the vynsane asylum

Yes, after all the Namor bashing I feel compelled to start this one...

Namor- AWESOME!!! all's I gotta say "IMPERIUS REX".. really I love the haughty, epic tone of the older submariner(not the original, but older)... they read SO serious yet so silly at the same time...

Silver Surfer... SO powerful, and yet so melancholy... I love in the animated series when he's destroying fleets of ships in deep space with the power cosmic, and all the while he's lamenting mournfully about shalla-bal and stuff.... he's like super irony, all-powerful and yet powerless through his emotions.... AWESOME!!!

Terrax- nother great herald... so mighty, so jealous... he was GREAT, and his powers were fun...
Galactus, their master.... LOVE the issue where ROM tricks him into attacking the dark nebula... AWESOME... glactus got beat HARD, but instead of killing ROM,he laughs it off.... AWESOME!!!!

Iron Man... next to spidey, one of my all-time faves.... I.M. just rocks... from the earliest grey suit all the way til the early 80's his eponymous book was tops... I like Ditko's fluid renderings of him best, but he was always done well in the silver age IMO... Iron Man punched out the Hulk (issue 128??), nuff said

Spidey... Ahhhh, what's NOT to like??? kinda rough going in the 70's for him, but he picked up again... someone else can list more of his values, I'm sure

Falcon.... dunno why, but Sam was always a fave... he wasn't powerful or anything, but he was cool, and having a fighting hawk as a companion- always a winner!!

Magneto... AWESOME... all that POWER... I liked him when he was a bit more "evil", before the new origin, but he's still one of the best... conflict works so well with such a powerful dude....

Doom.... GREAT way to work in political commentary... the early doom was fun, like magneto, but doom was a LOT more fun once he became more of a benevolent (well...) dictator..... And any guy whose primary power is "when you FINALLY kill him, it AIN'T him!!" HAS to rock...

Batman. When interacting with his own little sub family of characters or with the JLA, Bats always seems like he KNOWS more than everybody else and it's like he's being patient with them. ROCK.

Thanos. He makes being an interstellar genocidal maniac look like fun AND the right thing to do. Can't wait for the ongoing series by Starlin this winter!

Guy Gardner. Answers the question whether you can be a complete asshole AND a hero at the same time. Too bad he's dead....[:(]

Bone. Awwwwwwww....he's so CUTE.

Gar Logan. Part Time Super Hero, Full time Pussy Hound.

Galactus. The first appearance arc in FF is absolutely classic - likely the pinnacle of the Marvel Age (on par with AF 15) Epic in scope, incredibly character driven - read it in awe. It would be wise to recolor this masterpiece and re-release it to go with the new Surfer series (anyone seen a copy of #2 yet? How'd that go?), I'd buy that in a heartbeat. The originals are obviously $$$$$ as it's 1st Surfer in 48 and Galactus in 50. Too bad they didn't include it in the cheap "Silver Surfer: Essentials" paperback.

Jubilee. Duh. Did anyone not see this one coming a mile away? Best in the stories by Chris Claremont and Larry Hama, where she's as much a parody of Robin as an actual character. Y'know?

Dan Ketch as Ghost Rider. . . in the early days. A demon who has no idea what the hell he is, but keeps getting mistaken for a previous demonic superhero who also went by Ghost Rider and drove a flaming motorcycle. How can you not love a fiery skeleton whose vocabulary consists of "You will die!"???

Nightbeat. A super-funky badass Autobot private investigator who gets to flirt with alien babes (even if he doesn't have the hardware to back it up). What's not to love?

Snake Eyes. Who cares if every other issue of GIJoe is adding more baggage to his origin? This South Dakotan (is that the right word?) ninja named John something-or-other (but we're not supposed to know that) is probably the most kick-ass ninja of all time.

Ambush Bug. Come on. You love Ambush Bug. I know you do. Don't deny it. Give in to your love for Ambush Bug. (Though I know, deep down inside, you think supporting cast member/ineffective villain Arg Yle is funnier.)

Remember when Ghost Rider was brutally killing everybody in his early issues, then they retroactively said he wasn't a killer and they explained that he had only hurt all those people. But then they couldn't explain away a blatant neck breaking in issue 2, so they came up with some phony BS about it being a demon in disguise, and GR instinctively knew that so he could kill it? What bullshit. After that, they plummeted into that turdish Midnite Sons crap and never recovered. Who was the better GR artist? Javier Saltares or Texiera?

You got me. The only Ghost Rider I've ever paid attention to was the 6 issue MK mini of a couple of years ago - got the whole set on ebay for................ 1 dollar!!!!! Worth every penny!

You know who's awesom? Thor. I love Thor. When Thor is going well (Simonson, Jurgens lately) I just can't get enough. There's a comic where humour can freely flow, coinciding with a nice ass kicking. Anyone seen the Marvel Max story by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon? Have a look next time you're in the store - it's wicked violent.

Bah. DeFalco and Frenz were on Thor so long, he has a permanent odor of lame about him. But this is the cool character topic, not the lame one.

Guardians of the Galaxy. Back in the day. When Vance was stuck in his containment suit. And Starhawk was still the "one who knows..."

Ch'od from the Starjammers is cool. Especially when he refers to Jubilee as 'small mammal'.

Ch'od is the big lizard guy, right? I always hated anything to do with the Shi'ar, Deathbird, the Starjammers, and all that crap. Except Dark Phoenix. But especially the Brood. Sigourney Weaver whomps them in movie after movie, so why call in the X-Men?

Beta Ray Thor is the shizzle. Just cause he's so freakin' ugly and yet he's still Thor. Plus, his hammeraxe is way cooler than Mjolnir.

Hal Jordan. Comes back from the dead as the coolest GL ever, then tells Batman to get bent. Ain't falling for the Dark Knight's mysterious brooding know it all thingie.

Deathstroke the Terminator. Did you see him kick the JLA's AS in Identity Crisis? He kicked Ray Palmer's ass with a LASER POINTER.

MAX Punisher. Watching him methodically bore through the criminal underworld like a drillbit is thrilling and disturbing. Frank kills!

Drax the Destroyer. He punched a hole right through Thanos and tore out his heart. Holy fuck, thats hardcore.

The Hulk. Who gets shot out into space, takes ove an entire planet by just being a bad ass, then comes back to kick Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Professor X, Black Bolt, Dr. Strange AND Namor's ass? The Green Scar. AWESOME.

Cyclops. Loses his Red Optic Force Blast power and then decides his new mutant power is the ability to pull a trigger. BANG! Down goes Emma Frost. AWESOME.

Cobra Commander. As always, finds a way to outdupe the Joes. This time he posed as a high ranking govt. official (even going so far as to have plastic surgery) and got access to all the personnel files of every active and reserve Joe member. So now he knows who and where their families are. AWESOME. (Plus, if there's a dog in the area, he'll find a way to kick it.)

Secret Six. Yes, all of them. Irredeemable amoral dirtbags, and yet you root for them everytime.