin, Dick needs a partner - enter the slightly more matured Damian Wayne...
The two became a great pair, with Damian's darkness and arrogance being softened by Dick's lighthearted nature and his enthusiasm. In effect, they were the reverse of the traditional Batman and Robin role.
When Bruce Wayne returned, Damian began to partner with his father. When his mother began attacking Batman and all of his friends, Batman tried to keep Damian out of the fight, but he was not someone you could pin down. Here, he re-teams up with Dick, who is back to being Nightwing...
However, his mother allows Damian to be killed as he sacrifices himself to save an innocent girl...
Eventually, through a distillation of Darkseid's Omega Power, Damian returns to life - but now with superpowers! Slowly, his new powers faded away and he was back to being a normal human in terms of powers (but much more than normal in terms of being, you know, in peak condition). He helped form a new version of the Teen Titans, which he still serves with to this day.
One of the major changes with Damian in the DC Rebirth era has been his friendship with Jonathan Kent, the son of Superman and Lois Lane. The two young heroes have formed their own sort of partnership like their famous fathers as the Super Sons.
22. Swamp Thing – 608 points (7 first place votes)
Swamp Thing was created by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson, as a scientist who was almost killed in an explosion, but somehow survived, mixed in with swamp plants, etc. and became the Swamp Thing. What's amusing is that the initial concept for the series was in a House of Secrets short story set in the past and when the story was well-received, Wein and Wrightson re-told the story in modern times (with Alec Olsen becoming Alec Holland now).
The book had a few different takes on the basic concept of a man who became a swamp monster, but fought for the side of right! It was most famously known for the striking artwork by Bernie Wrightson and when Wrightson left the series, Nestor Redondo took over and did a wonderful job living up to the high standards Wrightson left for the series.
In a later series, which opened with Swamp Thing trying to stop the Anti-Christ, writer Alan Moore took over, and revealed that when Alec Holland "died," he REALLY died, and Swamp Thing was an elemental made up of the actual plants from the Swamp who THOUGHT they were Alec Holland.
Moore's run was legendary, specifically on the relationship between Swamp Thing and his wife, Abby, and the introduction of John Constantine, who helped spur plots along by convincing Swamp Thing to help him out on various tasks.
One especially poignant moment was when Abby and Swamp Thing decide to have sex...
Once they've begun, their sexual experience is shown in a series of double page spreads. Here's a couple of them...
Eventually, Swamp Thing became an Earth Elemental. Right before the New 52, Swamp Thing was sort of brought back and in the New 52, he has fully returned to mostly the pre-Alan Moore state, as Alec Holland mutated into Swamp Thing (although much of the Alan Moore set has been maintained, like the Plant Elemental stuff).
Swamp Thing served with Justice League Dark during this time.
21. Lex Luthor – 613 points (2 first place votes)
Possibly the second most famous creation of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Lex Luthor has worn many hats in his years in the Superman titles (and not even to cover his bald head!).
He's been a criminal.
He's been a SUPER criminal.
He's been the head of an entire PLANET full of people!!
He's been a battle suit wearing criminal.
He's been an even BIGGER battle suit wearing criminal.
One of the fascinating things about Luthor is how much he evolved over the years BEFORE the dramatic change that happened to the character after Crisis on Infinite Earths. When we first met Luthor (by the way, he was only LUTHOR back then, the Lex part did not come for a number of decades), he was essentially just a war profiteer. He was a behind the scenes guy taking advantage of the war in Europe (before the United States entered World War II). Luthor debuted soon after the first major Superman recurring villain, the Ultra-Humanite. One of Luthor's original goons was a guy who was bald. This was in the early days of the Superman comic feature and the Superman comic strip and Joe Shuster was farming out more and more work to other artists and when one of them was given the assignment of drawing a story with Luthor in it, he assumed that the bald guy WAS Luthor and not the real Luthor, who was a redhead. So Luthor quickly adapted to the new look and since Ultra-Humanite was a bald villain, too, Luthor quickly made that guy a pointless character and he was dropped, with Luthor becoming the main Superman villain.
Luthor almost always worked behind the scenes or with some sort of plot that involved someone else fighting Superman. Eventually, though, Luthor developed a battle suit that allowed him to fight Superman one-on-one (to a certain extent, that is). Over the years, his battle suit was upgraded a number of times. Over time, Luthor's personality also got a bit of a refined quality, as we saw him as a guy who was honestly just interested in science and life took a wrong turn and he became a villain. His love for science was still there and he actually cried on Albert Einstein's bithday.
After Crisis, John Byrne and Marv Wolfman re-molded Luthor as a ruthless billionaire who only Superman knew was a criminal. This Luthor was used to being the biggest deal in Metropolis, so he was quite pissed when Superman took over. This Luthor also engaged in some low level villainy, but some still pretty messed up villainy...
He's been a younger cloned version of himself.
He's been President of the United States.
He's been a crazy nutjob.
He's been the head of a Society of Super-Villains.
Basically, Luthor has been it all. One of the smartest men on Earth, Luthor is disgusted at the attention people pay Superman, and has spent most of his adult life finding out ways to destroy Superman.
In the New 52, though, Luthor got a hint of something new - being an ACTUAL hero. During the Forever Evil crossover, Luthor was up to his usual bad tricks when the Crime Syndicate showed up and essentially took over the world. Luthor and a bunch of nominal bad guys had to team up to stop the Crime Syndicate. When it was over, the world now viewed Luthor as a hero and he found that he liked it. So he finagled his way on the Justice League (they figured that he was going to do what he was going to do with or without them, and this way they can at least keep track of him).
When the New 52 Superman died, Luthor tried to take over for him for a while. Recently, though, Luthor has "Evolved" into a being known as Apex-Lex, via powers granted to him by a powerful cosmic being. He has offered power increases to other villains as he has re-formed the Legion of Doom in what is currently called the Year of the Villain.
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