I Do Like Listing Things

Maybe you saw it already, but over at CBR's Comics Should Be Good blog, they're doing another Top 100 Marvel and DC characters poll. Well, it's Top 50 for each, 100 overall, but you get the point. They did the last in '07, so I'm curious to see how the results differ. Who has moved up, and who's moved down? Who fell of the list entirely, and who is the new hotness? There were a lot of complaints that certain characters only ranked as high as they did in the last poll because they had recently gained a higher profile, so it'll be interesting to see if that sort of thing holds true again*. Though I don't know if I'll recognize characters

I'm planning to submit a ballot this time myself. I didn't the first time around because I couldn't come up with a Top 10. With DC I was having trouble coming up with 10 characters, and with Marvel I couldn't get it chopped below 20. I have the DC list ready to go this time, and the Marvel list is getting there. I know who 8 of them will be, but there are 5 characters vying for the last two slots.

Which is making it a little tricky. Cronin (wisely) left it up to each person to determine their own criteria for their "top" characters, but that means I actually have to come up with some criteria. Crap, here there be indecisiveness. Say I really like Joe Kelly's Deadpool, but only Kelly's version. Whereas I like Ben Grimm under just about anybody's pen, but none of those versions as much as Kelly's Deadpool*. Who would I rank higher? If I like a character even though I haven't bought a comic with them in it in 7 or 8 years, can they really be in the running? What about characters I think bring a lot to team books vs. ones I prefer as solo stars? That sort of stuff.

I thought about trying to use my blog post labels, but I realized I've bitched about Iron Man a lot over the years, so that's not an accurate indicator. I don't even have a Rocket Raccoon label. How the hell did that happen?

* As I recall, one of the complainers was citing the fact that Nova and Luke Cage where up in the same ballpark as Adam Warlock, which strikes me as a weak argument. Adam Warlock wouldn't make my Top 200 Marvel characters list. I'm not sure why people voting for Adam Warlock based an ongoing from the '70s is more valid than voting for Richard Rider based on his, at the time of the poll, ongoing series.