Favourite DC Comics Character (and Why)

In the wake of DC's decision to reboot their entire line, dropping several characters and reinventing others, I thought it might be interesting to ask who are everyone's most popular DC characters and/or teams-and why you like them! There's a poll attached, but feel free to champion characters not included...

For myself, I'd have to go for the Justice Society of America. The sheer weight of their history has always impressed me, and I love the idea of superhero elder statesmen, though I'd be hard pressed to single out any one member as my favourite; probably it'd be a tie between the Flash (Jay Garrick, he of the tin hat) and Green Lantern (Alan Scott). Other strong contenders would be 19th Century gunman Jonah Hex, the Secret Society of Super Villains, Jack Kirby's Kamandi and the Freedom Fighters. Anyone else?

I was always a Marvel fan, so this is based on Miller's vision in 'Dark Knight' and the films ('Begins' and Ledger).

GBF wrote:I was always a Marvel fan, so this is based on Miller's vision in 'Dark Knight' and the films ('Begins' and Ledger).

Dark Knight is still a classic, I agree (though I thought the sequel a few years ago was pointless). But there's only one definitive screen Batman...

Julie Newmar and the woman who went onto Time Tunnel are still two of my fave 'woman I'll never get to sleep with'...can I say that without Luce jumping on my head??

GBF wrote:Julie Newmar and the woman who went onto Time Tunnel are still two of my fave 'woman I'll never get to sleep with'...can I say that without Luce jumping on my head??

That would be Lee Merriweather. Who was, I agree, purrrfect as Catwoman. It was eartha Kitt I had a problem with-her, and the bloke with the moustache who played the Riddler when Frank Gorshin was unavailable in series 3. The Riddler is suddenly a foot shorter with a big bushy 'tache and Catwoman is inexplicably twenty years older and black-and we weren't supposed to notice?

Eartha Kitt was a brilliant singer/performer - I don't think it mattered when she turned up as Cat Woman! did you see her a couple of years ago on Jools Holland? She was a bout 80 (it was just before she died) and she scared the hell out of him - she was a very cool, classy, sexy lady!

Well, she was certainly better than the latest Catwoman...

J'onn J'onzz.

Lucy McGough wrote:J'onn J'onzz.

Any particular reason?

I'll give you a reason later. Right now, I have to pack my laptop in my suitcase ready to go home

I bet J'onn Jonzz doesn't have to pack his laptop...his lunchbox, yeah - but not his laptop!

Honestly, boys, you're so childish

J'onn is my favourite because he is: compassionate, stoical, hard-working, selfless, strong, brave, lonely, thoughtful, intelligent and quiet. And he has a very dry sense of humour. And he is a great mentor for the younger heroes.

Lucy McGough wrote:Honestly, boys, you're so childish

J'onn is my favourite because he is: compassionate, green, stoical, green, hard-working, green, selfless, strong, brave, lonely, thoughtful, intelligent, quiet and green. And he has a very dry sense of humour. And he is a great mentor for the younger heroes.

And he's green

Who are you calling childish?

Well, if we're going to start making personal remarks, I would just like to point out that you are far too tall

Lucy McGough wrote:Well, if we're going to start making personal remarks, I would just like to point out that you are far too tall

But not green...

From J'onn's point of view, it's us who are weird. We're not even telepathic. It must be like living with a whole planet of deaf people.

Lucy McGough wrote:From J'onn's point of view, it's us who are weird. We're not even telepathic. It must be like living with a whole planet of deaf people.

You mean you aren't telepathic? Weird...

You do realize the rest of us are, right?

That explains a lot

Lucy McGough wrote:From J'onn's point of view, it's us who are weird. We're not even telepathic. It must be like living with a whole planet of deaf people.

You know, that's a brilliant piece of character insight.

Mbast1 wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:From J'onn's point of view, it's us who are weird. We're not even telepathic. It must be like living with a whole planet of deaf people.

You know, that's a brilliant piece of character insight.

Yikes. It sure is.

Incidentally, my favorite is Batman. Adam West sold me on him before I could read, and once I could a Batman storybook was the first thing I read for fun. The comics followed shortly thereafter, and I've never loved another character more.

Adam West is still the definitive screen Batman, for me. If you've never read it, his autobiography "Back to the Batcave" is well worth a look.

Not only have I not read it, I didn't even know it existed. I am in your debt, Tony Ingram. I think I'll be hitting the bookstore tomorrow.

Another couple worth looking out for are 'Excelsior: the Amazing Life of Stan Lee' by George Mair (a biography of The Man, obviously) and 'Tales to Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and the American Comic Book Revolution' by Ronin Ro (primarily a biography of Kirby, though also heavily focused at times on his relationship with Stan and touching on more general comics related subjects).

Whoops. Voted other then forgot to post...

Strangely, I was never a DC fan in my youth. They were difficult to get hold of and when you did they seemed strange and derivative. These days I have a much larger affection for a much wider spread of DC than Marvel characters. So this is difficult for me. It could be Dr Fate, it could be Zatanna (introduced in the first multi-part title cross over in comics history - the first 'event' if you will), it could (and in many ways I thought it would be) The Doom Patrol in all their weird and wonderful incarnations. There's a small gibbering thing at the back of my mind that loves Detective Chimp simply because no one else does.

But when it came down to it, I knew who it was really. Another Gardner Fox creation (most of todays writers aren't fit to tie his shoelaces) and the Archives of his original 60's adventures are things of true beauty, with lumionous visions of the future by Carmine Infantino that have arguably never been matched in comics. The stories themselves are wonders of economy, 7 page marvels written to order to fit the cover and at their heart they have a real couple, a genuine love story that crosses the galaxy. So for me, it's Adam Strange, The Man of Two Worlds.

(You'd get a picture but I can't work out how to attach one. Mea Culpa.)

Oh, and on the subject of worthwhile books about the history of Comics, I can't recommend Gerard Jones' Men Of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book highly enough.

One Adam Strange image, as required...



This may seem a strange question, but thinking of Adam Strange led me to thinking of Strange Adventures, and that brought it to mind; does anyone else remember a rather obscure sixties DC character called Cliff Battles, AKA the Split-Man?

There's my man! Cheers Tony. (I will work out how to post images in due course, I promise!) I love the echoes of Hugo Gernbach's Amazing Stories in his costume (and he even fared OK in the 90's and 00's with his re-designed suit. Miracles will never cease. I'm sure they'll find a way to ruin him in the DCNU. )

As for your second question, I'm afraid not. From what little nformation there is on the net it looks proper bonkers though.

Poor old Cliff was pretty much the only recurring character never to be revived post-Crisis, or even to get a cameo in COIE itself. A serious injustice, I feel; he was at least as serious as the Multi-Alien or Space Cabby, and they both came back...

My favourite DC characters include: John Constantine, the Question (Vic Sage) (okay, not created by DC, but I loved the O'Neil/Cowan series they published), Chunk, Jonah Hex, Swamp Thing, Electric Warrior, the Joker and Darkseid. JC gets the vote.

I assume you mean the real JC, not the current JC?

I've not read any new comics in about 6 months, so I've not sampled the new Constantine series yet. I thought the version in Justice League Dark (terrible name for a series) wasn't a patch on the version in Hellblazer, but he still had a few mildly amusing lines, such as describing a scene as a complete toilet, just like Manchester and calling Felix Faust a total wanker.

I dropped DC completely in September 2011. I sampled the first months' worth of the New 52 in my local comic shop (with the owner's permission, I hasten to add) and decided that DC and I were finished from then on after 36 years as a fan. The only books from them that stayed on my pull list were the Vertigo titles I was buying, so I finally said goodbye to John when Hellblazer was cancelled.

Strangely for me, my favorites were seldom individuals but TEAMS< with the JLA always tops in my book.

But more than even the teams was the continuity. For me, take away the continuity and it really doesn't matter to me "That a man can fly".

Aside from the fact that would have said JSA not JLA, my sentiments entirely.

Yes, teams are the best — how they interact with and support one another. After all, humans are a social species.

Team books have usually been among my favourites, as far as the superhero stuff goes. The Justice Society, the Defenders, the Avengers, the Freedom Fighters, the Invaders and the All-Star Squadron in particular. The interplay between characters is as important as the main plot, if not moreso. That's why I've gone off the Avengers a bit in recent years, since Brian Bendis and the writers who've followed him have pretty much abandoned all the characters I used to like and changed or dispensed with the interpersonal relationships of the rest. I wish they'd try to get all that back.

Grant Morrison's JLA FTW!

Oh, and Watchmen. That totally counts as a team book, right?

Hmm, I...suppose so. It's certainly about more than one character.

So are most books, apart from Robinson Crusoe. And even his solitude is disturbed by Friday.

Lucy McGough wrote:So are most books, apart from Robinson Crusoe. And even his solitude is disturbed by Friday.

Well, at least he had a bit of peace from Monday to Thursday.

tony ingram wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:So are most books, apart from Robinson Crusoe. And even his solitude is disturbed by Friday.

Well, at least he had a bit of peace from Monday to Thursday.

He plays two shows Saturday folks!

Superman - why? To quote Jimmy Olsen to Rocky Davis in New Frontier: "Well, gee, he's Superman!"

If you asked for favorite, less popular DC characters, I'd go for Mr. Terrific (see my avatar), Captain Comet (before Starlin got his hands on him) and Manhunter Paul Kirk!

The first Mr Terrific story I ever read basically began with him being murdered. However, I was intrigued by him at the time, and I have since read quite a few of his appearances. A good character, very underused, I think. As for Captain Comet, the only time I really liked him when when he was sparring with the Secret Society of Super Villains. And Manhunter, obviously, was at his best in the Walt Simonson series.

tony ingram wrote: . . . For myself, I'd have to go for the Justice Society of America. The sheer weight of their history has always impressed me, and I love the idea of superhero elder statesmen, though I'd be hard pressed to single out any one member as my favourite; probably it'd be a tie between the Flash (Jay Garrick, he of the tin hat) and Green Lantern (Alan Scott) . . .

I voted the JSA, but I would really expand that to include all of the All-Star Squadron.

Major! Welcome!  

tony ingram wrote:The first Mr Terrific story I ever read basically began with him being murdered. However, I was intrigued by him at the time, and I have since read quite a few of his appearances. A good character, very underused, I think. As for Captain Comet, the only time I really liked him when when he was sparring with the Secret Society of Super Villains. And Manhunter, obviously, was at his best in the Walt Simonson series.

My first Mr. T story was the JLA/JSA crossover from 1965 (Earth-Without a Justice League/Crisis on Earth-A, which also gave us the E1 Johnny Thunder and was the E2 Johnny THunder and Thunderbolt first JLA/JSA appearance (although Johnny was unconscious for most of the story). And I just liked him (plus he fought the alternate Batman). Captain Comet was a reprint backup somewhere in the 60s and I just liked him too. And in Secret Society he was great and even better in L.E.G.I.O.N. et al. And then in Maggin's novelization of Kingdom Come, Maggin wrote him really well. As for Manhunter, I agree with you but I always liked the original costume (although I never figured out how it stayed on and how Kirk breathed in it or blinked his eyes for that matter).

I'd completely forgotten L.E.G.I.O.N! Yes, Comet was pretty good in that, too, actually. One of those titles that was always a decent read, but often gets overlooked (well, by me, anyway, evidently).

Comet and Valor were the only 2 characters in LEGION and REBELS that were always doing the right thing and were admirable from a reader's perspective.

Silogramsam wrote:Comet and Valor were the only 2 characters in LEGION and REBELS that were always doing the right thing and were admirable from a reader's perspective.

What about Garv?

Here he is, alongside Adam Blake!

Not really "alongside". More "looming over".
I always liked Garv.

They don't look happy, do they? Have they just found out they've been cancelled?