After over 1,000 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 now revealing that list for the rest of November and into December. The countdown continues now…
I used to do sort of “biographies” for each of the characters on the list, but you know what, they’re on the Top 100 DC and Marvel characters list, so I think we should be working under the assumption that you all pretty much know the basic information about these characters. Instead, I’ll just write about whatever interests me about the character in question, including a notable comic book moment featuring the character.
45. Captain America/Falcon (Sam Wilson) – 245 points (5 first place votes)
Stan Lee had hyped up Sam Wilson a good deal before the hero debuted in the pages of Captain America #117 as the first African-American Marvel superhero, but the character quickly lived up to that hype, as he was a perfectly suited partner to Captain America. Falcon teamed up with Cap to take down the Red Skull when the Skull was equipped with the Cosmic Cube (and Cap was actually in the Red Skull’s body) and Cap was banished to an island where Sam happened to be living. Once that was finished, though, Cap and Falcon parted ways in Captain America #120 and Cap went off on his own. Six issues later, Cap visited Harlem again in time to help Falcon fight against a vicious gang (that was being manipulated by the Maggia) and when the day was saved, Cap went to head out again to go travel some more. He offered to bring Falcon with him, but Falcon wanted to remain in Harlem. Cap, though, explains that he really would like a partner, and he respects Falcon a lot, so Sam agrees to be Cap’s partner.
Later, Falcon was given an upgrade from being “just” a fighter superhero by receiving special wings that allowed him to fly. He and Captain America remained steadfast partners for a number of years. Eventually, Steve Englehart introduced a retcon that said that Sam was such a clearcut partner for Captain America because the Skull had actually used the Cosmic Cube to alter Sam into BECOMING a “perfect” partner for Cap, and the real Sam Wilson was “Snap” Wilson, who was on the island for a drug deal before the Skull altered him into an upstanding person. Oddly enough, while that story was mostly ignored, it wasn’t RE-retconned, so that new aspect to Sam’s origin was now just part of his story. Later writers tried to explain it away as a momentary indiscretion by Sam in a bad period in his life, but it is still strange.
Falcon and Captain America stopped being active partners afrer a few years, but remained close friends, and Falcon even joined the Avengers. When Captain America was seemingly killed after Civil War, Sam was a trusted partner to Cap’s successor, James “Bucky” Barnes. However, later on, after Steve Rogers returned to the land of the living and then had his Super Soldier Serum removed, leaving Steve a very old man, Steve now trusted Sam to take over as Captain America, while keeping the wings, of course!
The All-New Captain America faced off against Red Skull’s villainous daughter, Sin, and Sam quickly debunks the “Snap Wilson” story as just Red Skull messing with him for sport…
Steve was then returned to his youth, and became Captain America again, but Sam remained as Captain America, as well, with Steve even allowing Sam to continue wielding Steve’s shield while Steve got a new shield. However, what Sam didn’t know (and no one else did, either) is that Steve was altered by the Cosmic Cube that made him young again, and the Cube made it so that Captain America was always a Hydra sleeper agent. Ultimately, Steve launched an attack on the United States, taking over the country and putting it under Hydra’s boot. Sam refused to believe that this was the real Steve, and Sam actually helped discover the REAL Steve Rogers, who unseated his imposter, and the heroes retook the country.
Sam then retook the Falcon name, but during a mission where Captain America’s shield was stolen, Steve convinced Sam to suit up again as Captain America, and the two now both share the name (although Sam has his own shield now, though).
44. Human Torch – Johnny Storm 253 points (2 first place votes)
In 1961, Marvel owner and publisher, Martin Goodman, wanted Stan Lee to do another superhero revival. They had tried one in the early 1950s, but it had flopped. With DC Comics having a lot of success with their superhero revivals of the late 1950s/early 1960s (leading to a new team book, Justice League of America, that was doing well), Goodman wanted in on it, and so he directed Lee to come up with a new team series. Goodman’s original intent was to once again revive their own superheroes, like Captain America, Namor and the Human Torch. Lee and Jack Kirby thought that a fresh take was needed and so they set out to come up with a new team based on Kirby’s then-recent Challengers of the Unknown team for DC Comics. However, as a sort of compromise, Lee agreed to introduce a NEW version of the Human Torch on this new superhero team, so there would be at least a little bit of familiarity there for Marvel’s superhero revival, known as the Fantastic Four.
Naturally, the Human Torch was then the first member of the team that Marvel decided to break out into its own series, which launched very soon after the debut of the Fantastic Four (a little under a year) in the pages of Strange Tales…
The series was a bizarre approach, as the Torch was treated like a traditional superhero despite his rather unconventional role in the Fantastic Four. For instance, they gave him a secret identity despite his identity being public knowledge over in the Fantastic Four (plus, you know, he doesn’t wear a mask). Over time, the Thing grew to become the most popular member of the Fantastic Four. Johnny Storm’s problem is much the same one that I discussed for Beast Boy earlier, where he was defined early on as the young one in the group, but the problem with that is when you grow up, what is your role when you are no longer the young one?
The Fantastic Four probably overcorrected by having Johnny Storm get married (to his best friend’s ex-girlfriend)…
Eventually, that marriage was retconned away with Alicia turning out to be a Skrull operative. This allowed the writers to sort of de-age Johnny and later writers have gone back to writing him as a bit more of a youthful soul. However, over the years he has had his notable moments of growth, as well. One of his most memorable moments came during Jonathan Hickman’s acclaimed run on the Fantastic Four when the team was facing an invasion from the Negative Zone, and the only person who could stop them was Johnny, who decided to sacrifice himself to keep them from breaking through…
Obviously, he somehow managed to survive that scenario, and returned to the team (during his seeming “death,” Spider-Man took his place on the team).
43. Rocket Raccoon – 261 points (3 first place votes)
A lot of characters on this list have had odd little journeys to “the top,” as it were, but few of them were intended as one-off throwaway jokes like Rocket Raccoon (oddly enough, there was another famous Marvel character, who did not make the list, Howard the Duck, who was ALSO an example of a mostly throwaway gag that turned into a major character). Introduced in a back-up story in the black and white magazine, Marvel Preview, Bill Mantlo and Keith Giffen introduced “Rocky Raccoon” specifically as a throwaway gag reference to the Beatles song by the same name.
Six years later, though, Mantlo decided to bring the character to the Marvel Universe proper, introducing him in an issue of his Incredible Hulk run as ROCKET Raccoon….
Mantlo built up a whole backstory for the character, to the point where he was given an acclaimed miniseries a couple of years later, drawn by a young Mike Mignola…
The character seemed poised for a big breakthrough and then…nothing. He was basically a non-entity for the next two decades. He was even involved in gags like having an alien bad guy having what looked to be Rocket Raccoon’s hide hanging on his wall. In 2007, though, editor Bill Rosemann was putting together a new team of disparate cosmic heroes for the sequel to Marvel’s 2006 hit cosmic crossover, Annihilation. Amusingly, thirty years later, Rocket Raccoon’s co-creator, Keith Giffen, was now writing the character as part of a sort of “Dirty Dozen” team in Annihilation Conquest: Starlord (art by Tim Green III)…
That team, of course, was the basis for the modern day version of the Guardians of the Galaxy, which was adapted by James Gunn for the hit Marvel film, making Rocket Raccoon quickly transform from a non-entity into one of the most famous Marvel characters around!
Read Related Also: The Marvels Suggests The Brood May Be Joining The MCU
42. Beast – 267 points
Okay, so here’s what I don’t get – Hank McCoy, the so-called “Beast” of the X-Men, was born with giant hands and feet, could feed himself a bottle with his own feet when he was a baby and could crush a person’s hand with a handshake when he was a small child. When he hit adolescence….all of that stayed the same. He didn’t actually gain anything. Mutants gain their powers when they hit adolescence. So, what, exactly, is Hank McCoy hiding? Is he really a mutant at all?!?!?!
McCoy was a brilliant young scientist who also memorized a book of quotations (to make it seem like he was well read). Can you imagine what it must be like for a brilliant young scientist to be on the X-Men? It would be like Albert Einstein being one of the Three Stooges – very, very frustrating. Hank was lucky to be a student of Marvel Universe science. Marvel Universe science is a lot more diverse than regular science. You see, Hank eventually gained a PhD (done while the rest of the X-Men were vainly trying to complete their GEDs) in biophysics and genetics. However, he achieved these PhDs in MARVEL science, so this made him an expert in engineering, medicine, time travel (yes, time travel), etc. It is like how one of the most highly-developed robots of all time, Ultron, was built by Hank Pym, a biologist. It is because Hank is a MARVEL biologist. Very different than normal biology. It’s like “How would you best describe a cell membrane? Also, how would you build a device that could negate Magneto’s powers?” All in the same class!!!! And MARVEL scientists always have multiple doctorates by the time they’re 22. It’s a rule.
So Hank was in the X-Men with his possibly fake mutant powers and his MARVEL science degrees, and he fought the good fight, but eventually he was like, “What am I even doing with these people? I’m not even a mutant probably!” so he left to take a job at a big corporation as a geneticist. While there, he discovers a way to give people mutant powers temporarily (he figured, “Hey, if I could fake it, why not let other people do so, too?”), but he had to use it on himself because, you know, that’s what scientists do, use experimental drugs on themselves for kicks. He waited too long to change back, though (book smart, check. common sense, not so much), so he was stuck as a furry animal-like creature with fangs and a haircut like the Daredevil supervillain, the Owl. Also, it turned out that, much like 80% of the Marvel Universe before 1975, his girlfriend (and lab assistant) was secretly a Communist spy.
Things picked up for Hank when these new abilities got him noticed by the Avengers and eventually he became a member of the team. This was a dream come true! He was actually accepted by society! You see, society hates and fears mutants – except when they’re Avengers. Then they’re totally awesome!!! If Scarlet Witch were on the X-Men – hated and feared. On the Avengers – beloved! While on the Avengers, Hank (who now, all of a sudden, was a jokester) made friends with his teammate, Simon Williams, the hero known as Wonder Man. Simon, you see, was an expert electrical engineer. Sadly, he was just an expert electrical engineer and not a MARVEL engineer, which is why his munitions company was put out of business by Tony Stark’s similar company.
Despite the Avengers being the perfect place for Beast, he decided to leave them. It is actually pretty funny to read the issue he decides to leave the Avengers – there is an ostensible reason given for him departing, but it really doesn’t make sense even in the context of the issue itself, let alone Hank’s general characterization at the time. In any event, with the character now free for the taking, J.M. DeMatteis started using him in the pages of the Defenders and eventually re-configured the team AROUND Beast, adding in his former X-Men teammates, Iceman and Angel in a New Defenders, a team led by Hank. As you might imagine, it did not do so well.
With Angel and Iceman surely thinking, “Wow, we should NOT be on teams together – that’s back-to-back teams we were on that just ended in total failure,” their next thought, of course, was “Hey, let’s form another new team!” and so they formed X-Factor, made up of all the original X-Men, including the not-so-dead Jean Grey. Hank joined up because, really, what else was he doing? Soon after the team formed, Hank found himself turned back to his normal fake-mutant self due to the machinations of some bad guy. After awhile, the machinations of ANOTHER bad guy returned Hank back to the furry blue look.
Eventually, X-Factor merged back into the X-Men and Beast was assigned to the cool kid’s team (well, cool kids plus Jubilee, I should say). Oddly enough, after that squad’s leader, Cyclops, took a leave of absence when he got married (and Wolverine was also on a leave of absence), Beast actually led the cool team for a little bit. It was really weird. It was sort of like, “Wait, BEAST is going to be the leader? There’s got to be someone else better suited for the job! Who else is on the team? Psylocke? Oh. Gambit? Oh. Rogue? Oh. I guess Beast it is – do you think maybe the Blob would be available if we asked him?”
Throughout much of his second stint with the X-Men, Beast sort of fell into the background. Here’s an example of just how out of the way he was. An evil, alternate reality version of the Beast who was twenty years older than Beast managed to switch spots with Beast for weeks without anyone noticing the switch. The impostor did not even have to study to impersonate Beast, as it wasn’t like anyone on the team knew anything personal about the Beast. So long as he acted goofy and pretentiously quoted from old books, who could tell it WASN’T Beast? It’s not like anyone could tell he was speaking an entirely different dialect (few X-Men even knew what a dialect WAS). How awkward must have that been when Beast returned to the team? “Really? NO ONE noticed it wasn’t me? Trish, you’re my girlfriend! You had no idea?!”
Beast did have one definitive highlight as an X-Man soon after the whole “no one noticed he was kidnapped by his twenty-year older copy from another reality” fiasco. He actually cured the Legacy Virus!! Not only did he cure the Legacy Virus, but Colossus sacrificed himself to get the virus to work, so Beast cured the Legacy Virus AND got rid of Colossus for awhile!!! Two birds with one stone!! To put into context how rarely X-Men get a victory this major, Rogue’s biggest accomplishment of all-time was when only two members of her personal X-Men squad turned out to be undercover enemies sent to betray her. That was a personal best for Rogue! So when Beast actually cured a major disease, well, that’s just awesome (and unexpected).
While mourning the “loss” of Colossus, Beast joined up with Storm’s group of X-Men who were searching for 13 ghosts who escaped from the Chest of Demons (or Destiny’s diaries. One or the other). Beast and Psylocke were attacked by Vargas, a really cool character who was so major that he continues to be used constantly to this day. In the battle, Sage needed to kickstart Beast’s secondary mutation, so she did so, and he went from being a blue gorilla looking dude with an Owl haircut to being a big blue cat-like dude. What’s interesting to note is that if this was his secondary mutation, what if he had never altered his genetics to turn into a blue furry creature? What kind of cat-like creature would he look like then?
He had trouble dealing with this secondary mutation, even considering taking a “cure” for being a mutant during Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men run…
Seemingly one of the side effects of Beast’s secondary mutation is that he also has the mutant power of super-hypocrisy. You see, the X-Men were in battle with a whole other world from another dimension that was planning an invasion of Earth. Beast decided that for the good of OUR Earth that it made sense to destroy THAT world, so, with the help of his girlfriend, Abigail Brand, the X-Men destroyed the other world. So, as you can see, Beast obviously feels it is okay to commit genocide if it is in the best interest of the people of our world. Well, when Cyclops put together a mutant murder squad designed to go out and eliminate enemies of the X-Men, Beast flipped out, thinking it was way unethical. So his super-hypocrisy must have kicked in!
Beast eventually split from the X-Men over his distaste with Cyclop’s leadership. He ended up joining the Secret Avengers before returning to the X-Men when Wolverine and a group of X-Men split from Cyclops to form a new school. Beast then ended up messing with time itself to bring the original X-Men from the past and stranded them in the present. Beast then mutated again, but instead of taking this opportunity to go to his iconic look, he now looks like a bit more like…I dunno how to describe it. More like an ape than he did in early days? Anyhow, later on he left the X-Men when he tried to work alongside the Inhumans to find a way to cure the fact that the Terrigen Mists were killing mutants but when he couldn’t find a cure, he finally sided with his mutant family against the Inhumans.
In the Krakoa era, though, Beast’s actions have gone from super-hyrocrite to total, like, Doctor Doom-level supervillain, to the point where we’re probably heading toward a Yellow Fear Monster-type reveal with Beast.
41. Wolverine/Talon/X-23 (Laura Kinney) – 272 points (2 first place votes)
There are a lot of messed up things about Laura Kinney, the clone of Wolverine who is named X-23, including her time as a teen prostitute. However, I think X-23’s initial time with the X-Men can be pretty much succinctly summarized as: the X-Men took in X-23 because she was horribly manipulated both genetically and psychologically into becoming a killing machine. The X-Men harbored her so that they could help her with her murderous urges. They then used her as part of their own personal death squad. That’s “Dr. Doom raising a kid so he can have someone to imprint his mind on in case he should ever find the need to do so” levels of messed up.
Luckily, other members of the X-Men, like Storm, helped get X-23 past those issues, and she stopped working as a killer for the X-Men. Eventually, she grew to have a father/daughter relationship with Wolverine, and he helped her with her issues, too….
and when he was dead for a while, X-23 took over as the new Wolverine.
When Wolverine came back to life, she returned to her X-23 identity. She had her own clone, Gabby, who has become like a sister to her. During the Krakoan age of the X-Men, Laura has really come into her own, and reclaimed the Wolverine name. However, the X-Men have been doing a resurrection protocol where dead mutants are “resurrected” through cloning, and through a mistake, Laura was resurrected when she wasn’t actually dead, so there are now TWO Lauras in the Marvel Universe. The clone is calling herself Wolverine, while the original Laura has adopted the name Talon, which would have been her codename early on in her time with the X-Men. Talon is currently the leader of the X-Men, showing just how far she has come as a superhero.
