The House of Ideas. Talking Time's 50 Favorite Marvel Characters!

[Adrenaline]

12. Molly Hayes - From what I hear the Runaways TV show is not bad but the fact that they made Molly the same age as the other characters robs the fun of who Molly is.

She's still a couple years younger, but the gap is small enough that the character doesn't work as well.

 

[Kirin]

Thanks for a great list Adrenaline!

My Marvel fandom is very Basic and consequently I had a ridiculous hit rate in the Top 50 for my list:


01. Phillip J. Coulson / Agent Coulson (MCU)

Yeah, I liked Agents of SHIELD. But also Coulson is the perfect everyman, who gets sucked into so much comic book nonsense but still retains his sense of self... even when he's not actually himself anymore.

*02. Kamala Kahn / Ms Mavel (G. Willow Wilson comic run)
*03. Loki (MCU)
04. Clint Barton / Hawkeye (Matt Fraction comic run)

Most boring Avenger? In early MCU, yeah, absolutely. He made my list entirely from the Fraction comic, where he's just too tired to get his shit together. Then Marvel was smart and lifted most of that run for his solo show, making it surprisingly watchable.

*05. Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch (MCU)
*06. Tony Stark / Iron Man (MCU)
*07. Peter Parker / Spider Man (MCU / various)
*08. Miles Morales / Spider Man (Spiderverse animated)
*09. Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel (MCU)
*10. Steve Rogers / Captain America (MCU)
*11. Peggy Carter / Agent Carter (MCU/TV)
*12. T'Challa / Black Panther (MCU)
*13. Stephen Strange / Dr Strange (MCU)
*14. Kate Bishop / Hawkeye (Matt Fraction comic run)
*15. Victor von Doom / Dr Doom (whatever)
*16. Thor Odinson / Thor (MCU)
*17. Natasha Romanov / Black Widow (MCU)
18. Groot / I AM GROOT (MCU) - (I wrote this before "I Am Groot" was actually announced as the name of a show. Huh.)
*19. Anna Marie LeBeau(?) / Rogue (X-Men animated)
*20. Galactus (whatever)
21. Valkyrie (MCU)
*22. Shuma-Gorath (various)
*23. Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto (X-men films / various)
*24. Doreen Green / Squirrel Girl (various)
25. Bi-Beast (I don't even know)

I seriously have no idea what the source for Bi-Beast is, but it made my joke entry on the strength of Jeremy Parish using it as a point of comparison for goofy NDS mock-ups from before anyone actually knew what the system was going to look like.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Feel free to submit for the mini-list.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Not very surprised to see that my list has a lot of people that didn't make the top 50

1. Dr. Victor Von Doom
2. Squirrel Girl
3. Ben Grimm
4. Loki
5. Spider-Man (Peter Parker)
6. Batroc the Leaper (The dude is just a guy who decided to become a jumping-themed master criminal because it sounded like fun, which I love, and opts to show, and not tell, everyone that losing a fist-fight to Captain America is nothing to be ashamed of)
7. Annihilus (of *course* I love the screaming bug-dracula from outer space! And the fact that every evil deed he performs is motivated from the fact that he's absolutely *terrified* that somebody MIGHT want to kill him is a really unconventional motivation for a villain. Love that bug)
8. Galactus
9. Bats (Dr. Stranges dog) (I haven't read a ton of Dr. Strange comics, but every so often his talking ghost dog Bats comes up, and I immediately think to myself "Clearly I need to fix this gaping hole in my personal library")
10. She-Hulk
11. Mr. Sinister
12. Lockjaw
13. Rocket Raccoon
14. Captain America (Steve Rogers)
15. The Beetle (Janice Lincoln) (There ain't a lot of credit I'm willing to give Nick Spencer as a comic writer, but I loved Superior FOes of Spider-Man, and Janice is one of the chief reasons why; she's the daughter of major Spidey-villain Tombstone and he's disappointed with her because costumed super-villainy is MUCH less respectable than being a corrupt criminal defense attorney and he doesn't want her to make the same mistakes on the path to evil that he did)
16. The Dread Dormammu (I'm a simple man with simple tastes, and a giant screaming fireball wizard who makes evil proclamations instead of polite conversation fulfils most of them)
17. Magneto
18. Photon (Monica Rambeau) (Much like with Beetle, I don't much like Ellis, but I did like Nextwave at the time, and even after that Monica has stepped up to be the voice of reason of whatever team she's on, regardless of whatever weird-crap she has to deal with. Additionally, her powers have a real visual flair that it's hard to deny)
19. Kree Sentry 459 (I already mentioned why I love him)
20. Night crawler (Kurt Wagner)
21. Cyclops (Scott Summers)
22. Cosmic Ghost Rider (Punisher is a character I've never had any affection for, even before all the very good reasons to not like him, but you give him the combined powers of the Spirit of Vengeance and a Herald of Galactus, and give him multiple eternities worth of trying to atone for all the terrible things he did in life, while also making him a flaming skeleton Deadpool, and buddy I am enthralled)
23. Ego the Living Planet (honestly, pretty surprised Ego didn't place.)
24. MODOK (Much more surprised that MODOK didn't place)
25. Baron Helmut Zemo (I might be biased because of my love of Thunderbolts, which was more born of Zemo than anything else, but if not for Batroc and the Red Skull, Zemo would easily be the top Captain America villain. He's Cobra Commander, if he was competent)

 

[Adrenaline]

Fun fact about Comic Book Coulson: He was in charge of the US's recent Avengers replacement, the Squadron Supreme, and was secretly working for Mephisto. He didn't manage to hang on to his humanity like the MCU version.

Valkyrie would have been an interesting character to write up before she fell off the list late. The original comic Valkyrie was blonde and light-skinned, but the MCU version played by Tessa Thompson was so popular that Marvel introduced multiple new dark-skinned Valkyrie characters in the comics who were inspired by her.

 

[Peklo]

Valkyrie's comics debut wasn't even herself (something she'd share with the later-introduced Domino), as she was initially a disguise for the Enchantress in one of the wildest Avengers stories ever, where she stages this rah-rah faux-feminist uprising against Male Chauvinist Pigs. It's difficult to read certain intent into it but it did seem to me like a mean-spirited bit of mockery through exaggeration on part of the creative team. Unforgettable debut, in any case, and those maybe-satirical overtones did carry on into the character's "proper" development in Defenders in where she was really defined as an actual person.

 

[Adrenaline]

Speaking of Domino, I occasionally picked up completely random comics as a kid, and while I've totally forgotten the story, I still remember the cover of this single X-Force issue I owned: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/X-Force_Vol_1_68

It came out the month after Marvel did a bunch of -1 issues exploring the pasts of various characters. I regularly read The Spectacular Spider-Man, and this was the -1 issue: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Spectacular_Spider-Man_Vol_1_-1

It was about Peter's bully Flash Thompson's abusive childhood at the hands of his alcoholic father. Perhaps not the most original story ever, but it made a big impact on me at age 9. I had no idea superhero comic books could be about something like that.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I think Flash is a great character because Spider-Man's cast usually has dynamics. And the relationships are rarely the same. Flash is an ass but there's a genuine sweetness the way he idolizes Spider-Man and wants to be a hero like him but lacks the self-awareness that he's the bully. I'm 100 per cent convinced that if he was allowed to be Spidey's sidekick, he would move heaven and Earth to help him but also probably fuck it up somehow.

 

[Issun]

Thanks for running this, Adrenaline!

1. Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers)
2. Doctor Strange
3. Drax
4. J. Jonah Jameson
5. Iron Man
6. Spider-Man (Miles Morales)
7. Rocket
8. Star-Lord
9. Black Panther
10. Scarlet Witch
11. Thor
12. Loki
13. Agent Mobius
14. Bucky Barnes
15. Thanos
16. Spider-Man (Peter Parker)
17. Killmonger
18. Hulk
19. Magneto
20. Gamora
21. Hela
22. Wolverine
23. Xavier
24. Nick Fury
25. Captain America

 

[Patrick]

Thanks for running, Adrenaline! That was a lot of fun to follow along. And thanks to everyone who added additional commentary.

 

[Olli]

Here's my list:

1. J. Jonah Jameson
2. Machine Man (Aaron Stack)
3. The Hulk (Bruce Banner)
4. Spider-Man (Peter Parker)
5. Jubilee
6. Eddie Brock (Venom)
7. Loki
8. S'ym
He's a demon guy from Limbo! I like his vibe.
9. Ego the Living Planet
10. Big Wheel (Jackson Weele)
Joke entry, but only in the sense that it's a hilarious theme for a villain. And Jackson isn't even the only one to use the alias!
11. Thor Odinson
12. Cypher (Doug Ramsey)
I'm amazed Doug didn't make it. He was the audience stand-in in New Mutants for a long while. His power, understanding all languages (including digital ones), must not have been easy to write - not very useful in combat, potentially very OP otherwise. His death held for a surprisingly long time.
13. Charles Xavier
14. Blackheart
15. Longshot
16. Squirrel Girl
17. Gambit
18. Ilyana Rasputin
19. Ms Marvel (Kamala Khan)
20. Volstagg
21. The Punisher (Frank Castle)
22. Wanda Maximoff (Purple Witch)
23. Cable
24. Magneto
25. Deadpool

 

[Falselogic]

This could be us Talking Time but you playing...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1552646038330155009

 

[Octopus Prime]

In my defence, I only read that after the list started

 

[Johnny Unusual]

You know, I forgot to thank @Adrenaline for running a great list. Thanks for running a great list!