The ILC Favourite Characters Of All Time

Did anybody else have absolutely no interest in Bat/Supes comics when a child? After all the movies, tv shows, cartoons, etc., the comics always felt superfluous.

Surely! Isn't half the point of these things that they're soap operas? You follow them because you've come to hold some sort of (irrational) attachment to the characters, and even if you realize there's no reason to assume you'll be interested in what Chuck Austen does with Kitty Pryde, you've built up an affinity for Kitty Pryde following all her previous misadventures, close scrapes, and milkshake dates, and so there you are, reading a Chuck Austen book against all your better instincts.

(118 points)

http://www.localarcade.com/arcade_art/data/thumbnails/2/popeye.jpg

I guess we could make some sort of claim for Popeye to be considered the first comic superhero, but I think that's an angle of little interest. Popeye was the toughest guy around (it was a couple of years before spinach got any credit for this, and it never played a crucial part until the animated shorts played it up), and an adventurer (ha, I'd much rather draw parallels with Corto than Superman), but he didn't seek out crime or evil to fight. He wasn't a character who would profess nobility, make speeches about good and evil or anything like that, but he had the right kind of heart, albeit along with a very short temper. He was about as far from an intellectual as you can imagine, but he was generally pretty smart, and remarkably secure in himself - "I yam what I yam" is a very firm statement of individuality, although it's probably more accurate to regard it as a sign of a total lack of interest in self-examination.

It's the Popeye in the Segar strips I love: Popeye in stories that are inventive adventures, with beautifully played broad comedy, satire, great characters all the time (I love the Jeep, the whiffle hen, the sea hag, Wimpy and lots more) and they even have the famous romantic elements with Olive, a relationship that was always complex and problematical and multi-faceted. For me, the nine years from Popeye's introduction until Segar's death is the best run of daily strips ever created, by some distance (and I think Segar is one of the most important influential figures in comic history too, something that's often rather neglected), and a strong contender for the best comics of any kind ever (I guess I'd maybe put Herriman's Krazy Kat sundays above them, but it's close); and I don't know that comics have ever produced a character I like better than Popeye. - Martin

The best not superhero superhero - Pete

Greatest moment: Thimble
Theatre had been starring Castor Oyl, Ham Gravy and of course Olive for nearly ten years before, in 1929, they took a sailing trip and met this gruff, tough seaman with an entirely unique appearance and way of speaking. No one before or since (aside from parodies and homages) had muscles like that, or one eye missing or screwed up enough so it might as well be, and the pipe, face and tattoos are equally distinctive. The speech patterns are established from the first moment - asked if he's a sailor, our first sight of him has him saying "Ja think I'm a cowboy?" - Martin

20. Crazy Jane (Doom Patrol)

(119 points)

http://yukihime.com/board/crazyjane.jpg

Quite hard to search for on ILX, this lady only seems to appear as the subject of a letter from Tom Ewing to DC Comics, explaining why she needed a spanking. Half of the love story at the center of Doom Patrol, one of Grant Morrison's initial pair of assaults on everything good and DC, Jane was a multiple personality sufferer whose every personality had a different superpower.

I wrote a much more boring letter, which got printed.

(126 points)

http://www.blogzine.com.br/rorschach.jpg

Hero-of-sorts from Watchmen, based on the old Charlton comic The Question (though I'm unsure whether Watchmen was during one of the characters lower-profile eras). For all that Owlman was the analogue of Batman, it's Rorschach that the subsequent decades of writers seem to have taken as a template.

And Rorschach with his self-conscious "life as art" attitude is actually a pretty Nietzschean superhero, so that quote fits in more than one way, although it's a pretty lame Nietzsche quote as Nietzsche quotes go. (I guess it's the popular favorite because it feeds off the legend of his madness?)(Chris F)

Actually, Pal Joey/Taxi Driver era Peter Boyle coulda made a great Rorschach. He's too old now. (HUK-L)

I always thought the "free to carve my own morality into the world" issue was kinda problematic regarding Rorschach's personality. If he was free to choose his morals, why would he still cling to the sort of conservative ideas he had previously? I don't think real extreme rightists ever go through such a moral epiphany.

This is perhaps exemplified in his confrontation with his landlady once she has turned him in. He is there, Rorschach forced to be Kovacs, and recognises one of her children as him in his youth. Despite his sense of honour in what he does, he recognises the days of heroes are over and cannot run the risk of the child potentially turning into another version of him - so protects the child from the absolute knowledge of his mother's life and gives him another chance.

Rorschach really is the most interesting character in the whole comic; everyone else sort of serves the function they've given in the story, but he's goes through an arch of personal change. Okay, there's also Dr. Manhattan "humans are worthy" realization, but I never found that (or the whole character) as convincing as Moore may have intended.

I think the whole conclusion of Watchmen is a lot more morally ambiguous than certain people are making out - Moore never really asserts an authorial opinion on Veidt's plan. Obviously our gut reaction is that it's an atrocity, but if it does, debateably to be sure, 'save the world', then can it be a wholly bad thing? I think Moore's intention is more to show notions of good and evil to be far more fluid and nebulous than they are generally portrayed in this type of fiction than to provide a simple reversal of expectations.