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This is the strip that gave the world "The Bechdel Test. Over more than 20 years, Mo, Sydney, Lois, Toni and Clarice and the rest of the gang grow and change, pair up and split up, argue about politics, culture and gender and pretty much everything else, honestly until they seem more real and rooted than a lot of people who aren't made up of lines on paper.

Pear pimples for hairy fishnuts! The original run of Berke Breathed's '80s strip is one of the most quotable comics of all time. A mix of pointed political and cultural satire and gentle, meadows-and-dandelions sentiment, Bloom County began with a bunch of misfits in a Midwestern boardinghouse but expanded to poke fun at everything from presidential politics to penguin lust. And with the introduction of Bill the Cat in , discerning comics fans got an epic riposte to that other orange feline cartoon titan, Garfield. Our panelist Maggie Thompson particularly wanted to include this charming s comic about life backstage on Broadway.

Other postwar soap opera strips are still running — think Mary Worth or Judge Parker — but Leonard Starr's Mary Perkins won critical acclaim for its finely drawn panels and memorable characters. What we learn in his first story: He puts on his makeup for daily life; for his horror roles, he takes it off. What's not to love? If you tend to lump the late Charles Schulz's long-running series alongside its fellow funny-page denizens — all those bright, breezy kiddie-fare strips — then hoo boy, it has been a long time since you read it.

Peanuts characters worry about their lot in life, they cling to coping mechanisms, they get depressed, they develop unrequited crushes, and, again and again, they get duped into trusting that they'll be able to kick a football Spoiler: Yet sometimes — only sometimes, and only if they're Snoopy, the one Peanuts character who is completely comfortable in his skin — they dance.

In Peanuts , as in life, that kind of joy descends only in fitful bursts, but descend it does, and it's enough. Created in by cartoonist Marjorie Henderson Buell for The Saturday Evening Post , Little Lulu — a tough, resourceful girl with her hair in ringlets — went on to a long life as a newspaper strip and in comic books written and drawn, at least initially by John Stanley. Television, toys, films and international fame followed, keying off the strength and charm of Stanley's take, in which she was transformed from a typical comics-page irascible scamp into a scrappy young girl who always had her friends' backs well, mostly.

For decades, Little Lulu's presence on the comics page meant that millions habitually read the adventures of a young girl who consistently bested — outsmarted, outplayed and outmaneuvered — boys. It may not have been the sole reason for her runaway popularity. Lynda Barry remembers what it's like to be a kid with a vividness and emotionality that the rest of us have irrevocably lost. All the confusion and logical leaps and frustrations of not being heard, all the hormonal hoops that puberty forces us to jump through — it's all still so richly available to her, and for years, in the syndicated strip Ernie Pook's Comeek , which appeared in alt-weeklies across the nation, she laid it all out on the page.

To read her characters' adventures — many of which read like breathlessly confessional diary entries — is to feel the shock of recognition, again and again: Their family life is hard — Barry never turns away from pain and heartbreak — but they find joy in music, and in creating something, even if it's just a daisy-chain tiara or a rubber-band ball. Did you know that Olive Oyl was created years before Popeye? Elzie Crisler Segar had been drawing Thimble Theatre for 10 years when he came up with the character of Popeye the Sailor Man; originally it was about Olive, her brother Castor and her boyfriend Ham Gravy.

49. CAPTAIN HADDOCK (Tintin)

But one day, Castor needed someone take him out to an island — and there on the docks was Popeye. He was only supposed to be a minor character, but readers loved him so much, Segar brought him back. The rest is history and rather a large quantity of spinach. John Allison just announced that he's bringing an end to his Tackleford strips — the series of stories that began as Bobbins back in the internet Dark Ages think and morphed into Scary Go Round and eventually became Bad Machinery , a kid detective strip featuring the younger siblings of the original cast.

But luckily for you, they'll all stay up online and you can discover for yourself the magic Allison makes out of a humdrum fictional British town and a bunch of aimless somethings. His art is constantly changing and evolving — but one thing stays the same: The rhythms of his dialogue are entirely his own, and they'll stick in your head until after a few pages you're thinking in the same cadences as the characters.

After some discussion, the judging panel nixed the idea of singling out specific comics on thenib. The Nib offers a bracing reminder, to those who need it, that comics as a medium can tell urgent, controversial, hugely vital stories in ways no other medium can. If your local newspaper's editorial cartoons strike you as fusty and predictable, click over to The Nib and poke around. Yes, that exclamation is supposed to be there — he considers it an honorific like "Ph.

Just watch out for Mr. Meanscary, the alien disguised as a puppy butt. Ever wanted to go dude-watchin' with the Brontes? Had an unhealthy fascination with obscure Canadian history? Really been annoyed at physically impossible female superhero costumes? Have we got a comic for you! Kate Beaton's deliriously silly when it isn't giving you all the feels Hark! A Vagrant is one of those comics that makes you feel smarter for having read it — and then makes you head to the bookshelf to catch up with her universe of literary and historical references.

Her beady-eyed characters smirk and caper, her rubbery lines dance all over the screen, and she can use a word like "velocipedestrienne" and make you love it. Readers loved this story, which starts with a kid in his bedroom, playing a beta copy of an unreleased video game — and then a meteor shower hits his house. He and his friends soon learn that by playing the game they've accidentally triggered the end of the universe — and what's more, they have to use the same game to play a new universe into existence. And did we mention that in the world of Homestuck , internet trolls are actually trolls?

Melanie Gillman's gentle colored pencils belie the seriousness of their story about Charlie, a black teenager who's questioning her sexuality — and whose parents send her to a pretty dangerous place: An all-white Christian summer camp. Charlie bonds with Sydney, a trans girl, as the campers hike toward a mysterious mountaintop ceremony, and Gillman uses their growing friendship to illustrate, in a beautifully organic way, the challenges gay and trans kids face on a daily basis.

Erica Moen and Matthew Nolan's charmingly NSFW Web comic began as a review of sex toys starting, of course, with the legendary Hitachi Magic Wand but has branched out into a friendly and accessible clearinghouse of information on everything from consent to polycystic ovary syndrome — often illustrated by well-known guest artists like Lucy Knisley and Trudy Cooper.

Our judge Spike Trotman also points out that Oh Joy is an invaluable resource for teens growing up in areas where accurate sex education is not on the curriculum. In possibly one of the most beautiful comics ever created, for web or otherwise, Minna Sundberg sets her story in a post-apocalyptic Scandinavia, 90 years after a plague turns most of Northern Europe into "The Silent World," teeming with monsters and magic. No one wants to venture outside the few safe spaces Sundberg's art, tinged with Nordic mythology, helps fill out a frozen world with elaborate, loving detail — check out this language tree she created to help set the stage for her story.

This is possibly the cutest, sweetest thing you'll read all year — and we absolutely mean that as a compliment. Ngozi Ukazu writes and draws this Web comic about Eric "Bitty" Bittle, a former figure skating champion and avid baker who joins his college hockey team and finds love with his handsome team captain — and loving acceptance from his fellow players. She has also created a world of ephemera, from social media accounts for her characters to an ongoing supplementary series explaining hockey jargon.

You might have thought a comic about a gay, pie-baking college hockey player would be too obscure, too specific. You would be wrong. Tom Siddell's Gunnerkrigg Court is one of the grand old dames of the Web comic world, so if you're into magic, mythology and goth-tinged boarding school hijinks Harry Potter fans, I'm looking at you , there are years' worth of strips to dig into.

Young Antimony Carver arrives at her new boarding school, Gunnerkrigg Court, and almost immediately stumbles into a mystery involving a second shadow, mysterious woods and a possessed robot. Self-possessed Annie and her best friend, tech genius Katerina, play well off each other as they explore the Court's secrets, and Siddell's art evolves along with their friendship. Cartoonist Tom Parkinson-Morgan sometimes goes by Abbadon, which is a pretty good name for the creator of this popular Web comic about an ordinary barista who — in the middle of an awkward encounter with her boyfriend — is suddenly transported to the ancient, chaotic city of Throne, built of god-corpses, center of the omniverse, and apparently, the place she's destined to rule.

Once she finds her boyfriend Layered with myth, fantasy and religion, every page of KSBD is an offering, but to which god, no one knows. Alastair Sterling, robotics pioneer, has been dead for 16 years. And now he is somehow alive again, in a synthetic replica of his original body, in a world where robots have advanced in a way he never dreamed of — and where his old partner and lover has made yet another version of him Blue Delliquanti's warm, organic lines and frequently wordless panels blur the same boundaries between machine and human that her characters are carefully, painfully trying to work out.

This road trip romance gets off to an explosive start: In one day, Amal calls off his arranged marriage, comes out to his disapproving parents, blacks out drunk and wakes up the next morning to find TJ making eggs in his kitchen. Amal has to get from Berkeley to Providence for his sister's college graduation — so he and TJ make a deal: TJ pays, Amal drives.

As they get further across the country and closer to Amal's family, what began as random circumstance deepens into friendship — and then something significantly more intimate. One of the few comics our readers chose that doesn't have an ongoing story, SMBC is your one one-stop shop for daily jokes about science, politics, relationships, deconstructing The Wizard of Oz and pretty much anything else creator Zach Weinersmith sets his pen to.

Plus, you can click the big red button underneath each strip for an extra joke! Evan Dahm's mesmerizing tale of a nomadic tribe — Those Marked in White — whose unchanging existence is turned upside down by the arrival of a colonizing empire. Imperial soldiers take a young tribal girl, Vattu, as tribute; back in their capital city, she learns there's far more to the world than endless marches through the grasslands after game.

The comic moves slowly; some panels are completely wordless, but you'll be drawn in by its story of culture clash and colonization, and Dahm's wildly imaginative world building. Ancient Rome with strange dog-snake centurions? Our judges had a hard time picking just one Raina Telgemeier book, but eventually we settled on the gorgeous, heart-tugging Ghosts. Cat and her family move to the beach town of Bahia de la Luna in the hopes that the air there will be better for her little sister Maya, who has cystic fibrosis.

The town turns out to be full of gentle ghosts, and Maya wants nothing more than to meet one — but Cat can't face even the idea of death. What happens when Sleeping Beauty wakes up and rides into the sunset with her magically appointed prince? She leaves behind a castle full of faithful retainers with no idea what to do without her.

Linda Medley's lovely Castle Waiting picks up from there, with a band of ragtag refugees from assorted fairy tales making a new life for themselves in the titular castle. Medley's graceful black-and-white art will transport you to a world of bearded ladies, bouncy demons, noble-horse-men and strange little creatures chittering in the corner — plus Beauty's forgotten handmaidens, now elderly and comically querulous. Castle Waiting is a quest well worth going on. Gene Luen Yang's much-praised book contains three stories — a retelling of the legend of the Chinese Monkey King, a tale of a second-generation child of Chinese immigrants attempting to navigate a white suburban school and a story about a white boy embarrassed by his visiting Chinese cousin.

The disparate narratives link up in surprising, revelatory ways, and along the way, Yang interrogates the sundry many Asian stereotypes that Western culture has absorbed and tracks how his characters confront them. The result is an intriguing mashup that borrows from sources as disparate as Fu Manchu stories, political cartoons, John Hughes movies, Marvel comics and cheesy sitcoms to show characters pushing through self-hatred to craft their own identities. In the early days of Disney, artists weren't allowed to sign their names to comics — everything just said "Walt Disney.

Barks' elastic lines and expressive faces seem to almost bounce out of the panels on his pages; his scripts were complex and sensitive and marvelously silly. And if you're a fan of the cartoon DuckTales , you have much to thank Barks for — he is the guy that invented Scrooge McDuck.

Our readers really loved Ben Hatke's charming story of a young girl who ends up on a strange planet after trying to rescue her best friend from an alien cult that might have come to Earth because Zita found a big red mystery button, pressed it and created a rift in space.

Torn away in a moment from everything she knows on earth, Zita becomes an interstellar adventurer, saving planets, battling aliens the Star Hearts only sound nice Hatke's cute-but-not-cloying art stretches from realistic to truly weird, creating a delightful backdrop for Zita's heroics. After her father dies, Emily and her family move to a strange old house in a new town, where she discovers an amulet in the library where her great grandfather once worked.

Does it open the way to a brand new world of magic and peril? You bet it does.


  • Led by the Spirit (Toward Spiritual Maturity: Growing Up in God, Chapter 4);
  • Saving The World Boxed Set I: The Amazing Stories of The Greatest Superheroes Ever by Dean King.
  • Savoir et Savoir (French Edition).

Emily ventures into the land of Alledia to save her mother, who has been attacked by a monster — but she stays to become a member of the resistance to the sinister Elf King, in Kazu Kibuishi's story that is a charming mashup of everything from Lord of the Rings to Star Wars. Plus, the house can walk, which is pretty cool. Cece Bell's autobiographical account of growing up deaf was an NPR Book Concierge pick a few years ago, and clearly our readers haven't forgotten it.

After losing her hearing to a bout of meningitis at the age of 4, Bell struggled. But when a new hearing aid gave her some interesting abilities, she began to think of herself as a superhero, El Deafo. Bell depicts herself and everyone around her as rabbits; their large ears a smart reminder of the importance of hearing in this story — and their speech bubbles the perfect way to convey all the ways sound can change and warp with hearing aids.

Summer Reader Poll 2017: Comics And Graphic Novels

El Deafo isn't all sweetness and light — Bell doesn't shy away from the difficulties she's facing. But it is genuinely positive, and often hilarious. Inspired by cartoons like Pogo and Carl Barks' work for Disney, Jeff Smith's gentle, multiple-award-winning epic follows cousins Fone Bone, scheming Phoney Bone and goofy Smiley Bone — strange little large-nosed cartoon critters — who get run out of their hometown when one of Phoney's plots goes wrong.

They go on a Tolkienesque odyssey, eventually ending up in a mysterious valley threatened by the dark Lord of the Locusts. Smith began drawing Fone and his cousins when he was only 5 years old — and this is, in fact, a great comic to start your little readers on. This is it, the comic book that launched a character and a craze and ultimately — among many other things — the state of our modern cinematic reality. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's Superman leapt — literally — onto the scene in a patently ridiculous circus strongman outfit to save a wronged man from execution.

Along the way, he beat up a wife abuser, rescued a tough girl reporter from a kidnapping attempt and secretly wooed that same reporter while wearing a clever your mileage may vary on this point disguise. Shuster's art wasn't big on detail — his eyes were slits, his mouth an em-dash — but it conveyed a tremendous sense of power and thanks to the addition of a cape, snapping behind him as he jumped through the air speed.

Yes, a couple less-than-stellar movies might have roughed him up a bit of it, but Superman can take it. He'll come back; he'll persevere. That's his whole shtick. Accessibility links Skip to main content Keyboard shortcuts for audio player. Now, with the help of our expert panel, we've curated a list to keep you flipping pages all summer. Facebook Twitter Flipboard Email. July 12, 7: Glen Weldon Twitter Tumblr. Shannon Wright for NPR. Top Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books. Summer Reader Poll Nimona by Noelle Stevenson. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Daytripper by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon.

Through The Woods by Emily Carroll. Here by Richard McGuire. Megahex by Simon Hanselmann. Eightball by Daniel Clowes. Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda. Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson.


  • Dream or Destiny;
  • Skin Deep?
  • Crapshooter # 47 (The Crapshooter Newsletter).
  • Best Comics And Graphic Novels : NPR!

Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday. Usagi Yojimbo Grasscutter by Stan Sakai. Mouse Guard by David Petersen. Whiteout by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber. Finder by Carla Speed McNeil. Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo. Pluto by Naoki Urasawa. One Piece by Eiichiro Oda. Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa.

Goodnight Punpun by Inio Asano. Your Black Friend by Ben Passmore. Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Fantasy And Science Fiction. Saga by Brian K. The Incal by Alexandro Jodorowsky and Moebius. Elfquest by Wendy Pini and Richard Pini. Marvel by Adrian Alphona and G.

Nextwave Agents of H. Hellboy by Mike Mignola. Calvin And Hobbes by Bill Watterson. Pogo by Walt Kelly. Bloom County by Berke Breathed. A blue costume with giant movable antennae, The Tick is, to quote the TV show, "the sterling silver ladle of justice, pouring his creamy foam over the freshly-picked strawberries of crime". His strength is mighty, his IQ is double figures. In the animated series, he's voiced by Townsend Coleman.

In Fox's utterly brilliant live-action show nine episodes! Next up, it's Peter Serafinowicz 's turn in Amazon Prime's new series. That's Batmanuel — in a Batman movie. The second most iconic AD character after Judge Dredd himself, Johnny Alpha was the poster child for Strontium Dog, an extremely popular series about a group of mutant bounty hunters. Alpha himself was, of course, a mercenary but despite working largely for greenbacks he was possessed of a strong sense of duty and honour.

Equally, though, Alpha demonstrated a stubbornly unforgiving streak, brooking no slight or double-cross and punishing transgressions harshly — as the vampiric Durham Red discovered to her great regret. In Alpha was killed off in a story that martyred him in order to saves all mutants from extermination. Ezquerra was so mortified by the decision that he refused outright to draw the story and replacements were brought in to carry out the deed.

Wagner later admitted that Ezquerra was right and that killing Alpha had been a huge mistake. The character was subsequently revived by both of his creators for a brief resurgence in Glowing eyes, granite jaw, distinctive metal headpiece, trademark variable cartridge blaster handgun and electroknux. One of Alpha's landmark achievements was tracking and capturing Adolf Hitler back in the past and subsequently returning him to the future to stand trial for his crimes.

When Frank Miller began Sin City — his series of ultra-noir set in the eponymous hotbed of crime — he needed archetypes that were almost Olympian in their grandeur. Marv is his grade-A patsy, the fall guy, the hapless hero at the centre of a conspiracy that he can't even begin to understand — but with a traditional Miller tweak. This dumb brute can more than take care of himself, and fully embraces the self-destructive path he starts down when he vows to avenge the brutal murder of Goldie, a prostitute who showed him kindness, despite his face.

Marv is a force of nature, cutting a path through the corrupt power-brokers of the city, until his pound of flesh and more has been exacted. His death scene — he's juiced repeatedly in the electric chair, obstinately refusing to die right away — sums him up: Miller killed him, but brought him back for several Sin City prequels.

Not even he could stand to see the big lug truly die. A face only criss-crossed with ugly scars, a pancaked nose and a chin that could open cans of tuna — Marv is the archetypal hard man with a heart of gold, a bruiser who's a sucker for a dame. Miller, when creating the character, wanted Marv to be like "Conan in a trench coat". There's a lot of Dr. Doom in Darth Vader, and pretty much every Bond villain of the last 40 years.

Of all Marvel's villains, Doom has appeared most, across countless titles. Where most villains stick to their designated hero, Doom, nominally the arch-enemy of the Fantastic Four, will go toe-to-toe or, more likely, he'll send a Doombot to go toe-to-toe; he doesn't like to get his hands dirty with mere serfs with anyone. A truly brilliant scientist, Doom likes to combine his unquenchable thirst for ultimate power he once stole the energy of the near-omnipotent Beyonder with a bizarre double life, as the altruistic leader of the European country of Latveria. Which makes arresting him on American soil doubly difficult, due to that pesky diplomatic immunity.

He has a noble side, like many of the best bad guys, but he's as disfigured psychologically as he is physically. And then there's that surname, which is pretty hard to get around. How life might have been different if he'd been born Victor Von Awesome. Arguably the most famous of all Marvel's villains, Doctor Doom is certainly the most visually striking — a snub-nosed metal mask housing a badly disfigured face and a black heart, topped off with a regal green cloak which covers weaponised body armour to make Iron Man's heart weep with envy.

The spectacularly badly-cast Julian McMahon mangled scenery and didn't even attempt a Latverian accent in either Fantastic Four movies. Toby Kebbell played him in the reboot, but the less about that one the better. Powers is a police drama — loosely modelled on Homicide: Life On The Street — set in a world with superheroes and villains, and Deena is the rookie partner of former immortal hero turned homicide cop Christian Walker.

Formerly partnered with crooked Captain Adlard, Deena is now tagging along with the upright Walker but gets in deep with Internal Affairs for her frequent recourse to violence to get information from suspects and is keeping very quiet about the way her abusive former boyfriend got mysteriously electrocuted during an argument. Powers is currently the coolest comic that only comic book readers have heard of. Midriff-baring shirt, cute pixie-ish haircut, slight prejudice against super-powered beings and secretive about recently-acquired electrical abilities.

We'd probably go with Natalie Portman — if she was willing to have the V For Vendetta haircut, she'd be happy to have the Deena bob. Writer Bendis and artist Oeming base Deena on a combination of their wives His inability to look beyond the moment — he leaves such ponderings to Asterix or his smart, tree-obsessed dog Dogmatix — and tendency to fall in love with unattainable women make him one of the cutest characters on the list.

Even if he could beat up your whole family without breaking a sweat. Pleasantly plump don't call him fat , red moustache and beard, often carries a menhir, invincible and super-strong with a perchant for beating up Romans. In a very successful series of European productions, Depardieu has donned a fat suit to play him. In cartoon form, he's been voiced by Brad Garrett among others. We recommend the Menhir Express. The original and best in Matt Wagner's long-running series of masked anti-heroes, Hunter Rose was a young genius gifted with extraordinary physical and mental prowess and just a little too much time to spare.

Finding that excellence breeds boredom if not channelled correctly, Rose set about becoming a crime kingpin, hired killer and all-round roguish gadabout before dying at the age of 21 by the hands of his lycanthropic nemesis, Argent. More Grendels have followed in Hunter Rose's footsteps but few have done the job with such an innate sense of style. Effete novelist by day, criminal mastermind and world-class assassin by night.

The 50 greatest comic-book characters, Feature | Movies - Empire

Wagner's nefarious creation hasn't worried the big screen as of yet. If an actor were to make Hunter Rose come alive, we'd put our money on Jamie Bell providing the right amount of romantic menace. Thanks to the super-soldier serum, Captain America is the best that a human being can be — super-strong, super-fast, super-agile, doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, and has a Nintendo DS Brain Training age of Not bad for a guy who's technically in his eighties now.

He was shot by a sniper at the end of 's massive Civil War cross-over and unusually for a comic book icon, is still dead.


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  2. The 50 greatest comic-book characters.
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  4. 50. SPAWN (Spawn).
  5. One Crazy Summer?
  6. But let's take this opportunity to briefly remember the hero that he was: For that reason, it can't be too long before the old super-soldier serum flows through Steve Rogers' veins once more. Or, rather, he is the American flag. Clad in red, white and blue chainmail, with a red, white and blue invincible shield demarcated by a giant star and initialed, wing-tipped head piece. Matt Salinger — son of J. Stephen Colbert is a huge Cap fan.

    When Rogers was killed, Colbert eulogised him on his show — and he has one of two replica metal Cap shields, commissioned by Marvel to mark the event, hanging in his studio. This feminist icon is the most important woman in comics. Naturally, that means she's often been given short shrift, frequently demoted to menial status she was a founder member of the Justice Society, but only as secretary and depowered and repowered more often than all the X-Men combined.

    But on form, she's almost as powerful as Superman, looks better in hotpants and has the additional superpower of reducing fanboys to putty. Over the years, Gloria Steinem has extolled her role as a strong female role model — she was the first cover girl on Ms. Beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, swifter than Hermes, and stronger than Hercules. Can fly and wields the lasso of truth and magic bracelets.

    Lynda Carter wowed a generation in the '70s TV show, while a animated film saw her voiced by Keri Russell. After years stuck in limbo, the live-action film version is finally coming with Gal Gadot starring and Patty Jenkins directing. Wonder Woman was the best thing in Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice and the trailer looks suitably juicy. Controversy over comic books in the '50s saw Wonder Woman accused of being a lesbian.

    Yet another Marvel character who started off as a villain — notably a Spider-Man villain although he was more of a goon when he first cameoed in Amazing Spider-Man — before graduating to his own title and anti-hero status. The Punisher is now one of the most iconic characters in the entire Marvel stable. A 'Nam vet driven by his family's murder to punish all criminals by death, it's perhaps not unsurprising that the dark, disillusioned '70s was the decade that saw a brutal, uncompromising psychopath for that's what Castle is, no debate become a fan favourite.

    Although, truth be told, operating within the confines of the toothless main Marvel titles never sat well with The Punisher — in recent years, with the move to the MAX label, and Garth Ennis' soon-to-finish installation as Punisher guru, the dark heart and psychology of Frank Castle has been fully explored, giving a new insight into this grimmest and most compelling of characters. A giant white skull on his black-shirted chest. An eternal desire for revenge. Three Punisher movies, three different Punishers. For all the apparent simplicity of the character, Frank Castle has proved a hard nut to crack.

    Ray Stevenson , star of The Punisher: Jon Bernthal could be the first to nail that gruff demeanour, violent tendencies and wounded humanity in Netflix's spin-off from the MCU. Unlike other Marvel characters, who seem to age at a rate of one year for every five years of comics at least , The Punisher ages — at least in the MAX line — in real time. Which currently makes him a year-old kicking ass, as he was born on February 16, Writers Moore and Gibson thought that AD could do with a female-led strip to counterpoint the comic's generally testosterone-heavy violence fests, and co-created 50th century everygirl Halo Jones, who just tries to get by in a dangerous future where going to the shops is a major trial.

    The original intent was to chronicle the heroine's whole life but only three serials were completed before the strip was curtailed by the usual who's-got-the-rights argument. The three stories find Halo as a teenager on that shopping trip, working as a stewardess on a spaceship and grimly fighting a Starship Troopers -type war in an all-female army. Halo is exponentially cooler than knock-offs like Tank Girl, mostly because she remains a fed-up real person amid the wild space opera of her universe. Pout, white '80s-look hair yes, we know it was a black and white strip and she got blonded in the horrible US colourised reprints — but her hair was white on the original AD colour covers , loyalty to doomed friends, robot dog sidekick, catchphrase: That mouth could only be Billie Piper — though she'd have to dye the hair.

    There was an Edinburgh fringe stage production in , with Claire Fairley as Halo. Created as a Cold War-based, commie-bashing triumph of American technology over conniving, inefficient Russians, Iron Man has proved as durable as his rust-proof armour over the years. This is partly because he's a very adaptable character — not just in terms of power levels — and partly because, let's face it, he looks damned cool. But it's the man inside the suit who has arguably been more fascinating.

    Tony Stark, billionaire playboy, has been by turns a reckless maverick, a hopeless drunk, dead not one of Marvel's brightest ideas , teenaged again? Iron Man is relatively simple — point and shoot — but Stark is as complex as they come. As long as that remains the case, Iron Man will remain one to watch. Shiny red-and-gold armour mostly — he's been known to go all-grey, all-gold and red-and-silver , super-strength, supersonic flight jets, an array of incredible weapons and the recently developed ability to interface with pretty much any OS on the planet. Oh, and he's a genius, too.

    Played, triumphantly, by Robert Downey Jr. Civil War , with the actor's flamboyant, indelible, charismatic turn a chief factor in their huge success. But from a purely iconic point of view, it had to be Rorschach. Who was in the first picture released from Zack Snyder's Watchmen movie? Who dominated online casting debates? Like The Punisher, Rorschach can be easily dismissed as a fascist whose belief in moral absolutes — there are no shades of grey; only black, white, good and evil — drives him to take the law into his own hands.

    But in the hands of Moore, the freckled, ginger Walter Kovacs is a taut, tortured, complex creation who, as well as being at the centre of some of Watchmen's most memorable sequences the prison riot, for one , ends up being perhaps the most pure out of the graphic novel's characters, the only one who — SPOILER WARNING — isn't interested in compromising himself for the greater good. Clad in a trenchcoat and a spotted mask which appears to constantly change configuration, much like a Rorschach test, this unyielding vigilante dishes out punishment to evildoers any way he sees fit.

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    He's played — with all the requisite dark charisma — by Jackie Earle Haley in Snyder's polarising Watchmen. Like most Watchmen characters, Rorschach was based on a couple of old superheroes from the Charlton Comics era — in this case, two heroes, The Question and Mr. It's a strange one, this; mystifying, on the face of it. Death's own comic is just good, not brilliant; she doesn't appear much in Sandman , and she's not nearly as nuanced a character as Sandman himself, or their younger sister Delirium formerly Delight.

    But from the moment she appeared, she's been wildly popular with fans, won over by this bright, cheery figure in place of the traditional skeletal Reaper. Perhaps it's because Death duties make such cheerfulness double-edged, and because she has an air of mystery about her that gives her incalculable depth. What's more, she's the wise elder sister that everyone wishes they had, far more pulled together and at peace than any of the other Endless except, perhaps, Destiny , and she gets to tie the whole series together come its final act. A perfect demonstration that the best characters needn't be overworked, and that the grim reaper doesn't have to be grim.

    Cute Goth girl, tends to wear all black except for a silver Ankh necklace and a design like the Eye of Horus around the corner of her eye. No screen version yet, but Christina Ricci in Penelope mode would do it, or Jennifer Garner if you like to think outside the box. Death has an extensive collection of floppy hats, and two goldfish, called Slim and Wandsworth. Instantly recognisable the world over — it's hard to stay incognito when you're ten feet tall and bright green — The Hulk has sometimes been a simplistic character, simply punching things again and again the recent story arc, World War Hulk , was particularly guilty of this.

    But when writers like Peter David — the definitive Hulk scribe, as far as we're concerned — get hold of him, Hulk and Banner become a psychologically complex, nuanced being with an incredibly complicated history involving Banner's battle for control, which has led to Hulks green and grey.

    Long may Hulk continue to be a smash. Sometimes smart, sometimes savage, sometimes somewhere inbetween. Oh, and incredibly, incredibly strong — in fact, the madder he gets, the stronger he gets. Lou Ferrigno was famously the first to play The Hulk, donning green bodypaint to do so. Norton, surprisingly at the time, handed over the rage baton to Mark Ruffalo , who has since become a fan favourite in the MCU.

    Books by Dean King

    The Hulk has a healing factor that's even faster than Wolverine's. He's believed to be able to survive a near-direct hit from a nuclear missile. A real-life hero who survived insurmountable odds and devastating adversity to create a new life with his family in a new world, Vladek Spiegelman's life bursts out of the pages of his son's seminal series to heartbreaking effect. Depicted as a mouse, his concentration camp incarceration under the yoke of Nazi felines and subsequent escape to a new world populated by dogs, frogs and fish is overflowing with a humanity that has yet to be equalled in comic book lore.

    That Art Spiegelman was able to recount such a harrowing chapter in history in comic book form and in such a stylised manner is impressive enough, but through a rodentised image of his father he embodied the fear, desperation and hope of the Holocaust in one person. Even the subsequent change in character, as Vladek morphs from idealistic young adult to embittered old codger, cannot lessen the impact he makes upon the reader. Tenacity in the face of adversity as a young man, a grumpy old sod in his later years. If George Orwell's Animal Farm can be made into a decent animated flick, Spiegelman's tale would be phenomenal — no word on a big-screen adaptation yet, though.

    Maus won a Pulitzer Prize Special Award in — it missed out on the main gong because the voting board members found the cartoonist's depiction of Nazi Germany hard to classify. Like Preacher , Transmetropolitan had a short life — but for 60 brilliant, dazzlingly inventive issues, writer Warren Ellis and artist Darick Robertson brought their A-game. And the creation of Spider Jerusalem, gonzo journalist, imbiber of enough drugs to floor a struggling musician, and seeker of truth, was at the centre of it all.

    A foul-mouthed tribute to, most obviously, Hunter S. Thompson, Jerusalem is known as the God-King of journalists, who devotes his life to delivering the truth to his readers one article simply repeated the word "fuck" times - we have to try that sometime , no matter how unpalatable it may be for the establishment which, incidentally, he's trying to bring down.

    Not averse to taking the odd life in his quest mostly in self-defence , Spider is a true one-off, a character so fearless and vibrant and nonchalantly cool that Patrick Stewart is his biggest fan. And if that's not a recommendation, we don't know what is. Later Watson like character was introduced to Batman, who was a impish side kick Robin.

    One of the villains of Batman "Two Face" character was influenced from Dr. For contemporary look Batman's logo, the yellow ellipse behind the bat insignia was created by Carmine Infantino and he also redesigned the Batmobile. The media appearance were neatly given, the first Batman serial was aired in , the very first person to take up the mantle as Batman is Lewis Wilson. After 6 years Robert Lowery took up the titular role in the serial "Batman and Robin". With expensive sets, colorful costumes, gaudy gadgets and a theme song, Adam West starer the campy "Batman" was aired in January The actors who took Batman to big screen were mentioned in a separate chapter.

    The author is the first chapter has mentioned that he is a die hard fan of Spider man. He gives exhaustive details about the Super hero. Spider man character was introduced in comics in Amazing Fantasy 15, year The famous one liner "With great power comes great responsibility"was first used in the same comic book appeared in Amazing Fantasy Likewise the author has given information about the appearance of Spider man in media, the first animated series was broadcasted in In films Tobey Maguire took up as Spider man and appeared in the trilogy. Jeff rated it liked it Jan 31, Michael Thompson rated it liked it Jun 30, Josh Kivett rated it did not like it Aug 16, Joel rated it it was ok Jul 03, Michelle M Eby rated it it was amazing May 24, Douglas rated it did not like it Sep 25, S Panda rated it it was amazing Oct 07, Geoff Morris rated it it was ok Sep 24, Tate rated it really liked it Dec 25, Holly rated it it was amazing Aug 14, Zachary Josiah Boyd marked it as to-read Feb 20, Tarah Flicek marked it as to-read May 07, Chalaina marked it as to-read May 18, Liam marked it as to-read Jul 15, Adrian Faulkner marked it as to-read Jul 19, Monica marked it as to-read Aug 03, Todd Neblett marked it as to-read Aug 05, Julie marked it as to-read Aug 25, Tyler Whipple marked it as to-read Dec 15, Kirsty marked it as to-read Dec 26, Jake Lessin is currently reading it Jan 22, Nick is currently reading it Jan 30, Karen Mariscal added it Feb 24, Justin Ellenwood marked it as to-read Sep 13, Megan marked it as to-read Nov 16,