My Top 20 Favorite Comic Book Heroes Ranked

I'm not the superhero guy that I used to be but I still have my opinions and will stridently advocate for the one costumed vigilante nearest and dear to my heart.

OK, many thanks to

Daniel Sherrier

, our history book critic and proprietor of

And the Quest for Pop Culture

for inspiring this list with his post here:

Great Comic Books in Pop Culture History

As we’ve been having a fun music discussion here at GOTD, I thought I’d also kick off some comic book chatter. (I know that this too is an arena in which good ole

Mike Kilgore

is more than equipped to do battle.) Here’s my list for the heroes who I most appreciate for one reason or another. Enjoy.

19. and 20. Hawk and Dove (Justice League Unlimited appearance)

I find the episode centered around their appearance to be among the series’ most entertaining. I just love the concept of a pair of heroes in which one is aggressive and violent while the other is peaceful and employs judo type moves to cause his aggressors to hurt themselves.

18. The Martian Manhunter (Justice League cartoons version)

In my view The Martian Manhunter - a central member of the Justice League - is sort of a Superman with extra, quirkier powers and a bit more of a quiet, tragic wisdom. You’ll note that Superman actually isn’t even on this list. I’m sorry but I’ve honestly just never been that big of a fan. I guess to me he sort of symbolizes the strong man super jock whereas other heroes are more clearly reliant on their wits rather than godlike physical power.

17. Green Arrow (Justice League Unlimited version)

Green Arrow is another Batman-like hero - a super wealthy guy who decides to develop over-the-top skills and unique tools to fight crime in his spare time. Green Arrow is also very left-wing for some reason. Probably that whole guilty-wealthy-person-embracing-leftism-to-overcome-their-guilt thing.

Anyway, unlike how dark and somber Batman tends to be, Green Arrow is much lighter and a more easily likable personality. His collection of arrows each with tools is also very entertaining.

16. Thor (Chris Hemsworth version)

Reflecting my general disinterest in ultra-powerful, godlike superheroes - part of my lack of appreciation for Superman - I didn’t used to have much appreciation for Thor. His schtick in the comics of him being a god-fish-out-of-water in the world of man just didn’t interest me much. It’s hard to really relate emotionally to an invincible god.

But Hemsworth is so likable and entertaining in the role that it’s hard not to root for him. I like his take on the character quite a bit. The above clip is genuinely “badass.”

15. Aquaman (Jason Momoa Snyder-verse Justice League version, still need to see his solo film)

Again, Aquaman was never a character I considered much. His main powers of just being able to communicate with fish and be super strong/nigh invulnerable just seemed boring and weak compared to the others.

But as with Hemsworth, Momoa’s reinvention of the character on film - particularly his turn in Zak Snyder’s recut of Justice League - is something to behold. Tremendously cool.

14. Captain America (Chris Evans version)

I think it’s fair to say that not liking Captain America does knock a few points off of one’s patriotism score. He’s not a symbol of nationalism or right-wing this or that, he’s a symbol of World War II-era, Greatest Generation, authentic patriotism against totalitarianism. And Chris Pine’s rendition of him in the various Marvel properties has just been delightful. His “man of the 1940s” reemerging in the 21st century is such an entertaining dynamic too.

13. Dr. Manhattan (both comics and the film)

As with most of the main figures in Alan Moore’s “Watchmen,” it’s hard to say sometimes if a character is truly a hero. At times Dr. Manhattan almost resembles more of a villain when he begins to get especially detached from humanity by his overwhelming power and bizarre quantum perceptions of all time simultaneously.

I suppose the reason I especially have Dr. Manhattan on the list, though, is that this last element I mention here - how the character through his nuclear-reactor transformation becomes a man truly out of time, who can see the future, the present, and the past all at once - is truly revolutionary in its presentation, both in the comic and then when Snyder adapted it into the film.

12. Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot version - especially the first movie and Zack Snyder’s version of Justice League, but Justice League Unlimited Version also great)

What can I say? I like strong women. And who among them is stronger and tougher than Wonder Woman? And could there truly have been anyone who brought the character to life more perfectly than Gal Gadot?

11. Wolverine (X-Men animated series version but he’s fine in the X-Men movies, especially good in Logan)

I suspect that for many of us Xennials growing up in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s that Wolverine may have been one of the first authentic anti-heroes we took in growing up. Wolverine is so clearly a tortured hero and a flawed man, yet gifted with a set of transformative powers.

One of the aspects of Wolverine’s healing powers that always struck me as a bit profound was upon learning that his notorious loss of memory about his past is actually a result of his healing factor blocking out traumatic, painful memories. I wish I could get some of that going more with the fuckin’ PTSD!

10. Gambit (Both X-men animated version and comics version)

I’m sorry, as much depth and tortured humanity as there was in Wolverine that made him a rich, compelling character, my favorite X-man has always been Gambit. From the very moment I first saw the cartoon and became aware of the comic, it’s always been Gambit.

Honestly, of all the heroes on this list, I can say with some degree of clarity that he is the very coolest and most badass of them all. Why then not a higher ranking? Well, in spite of his incredibly cool image, I guess I’m just not that sure yet if Marvel as a whole has really developed him enough as a character and explored his mythos to anywhere near the depth of the other X-Men. He’s still untapped territory.

9. Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman version, of course)

“Black Panther” was among the very greatest of the Marvel superhero films of the 2010s, and a crucial component of the film’s success was Boseman’s charismatic, flawless performance. Again, another hero that may have just seemed a bit boring and nothing-special in the comics, truly comes alive when brought to live by an amazing actor directed by a skilled filmmaker who knows what he wants.

8. Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr. version, of course)

And this is where the new incredible wave of Marvel movies truly began. (Except I’m using a video from “Iron Man 2,” which I might actually regard as superior to the first!) I remember walking out of the theater - it would have been just a couple years after college - and truly being blown away at how fun and satisfying a movie that had been. Robert Downey, Jr. just embodied the role and in performing Tony Stark so well cemented the audience’s emotional connection to the action on screen. Like Batman, Green Arrow, and later Question & Huntress, and Rorschach on this list, Iron Man is really just a man who must rely on his smarts above all else. He just, of course, at super genius intelligence level.

6. Green Lantern (Hal Jordan, but John Stewart and Kyle Rayner also great. That obnoxious Guy Gardner can kiss my ass. All versions except the Ryan Reynolds incarnation.)

So here’s a really odd hero on the list, perhaps more strongly ranked than honestly should be… No, maybe I have it right. There’s just a weird problem with Green Lantern: he’s not really one hero. There are tons of Green Lanterns who are akin to intergalactic police. The one most well known is Hal Jordan, who most people think of when they’re considering ‘60s-’80s era Green Lantern. And he’s fine. Then there were these other Green Lanterns who emerged in the ‘90s to replace Jordan.

So really unlike just about all of the other heroes on this list, I mainly just have Green Lantern this high because I actually really like his powers a lot. The whole being able to use the energy ring to create projections of just about anything and to fly around and be protected by it — just so cool and a wonderful comic fantasy. Too bad that it really has yet to be properly captured in a live action film.

7. Batman (Christian Bale version, but animated version also excellent)

OK, so this shouldn’t be a controversial opinion at all: Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy is the greatest, most artistic, most intellectually engaging, and emotionally rich superhero film collection of all time. I may have a bit more of an emotional bias to “Watchman” but I can recognize that these - especially “The Dark Knight” with Heath Ledger’s legendary performance - are overwhelmingly extraordinary masterpieces, some of the greatest pieces of popular art in the last 20 years.

4. and 5. The Question and Huntress (Justice League Unlimited versions)

Now, as some may suspect, I was originally just going to throw The Question in here but then I remembered how sweet the romantic relationship he cultivates with Huntress is - they’re both such oddball, independent-minded outsiders - so I think it’s only fair to include them together.

The Question was the original character who informed my favorite hero of all time, just a few videos below, Rorschach. Originally the character was something of a hard right, individualist, absolute justice type, inspired by his creator’s Steve Ditko’s Objectivism.

Now things have come full circle. The new version of The Question who was featured in Justice League Unlimited was actually inspired somewhat by Rorschach! In the show they emphasize The Question’s over-the-top conspiracy theory mentality, which I understand was not at all part of his original characterization, but something incorporated from Rorschach’s notable conspiracism. In the JLU they play this off more for laughs but of course The Question gets the last laugh when, like Rorschach, his conspiracy theory-driven approach turns out to be correct.

Such an entertaining, quirky character, and well-voiced by Jeffrey Combs, most known for playing Weyoun in Deep Space Nince. He also falls into the Green Arrow-Batman-Iron Man category of just being a normal man using his wits and a few cool tools he’s developed.

2. and 3. Dream and Death of The Sandman (Comics versions, as given my boycotting Netflix due to its platforming of Dave Chappelle’s antisemitism and anti-trans bigotry I have not seen their show yet but heard it’s decent.)

Now on these two I concede that I’m cheating a little bit. In Neil Gaiman’s epic The Sandman series Dream and Death are siblings of “The Endless” - figures who embody various aspects of creation, the others being named Destiny (the eldest, a blind man who carries a book containing everything), the twins Desire and Despair (the former notoriously androgynous, the latter creepy and scary), the colorful and bubbly Delirium (formerly Delight), and Destruction, who as I recall, had abandoned his job for some reason.

Now, fair enough, Dream and Death are not truly “heroes”. How could they be when they are so godlike that they very much embody abstract concepts? I mean Death is the Grim Reaper dressed up as a cute goth girl.

Well, in a storytelling context, there are times in which in the context of the stories Gaiman is weaving they certainly are going on a “hero’s journey.” That’s largely the whole epic story of The Sandman, and there are certainly a couple of memorable one-offs in which Death is featured as a primary character.

So they’re going on my list. Gaiman’s epic masterpiece is one of the great Crown Jewels of the 1990s alternative comics graphic novel movement — really of all comics period — bus as already hinted, I am by far a partisan of another title, the true Citizen Kane of comic books…

1. Rorschach (both comics and the film)

Yes, “Watchmen.” You bet your ass it’s my favorite comic and that Rorschach is without doubt my favorite character. He’s the most authentic anti-hero on the list while at the same time paradoxically being a true hero in the end. He’s also in the same category here mentioned previously of Question and Huntress, Batman, Green Arrow, and Tony Stark. He’s just a man, in fact a small, rather ugly man who would normally scare nobody. Yet he transforms himself into a true terror that inspires fear in the underworld. He fights with brutality and his perpetually moving detective’s mind keeps going when others stop far short of the conclusions he dares discover.

Truly, though, my deep affection for Rorschach takes on a deeper emotional degree. During my last year and a half of PTSD in which I was emotionally diving into and more deeply imprinting everything I was seeing, I rewatched “Watchmen” probably several times. And I could relate to Rorschach so deeply, even see myself within him. Here I was so alone in my convictions that a great injustice of violence had been committed against me, and I saw how nobody cared, how many people just wanted to pretend that nothing happened. I saw that investigation, writing, and seeking to expose the truth - as Rorschach does throughout “Watchmen” - was my only path forward. I’d even go as far as to say that Rorschach probably has PTSD too.

Batman, Iron Man, and Green Arrow are fun characters but emotionally most readers can’t really relate to them deeply. While they’re easier to connect with than the super-powered, godlike characters, the truth is they’re all still pretty godlike given their super-genius intelligence levels and apparently absolutely limitless amounts of wealth. Now Question and Huntress I’ll also set aside here because they have just been barely developed. The best they’ve had is just a few good episodes of JLU.

Rorschach, though, is a hero that just about any man could actually become. And at times during my PTSD journey that’s what I felt in a sense I needed to become. I needed to be able to scare and intimidate the evil men of the world who might hurt me again, I needed to be able to investigate the world’s crimes and injustices, and I needed to write it all down in my journal so that even if in my own life no one knew the truth or believed me, after I was gone someone would discover the truth of what happened.

So yeah, Rorschach hits a bit too close to home now. I even bought an actual Rorschach mask which changes in color based on how you breath through it. It’s not very practical; it’s too hard to see through the fabric at the eyes. The Rorschach Covid-masks that I got still work quite well, though, and are also very cool. Too bad I don’t get to enjoy wearing one every day when I have to go out anymore… That was the only part of Covid I truly enjoyed - being able to walk around dressed like my favorite superhero. I even got one of those smiley face buttons with a blood drop on it too. How hardcore geek must one be to go to such lengths?

So what do you think? Who’s on your list?

Daniel Sherrier

has already submitted his list so I'll go ahead and get that scheduled for Friday morning. And

Mike Kilgore

, you of course have to start preparing your list too, my friend...

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