The ILC Favourite Characters Of All Time

18. Scrooge McDuck (Uncle Scrooge)

(134 points)

ihttp://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/archives/mcduck.gif

There was a sober, stoic quality to Carl Barks'
stories and artwork that reached its ultimate
expression in the brisk, no-nonsense character of
Scrooge. Initially a cartoonish miser in the mold of
his Dickens namesake, Scrooge eventually evolved into
a remarkably original character – a modern version of
that classic American archetype, the self-made man. He
made his fortune, he says, by "being tougher than the
toughies, and smarter than the smarties – and I made
it SQUARE!" (Justyn)

His Scrooge can be greedy as hell, but ultimately Scrooge always chooses his fellow beings before money - witness the tear-jerking story where he's willing to give up everything he owns to save his beloved sled dog from drowning. (Tuomas)

Best moment: Rolling around in his money bin. (d a simpson)

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/archives/mcduck.gif

This is actually a part of the plot in one of Barks' stories - the Beagle Boys have robbed Scrooge's money, and he asks for one last swim. Seeing Scrooge bathe in the money, the Beagle Boys want to do that as well, and jump into the pile of coins, only to hit their heads and lose their consciousness. Then they're arrested, and Scrooge reveals that only he can actually swim in money, after years of practice.

(136 points)

http://flakmag.com/books/images/bizarro.jpg

A silverage foe of Superman which shares with Braniac the distinction of unobtrusively slipping into mainstream vocabulary.

"Me hate Bizarro. Bizarro am most useless example of uncreativity of Silver Age. Bizarro am joke that am alway get serious. Best Moment: "Bizarro Creates a Monster!", Adventure Comics #292, Jan 62. By Jerry Siegel and John Forte." (Huk-L)

I'm sure everyone's been Bizarro once or twice as a kid. The idea "what if we did everything exactly the other way around than how we usually do it?" and the increasingly convoluted logic that springs from this are staples of childhood imagination. But the sheer genius audacity of applying this concept to fiction – how could you not love that? Comic books do "WTF" better than most any other medium – what in literature might seem slappeable, and on film mannered, could so often be saved by inserting it into the colourful, intrinsically bizarre medium of comics. And no one does WTF better than Bizarro (Daniel RF)

Alan Moore killed off Bizarro immediately pre-Crisis, and Htrae was removed from continuity during the Crisis. Since then, however, there have been two Bizarros in DC Continuity - the one created by LexCorp and the one created by the Joker using Mr Mxyzptlk's powers. Since the first LexCorp Bizarro appeared in 1986 (i.e. the same year as the Crisis) there's an argument that can be made that he nearly appreciably left continuity.

Of course, he's most recently been associated with Bizarro Comics and Bizarro world. Collections of non-hero superhero stories by indie authors - I would have thought they would have been exactly your sort of thing?

Not much later, Superman's secret identity was exposed and all the members of his rogues gallery attempt to kill him and everyone associated with him. Superman later discovers that Mr. Mxyzptlk is the villain orchestrating the attacks, and was most likely also the one responsible for Bizarro's strange behavior.

and a page that looks like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bizarrodeath.PNG

FWIW, I barely remember it either and it never appears as part of Moore DC collections.

Aldo's point remains, though - dead or not dead, there's no silver-age Bizarro any more.

I believe that the story appears in the second edition of Across the Universe: the DC Universe Stories of Alan Moore, the one with the Brian Bolland cover.

There's an episode of Superman, the Animated Series, that focuses on Bizarro. Excellent, but not as good as the one what has Gilbert Gottfried as Mr Mxyptlyk.

sissy boy that i am, I wept while re-reading the story in the mid-90s.

THIS IS MY CONTRIBUTION TO DC DISCUSSION.

Plus it was specifically written immediately pre-Crisis so that it would be written out the next month obv.

("the times" - it actually happens MUCH MORE these days but they think there's such a thing as canon now!)

(137 points)

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/9923/hopey.gif

Dark-haired, bitchy, full of herself and utterly
magnetic – was Hopey an older version of Lucy? (Justyn)

I had an only half-joking crush on Hopey Glass in Love&Rockets — despite my Grate Critic's Brane being perfectly aware that she is nothing if not a Comicbook- Device-by-Which-to-Produce-Pash-in-the- Punky-Fanboy — which I then managed to transfer into a non-joking crush on an extremely Hopey-like friend, with DISASTROUS consequences. crushes on the Hopey-like in Real Life: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME KIDS!! THEY ARE ALL AS MAD AS MAD JACK McMAD!! (mark s)

Greatest moment: "Hay's for horses, ass-bite!" (Douglas Wolk)

(137 points)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0e/Judge_dredd.png

The flagship character for the galaxy's greatest comic, a not entirely subtle parody of the Thatcherite police state that survived that and a lot else over the last 30 years. I've never been that fond of the big epics, but the little done-in-ones where he ends up arrseting everyone are fantastic.

The greatest comment ever on the fascist overtones of the fantasy of the costumed hero. (Douglas Wolk)

Like Batman, Dredd is good because of his world, not himself (Pete Baran)

Greatest moment: Too many to count. Dredd's worst day under John
Wagner is better than 80% of other comics. (Vic Fluro)

Obviously future technology means that the ageing in real time is a bit of a cheat - active lifespan can be as long as the writers need it to be - but definitely Dredd's role in the stories has shifted: he's more of a planner than an action man, and he's gone from being the best Judge of an upcoming generation to a living legend with a mildly anti-system aura - his repeated refusal to become Chief Judge, for instance. There's a younger Judge Dredd running around too, of course - the second Rico (I think).

I don't think Wagner planned any of this at all, of course, but because he's been the main scripter for so long he's been able to steer the ship in mostly sensible directions, and the result is a strip and character of surprising depth when taken as a 30-year ongoing whole! (Probably closer to some of the European single character strips, like Tuomas' favourite Corto Maltese!)

"As the strip occurs in real time, Dredd is currently more than sixty years old. However, his vitality is explained in the context of the stories with allusions to rejuvenation treatments. Recently, characters in the comic have mentioned that Dredd is not as young and fit as he used to be.

Joe is nicknamed "Old Stoneyface", a name he apparently acquired while still a cadet. More recently, he has become known as the "Old Man"; though not confirmed, Joe is likely the oldest Judge still on active street duty."

The idea of a comic book character who ages through the years is very interesting, but it's better fitted for character who have their own monthly comic books, which isn't the case with most European or indie comics. It's a pity so few superhero/action comic publishers have even tried the idea.

Note, though, that "Day By Day With Hopey" started in late 2004, ended in the most recent issue, and takes place over the course of a week...

Um, apart from 52, you berk.

(154 points)

http://basketbhall.blogsome.com/images/meet_linus_big.gif

Linus's recitation from the Bible in the 1965
Christmas special remains the most moving minute of
television ever. It's hard to know what to add to
that. (Justyn)

Indeed.