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. Silver Surfer - 716 points (8 first place votes)
Created by Jack Kirby, the Silver Surfer was the herald for the world-eater, Galactus. Upon reaching Earth, though, the Surfer was touched by humanity, and turned on his master.
For his betrayal, the Silver Surfer was trapped within Earth's atmosphere for many years. What was fascinating about this sort of Christ-like sacrifice of the Surfer giving up his ability to travel the stars for the good of humanity is that the Surfer wasn't even originally part of the plot for the storyline. Jack Kirby felt that a being as powerful as Galactus should have a herald, so Kirby drew the Surfer into the story without conferring with Stan Lee. The fascinating part of it is that Lee then became OBSESSED with the Surfer. I don't mean that in a negative sense, but Lee just really loved the "Stranger in a strange land" aspect of the character trapped on the Earth and despite the character being a strictly Kirby creation, Lee made him his pet character. This was a bit dispiriting for Kirby when Lee decided to give the Surfer an ongoing series and had John Buscema draw it instead of Kirby and then Lee came up with an origin story for the character that was different rom what Kirby had in mind.
That Surfer ongoing series was a wonderful look at the alien traveling the planet, seeing the best and worst of humanity (sometimes all at once). Even after the series ended, Stan Lee wished to keep the character as sort of his private character. Even after he stopped writing comics regularly for Marvel, he still did the occasional Surfer project. He gave special disposition to writers like Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart to allow them to use the Surfer briefly in the Defenders, but not as a regular member. Finally, things changed in 1987, when Stan allowed Englehart to not only write an ongoing series, but he let Englehart have Surfer escape his prison on Earth.
So now Surfer was free to travel and go on to many different cosmic adventures. After Englehart's run, Jim Starlin took over the series and it was during his run that the beginnings of the Infinity Gauntlet saga began (the story that became Thanos Quest was originally intended as a Silver Surfer story until Marvel told Starlin it would work better as a stand alone series).
Surfer returned to Galactus eventually, but then went on a new journey with an Earth woman, Dawn, exploring the universe with a different approach - a more FUN approach. After their story came to a bittersweet ending, the Surfer has recently had a major confrontation with Knull, the God of Symbiotes.
19. She-Hulk - 754 points (17 first place votes)
Created by Stan Lee and John Buscema (probably Lee's last notable comic creation), Jennifer Walters was dying, and needed a blood transfusion from her cousin, Bruce Banner, to live.
As a result of the transfusion, Jennifer, like her cousin Bruce, became a Hulk-like being.
Jennifer eventually controlled herself, and after laying low for awhile, made a major comeback as a member of the Avengers, for which she was a member for a number of years.
Around the same time, she was made a member of the Fantastic Four to replace the Thing, who had decided to part ways with the Fantastic Four for a time during Secret Wars. Along with Wolverine and the Flash, she's the only hero I can think of who was a member of two notable superhero teams at once!!
John Byrne, who used She-Hulk in the FF, came up with Jennifer's SECOND series, where Byrne took a humor approach, having Jen break the fourth wall frequently.
It was a success, and the book lasted for a number of years.
More recently, Dan Slott gained critical success with his own She-Hulk series, where he, too, employed a humorous approach, only Slott has stressed Jennifer's career as a lawyer a great deal, as well, like the time she went on trial for messing with time too much...
When it comes to the jury...
Charles Soule also had a good run where he placed an even greater stress on Jennifer's legal acumen.
During Civil War II, She-Hulk suffered some severe trauma. When she awakened from her coma, she discovered that her cousin had been murdered. This had led to her now taking on a different Grey She-Hulk form that is more akin to the savage Hulk of the past, as her trauma has taken shape in her raging Hulking form.
18. Scarlet Witch - 767 points (8 first place votes)
Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Scarlet Witch debuted as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, foes of the X-Men. However, she and her brother Quicksilver were clearly not fully bad and would often break from their evil leader, Magneto, when it came time to do something REALLY bad (like the times when Magneto wanted to, like, straight out murder everyone).
They eventually quit the team and then joined the Avengers as heroes. While with the Avengers, Wanda fell in love with her teammate, the artificial man known as the Vision. They got married and even had two children. However, both her husband and her children were torn from her life.
She eventually rebuilt herself, as well as her powers - when she started out, she just caused "hexes," just altered probability. Over time, though, we see that she can tap into some powerful magic as a true "Scarlet Witch." Perhaps no better illustration of this was in the opening arc of the third volume of the Avengers by Kurt Busiek and George Perez...
After she had lost her children, Wanda had a bit of a breakdown. Writer Brian Michael Bendis theorized that she never really got over this breakdown, and had her have a mental breakdown and attack the Avengers, disassembling the team and killing a few of her friends. Later, this would be retconned as being the result of a Doctor Doom plot to up her powers (and then marry her, so as to control her).
Now with her crimes retconned out, people have tentatively grown to accept her again as a hero. She rejoined the Avengers and she had an ongoing series where she discovered that she was actually not the first hero to have the name Scarlet Witch, but rather it was a title passed down by her family.
Scarlet Witch has become a major part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and will soon star in her own Disney+ TV series.
17. Black Panther - 770 points (10 first place votes)
The Black Panther is T'Challa, king of the African nation of Wakanda. He first appeared in the pages of Fantastic Four, by his creators, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
He is one of the most gifted athletes in the world, and also one of the smartest men in the world.
After helping the Fantastic Four out, T'Challa eventually came to the United States, where he became a member of the Avengers for a long stretch of time.
He eventually returned to Wakanda, and has experienced many adventures over the years in Wakanda, from attacks to political maneuvering. Like a Skrull invasion during Secret Invasion....
During Avengers vs. X-Men, Namor practically wiped out Wakanda with a tsuami caused when Namor gained the power of the Phoenix. T'Challa was so disgusted with the X-Men that he annulled his marriage to Storm due to her working with the X-Men (she was trying to corral the so-called Phoenix Five, the five X-Men members who gained the power of the Phoenix during the event, but he was so angry he could not see past her seemingly siding with the X-Men).
He and Namor then became rivals throughout the lead-up to Secret Wars, where the Multiverse was fracturing and Black Panther and the Illuminati and Namor and his Cabal were both trying to figure out ways to stop other Earths from destroying their Earth.
After things settled down, T'Challa had to deal with political unrest at his home country in Ta-Nehisi Coates' brilliant series, which came out just in time for Black Panther to star in his own blockbuster motion picture, which made over a billion dollars and was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award.
T'Challa has now taken Wakanda to outer space in his current ongoing series.
16. Hawkeye (Clint Barton) - 900 points (12 first place votes)
Created by Stan Lee and Don Heck, Hawkeye showed up originally a villain, but Clint Barton was basically an accidental villain, as he was so caught up in his love for the Russian spy, Black Widow, that he was in the dark that she was making him do some pretty bad things.
Luckily, Iron Man, who was Hawkeye's foe, realized Hawkeye was really a good guy, and that he should use his archery skills for good, so he sponsored Hawkeye as a member of the Avengers.
Hawkeye served the team with distinction for many years (for a time, as the size-changing Goliath), as he went from having an antagonistic relationship with Captain America to a strong friendship with the man. At one point, Hawkeye was even given the opportunity to head up a NEW team of Avengers, on the West Coast of the United States. It was around this time that Hawkeye married the heroine, Bobbi Morse, Mockingbird.
Sadly, after a number of years together with the West Coast Avengers (and a ridiculous breakup where he freaked out that she let the guy who raped her die), Bobbi was murdered by the villain Mephisto. Luckily, she later turned out to be alive (and had been replaced by a Skrull).
Hawkeye had some dark days after that, but he recovered, and returned to his normal self. Sadly, he was then killed during Avengers Disassembled. Luckily, he returned during House of M.
After returning from the dead (where he was killed AND resurrected by his former teammate, the Scarlet Witch), Clint had no interest in taking up the superhero game again, even though Iron Man almost convinced him to become the new Captain America. Instead, Clint joined up with a renegade group of Avengers, and took up the now available identity of Ronin.
Eventually he took back the Hawkeye name, but struck up a partnership of sorts with Kate Bishop, the hero who had taken the Hawkeye name while Clint was dead. Their friendship was the driving force of Matt Fraction, David Aja and Annie Wu's amazing Hawkeye ongoing series (and it continues to be the focus of Jeff Lemire and Ramon Lopez's great followup series). Here's a great bit where the two Hawkeyes discuss trick arrows, as Clint organizes his trick arrows and Kate doesn't seem to give his trick arrows the respect Clint feels that they deserve...
Clint goes off to find some tape to label each of the arrows but he gets sidetracked and instead ends up being chased by a bunch of bad guys (the events that lead to him being chased are quite interesting in and of themselves, and they include a smiling Hawkeye head being used to cover up Clint's exposed junk) with Kate driving and Clint shooting unlabeled trick arrows at the bad guys...
"Acid arrow,Kate -- dammit -- acid arrow" "I don't know what that means!!" is excellent dialogue.
Okay, so after some more trick arrows, Clint ends up in a bad situation...
And then...
Awesome.
In recent years, Hawkeye caused some controversy when he actually killed Bruce Banner during the second Civil War. He was acquitted on murder charges, but he actually struggled with THAT, as well, as he wasn't sure if that was necessarily the correct decision. Since then, he has fought crime with a few different Avengers team, including a new West Coast Avengers team along with Kate Bishop.
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