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Favorite DC Hero?

Favorite DC Hero?


  • Total voters
    78
  • Poll closed .
Disturbingly few people in this thread have mentioned Elongated Man.

His nose twitches when he smells a mystery! How can you not love him?
 
Ostrander's (and Mandrake's) Spectre is one of the great unappreciated series.

Amen. Far and away, my favorite treatment of the character.

I just re-read the pitifully few issues I have of that series. Ostrander is one of those writers who has a Midas touch, but that's a curse, too. I've loved all of his interpretations of characters (Firestorm, The Suicide Squad, The Spectre, The Martian Manhunter), but it's hard for successive writers to do these characters justice.

And, yeah, the Spectre was the first name that came to mind when I saw this poll. I've always had an irrational fondness for the Spectre, probably because he combines two of my favorite things: superheroes and horror.

He's the Superman of ghosts!

Makes sense, since one of Superman's two "Dads," Jerry Siegel, created the Spectre.
 
What about Hawkman? I like Hawkgirl more. I blame JL Unlimited. :p

I blame the DC writers who seem to change Hawkman's origin and background as often as most fans change their socks. There's, what, a dozen different versions of Hawkman now? :confused:

Me, my favorite hero is and always will be Superman. (Particularly as portrayed by Chris Reeve.) There's no ambiguity with him: you just know he is good. I like the sense of idealism, of absolute good.
With the Hawks you got two choices:

Reincarnated Egyptian Royalty

or

Alien cops visiting Earth.

There's also a third choice that mixes the two.
 
What about Hawkman? I like Hawkgirl more. I blame JL Unlimited. :p

I blame the DC writers who seem to change Hawkman's origin and background as often as most fans change their socks. There's, what, a dozen different versions of Hawkman now? :confused:

Me, my favorite hero is and always will be Superman. (Particularly as portrayed by Chris Reeve.) There's no ambiguity with him: you just know he is good. I like the sense of idealism, of absolute good.
With the Hawks you got two choices:

Reincarnated Egyptian Royalty

or

Alien cops visiting Earth.

There's also a third choice that mixes the two.

^ And that weird thing about the 'Hawk god'.
The Hawkman continuity is thus:

Golden Age: Carter Hall - Archaeologist who discovers Egyptian tomb and that he and his wife Sheira Hall are the reincarnation of Egyptian royalty. Wiped out by COIE but came back due to retcons pre-Zero Hour. TPTB wanted the continuity the original Hawks had with the JLA and JSA to be canon.

Silver Age: Thanagarian police Katar Hol and Shayera Hol. Survived the COIE but would later be retconned due to Hawkworld.

Post-Crisis - Hawkworld: Katar Hol and Shayera Thal. Once again Thangarian police like their Silver Age namesakes.

Post Crisis - Zero Hour: The Golden Age Carter and Sheira merged with Hawkworld Katar and a Hawk God during the wibbly, wobbly time wimey effects brought on by Zero Hour. This was an attempt to clear up the continuity and canon of the Hawks. The merging led to the birth of the Hawk Avatar.

tumblr_nkkjgzsDta1r4pq4io1_540.jpg


The Hawkwoman Shayera Thal goes back to Thanagar prior to Zero Hour.

Geoff Johns revived both the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl on during his run on JSA. Hawkgirl was the spirit of Shiera Hall, in the body of her niece Kendra Saunders, who had committed suicide. This Hawkgirl had all of Kendra's memories but none of Sheira's.

Carter is revived by a ritual on Thangar. Kendra/Sheira's connection with Carter is used to revive him. The Thanagarian Priests wanted a champion to combat a coming threat. Carter is revived with the memories of all his past lives (Egyptian prince, Archaelogist, Thanagarian Police officer Katar and his time as the Hawk Avatar) but with the body of Hawkworld Katar Hol. Which makes things a little awkward when Shayera Thal comes back to Earth looking for Katar (her Hawkman).


Shayera Thal is killed by Black Fire (Starfire's sister) during the prelude to Infinite Crisis (Rann-Thanagar War).


JSA Hawkgirl Kendra and JSA Hawkman Carter are killed at the beginning of Blackest Night but are revived with the power of the white lantern. However Carter was restored to his original Golden Age body and all his memories from each past life. Sheira is restored with her original body (she no longer occupies her deceased niece's) and with all of her memories.


New 52 Hawkman is Katar Hol again. Only he doesn't know he's Thanagarian. But he has already lost Sheira. However New 52 Shayera Thal has been introduced in his books.

Think that sums up everything best I could. Hopefully Convergence makes sense of it all but I'm not holding my breath.
The below image is from Convergence.
From Left to Right you have JSA (2002) Carter Hall, Hawkworld Katar Hol (1989), Silver Age Katar Hol, and Golden Age Carter Hall.
tumblr_njwi3zubcz1rzigc1o2_540.jpg
 
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Disturbingly few people in this thread have mentioned Elongated Man.

His nose twitches when he smells a mystery! How can you not love him?

Because Plastic Man is more entertaining and Mister Fantastic is smarter. Elongated Man is just all kinds of "wannabe."
 
Other than Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, my only exposure to the characters is from movies, TV shows, and video games. I'll list my experience with the character in parenthesis.
1. Batman (comics, '60s tv series, Nolan movies, Arkham and other games, DCAU , DC animated movies)
2. Green Lantern Hal Jordan (Secret Origin, DC animated movies, TAS)
3. Wonder Woman (Azzarello/Chiang comics, DCAU, DC animated movies, '70s TV series, video games)
4. Superman (Last Son and All-Star Superman, DCAU, DC animated movies, Greorge Reeves TV series, first 2 Christopher Reeve movies, video games)
5. (Green) Arrow (Arrow, video games)
6. The Flash (TV series, DCAU, DC Animated movies, video games)
 
Collectively, The New Teen Titans (Marv Wolfman's version) and the Legion (tied).

What can I say? I love teams!

Following that, Green Lantern.
 
Batman, no question about it. I find the character fascinating and never get tired of reading Batman comics. No other comic character comes close for me.
 
I like Batman but surprised how popular he is over Superman. I guess "The Dark Knight" interpretation has to do with it over the campy version years earlier.
 
The modern version of Batman really began with Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams whose work was way ahead of its time. Their interpretations of Batman and many of his rogues gallery still dictate, in many ways, how those characters are written today. Not to knock Frank Miller, because I really do like his work on Batman, but he owed a lot to O'Neil.
 
The modern version of Batman really began with Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams whose work was way ahead of its time. Their interpretations of Batman and many of his rogues gallery still dictate, in many ways, how those characters are written today. Not to knock Frank Miller, because I really do like his work on Batman, but he owed a lot to O'Neil.

Yes, maybe that's when Modern Batman appeared, but that was so long ago, one has to wonder about post-modern Batman, and post post Modern Batman.

The world has changed since the 70s.
 
The modern version of Batman really began with Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams whose work was way ahead of its time. Their interpretations of Batman and many of his rogues gallery still dictate, in many ways, how those characters are written today. Not to knock Frank Miller, because I really do like his work on Batman, but he owed a lot to O'Neil.

Yes, maybe that's when Modern Batman appeared, but that was so long ago, one has to wonder about post-modern Batman, and post post Modern Batman.

The world has changed since the 70s.

A poster earlier suggested that Frank Miller was responsible for moving Batman away from the sixties camp version. I was just pointing out that he moved away from being camp much earlier than that.
 
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