The ILC Favourite Characters Of All Time

(154 points)

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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)

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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)

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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)

One of my favourite Doom stories is Secret Wars, actually, where Doom is the clear standout character by virtue of his intelligence, willpower and determination: as soon as he encounters the Beyonder his every action is focused on trying to get some of his power.

1. acquire power
2. work out what to do with it. this will probably involve humiliating the accursed Richards.

(164 points)

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/7537/joker.jpg

By contrast, you don't know what you're getting with The Joker. Never generally diagnosed beyond 'crazy' (though thankfully no-one that I know of has given him MPD), he tends to range between his two loves - incredibly complicated traps, and just plain killing people. A great combination of the two was his appearance in Gotham Central.

Neither just a comedy crook nor just another psychopath with a fixation (like Clock King or Riddler or whatever), The Joker is best viewed as a sort of R-rated Gremlin. You're not really writing a good Joker story if it isn't made clear that the guy could at any time play hideous mind tricks on random innocent bystanders or kill off one of his own henchmen in some gory fashion for no reason whatsoever; but you're also not doing a good job if he doesn't seem like he could resort to harmless pie-in-the-face or water-squirting flower tricks at any time. It's a very difficult balance of fear and humor to sustain, but when done right it makes The Joker one of the greatest villains of all time. (Daniel Reifferscheid)

Best moment: From Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, when the Phantasm's got him beaten, the whole world (synecdochized as his hideout) burning to hell, the Phantasm's taking him away to who knows what end, and he cackles to his fate. (Leeee)

The Joker is a funny one. Okay, the point is the Joker isn't a funny one. There has never been a sympathetic Joker story I can think of which paints his usual abject lack of humour into a tough corner. More importantly the - ahem - Clown Prince Of Crime is supposedly the opposite of Batman, the light agin the dark, which never really works for me. Why would anyone, ever want to become a Joker Henchman.

(Oddly, this is where Harley Quinn works, she is much more sympathetic, and in the Animated series capriciously bad: of course playing off as just a mere prankster lacks the "horror" of the Joker. But who wants spine shattering horror.)

STOP BEING A SPOILER!