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i'm pretty shocked that i keep seeing so many wolverine votes. i know he's popular, and a cash cow, but as far as his overall impact on marvel and the significance of his character i'm just not seeing it. if it were just marvel, i would have to go with spidey, hulk, cap and ironman/thor. i'd place namor above logan on the list as well.... no slight against logan, i just don't really see him as relevent until frank miller put him officially on the map. claremont did some good things with him in a team setting, but miller changed him forever. i just don't see him as having the history of the others, or as having symbolized something significant as the others have done.
The All-New All-Different X-Men revived a dying comic with horrible sales figures that had been on hiatus for years, only publishing reprints and made the X-Men constantly one of the top selling franchise in comics for close to three decades (until the 2000s when Marvel decided to give the Avengers some love and the X-Men were mismanaged and treated to a string of terrible story). A large portion of the success of the X-Men can be directly attributed to the break out popularity of Wolverine as a character. How is Wolverine possibly less "relevant" to the history of comics than Cap, Thor, Iron-man, Hulk or (lol) Namor? Aside from being more popular, the fact that he is a more complex, nuanced and all round better character than any of the above, he has also appeared in better, more iconic story arcs. Even Walt Simon's Thor and Bob Layton's run on Iron Man doesn't hold a candle to the Claremont / Bryne era of X-Men.
Batman, Superman, Spider-man, Wolverine
Don't see how anyone can rationally argue otherwise. The only slightly reasonable sub for Wolverine is Iron Man, and that is %100 because of the insane popularity of the movies.
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Gender: Male Location: Planning to take over the WORLD!
'fraid i'm not buying any of that srank. claremont's run WAS epic, but its greateness wasn't contingent on logan (especially as he is portrayed today). the STORIES were great, and logan wasn't even clearly the most integral part of that team. we can argue iconic runs all day. was claremont's better than miller's dd? i doubt it, personally. layton's run was awesome--the alcoholism stuff was unreal at the time. simonson's run was great. starlin's early stuff was great. and so on.... imo, logan did nothing extraordinary. he was a solid character who's grown to become immensely popular, but what has he really added to the genre? not much imo. he's not the first anti-hero. he's not the first mutant. he was important to the xmen, but no more important or essential than scott or peter.
when i think of the most important (marvel characters for the sake of this discussion), i view it as characters who changed the industry. namor was vital to marvel early on, and is one of the fundamental marvel characters. he's one of the characters that got marvel on its way. popularity doesn't change his role. who knows if logan would have evolved had namor not been the first mutant. spidey was the quintessential marvel character and was everything that was 'different' from dc.
cap has been an icon since his inception, was in fact created to BE an icon and an embodiment of an ideal.
hulk was an incredible character, played up the nuclear age (an angle that also benefitted logan and the mutants) and ironman exemplified the budding 'technological' age.
logan? really exemplifes.....nothing imo, aside from popularity and the big business of comics. he wouldn't come close to my personal top 4 in marvel, let alone in comics. we not usually too far off opinion-wise, but this time, we see things very differently.
and jake, i ALSO considered putting the number 4 on the mount, but thought it might be cheating.
Superman- The quintessential Superhero. The character is ingrained in pop culture. My 6 year old son not only knows who Superman is, but already has a general knowledge of his origins, powers and alter ego. And I've never even told him about the guy! Crazy.
Spiderman- Nearly the same as Superman. Ingrained in pop culture.
Batman- Quite possibly the greatest top to bottom, most well known Rogues gallery in comicdom and a fascinating back story to boot. There are actual college courses taught about Batman. Insane.
Not too sure about 4. Toss up between wonder woman, the hulk and Cap.
Last edited by dmills on Dec 17th, 2011 at 12:34 AM
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