The ILC Favourite Characters Of All Time

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.

(x-post)

FINAL DESTINATION 4

(157 points)

http://kalimochoweb.iespana.es/charlieb.gif

Charles Schulz once said that he woke up every morning
with an inexplicable feeling of dread. He poured that
feeling into Charlie Brown, a gentle, likable boy who
is, for no obvious reason, scorned by his peers and
plagued by persistent anxiety and loneliness. "I
wonder if I'm dying," he said to himself during a
hospital stay. "I wonder if they'd tell me if I were
dying…Maybe I'm already dead….I wonder if they'd tell
me." There was something strangely abstract and
Kafkaesque about Charlie Brown's troubles: he seemed
to be a decent ball player and a reasonably good
student, but still the 600-to-nothing losses and bad
grades came. Of course, some of Chuck's problems were
more familiar: Surrounded by friends with
all-too-obvious crushes on him (Peppermint Patty,
Marcie, even arguably Lucy), he obsesses over a girl
he can't even bring himself to talk to. At some point
Schulz seemed to back off from this theme, perhaps
feeling he had revealed too much of himself; it's
possible he never intended to show so much in the
first place. But it gave Peanuts more lasting
resonance than (almost) any other comic strip ever
published. (Justyn Dillingham)

Linus is also, at least in the early years, shockingly competent, preternaturally gifted, and completely unaffected by and possibly unaware of that, which foils off Charlie Brown's obsessions over his mediocrity. But, again, he's also the one who believes in the Great Pumpkin.

All of the Peanuts characters could have swept this poll had we worked together as a team, I think.

she looked more horsey to me though.

(159 points)

http://comicsmedia.ign.com/comics/image/article/664/664094/doctor-doom-20051103034219446.jpg

A great villain for the Fantastic Four, a haughty European lord and master that everyone can enjoy foiling. But possibly not as foiled as often as he is cajoled - as Justyn says below, he's not that far from a hero, and his sense of honor is an easier way to get around him than brute force. See particularly his final (or is it?) exit in the Ultimate universe.

Best villain in the Marvel Universe. Because he might not be a villain. (okay, he is.) (Pete Baran)

One of the weird, recurring, barely-buried themes of
superhero comics is that supervillains are not so very
different from the "heroes" who fight them. And it's
not that hard to imagine a slightly humbled Dr Doom
working alongside the Fantastic Four, since most of
the Marvel characters, bad or good, tended to be
immature egomaniacs. There was something heroic and
tragic in Doom that made Batman's numerous foes seem
like a pack of bumbling eccentrics. (Justyn Dillingham)

greatest moment: Doom invades Stan and Jack's office and threatens
them with the sight of his naked face. (Vic Fluro)