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Which Superhero has the best stories over their lifetime

Started by Gsims718,

52 posts in this topic

Boboset

Boboset

Posted
Posted
For me:

 

Spider-Man (before the clone saga)

Iron Man

Batman

Conan

 

Can you name some good Iron Man stories?

 

I think the silver age Iron Man stories featured in TOS and his self titled book were up there with the FF and ASM for best SA Marvel.

 

My vote is for Batman and it's not even close.

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rjrjr

rjrjr

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Daredevil seems to have the most "quality".

 

Over the lifetime of the character? Sure, Daredevil achieved some fame when Frank Miller came aboard, but before that, Daredevil was a character that had no purpose or direction. I'm surprised the character wasn't cancelled to be honest. Even after Miller, the character wandered a bit until the Marvel Knight title.

 

All IMHO of course.

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arexcrooke

arexcrooke

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Silver Surfer

Captain America

I have always felt the Surfer was limited in his range of stories available. And the woe is me melodrama played on my nerves quickly.

And Cap has always been a great way to gauge the current troubles or social ills against his almost saintly persona.

Always entertaining stories.

I have also felt that when DD has had a good story teller the character is awesome. When not, well you get the Stilt-Man

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rjrjr

rjrjr

Posted
Posted
Silver Surfer

Captain America

I have always felt the Surfer was limited in his range of stories available. And the woe is me melodrama played on my nerves quickly.

And Cap has always been a great way to gauge the current troubles or social ills against his almost saintly persona.

Always entertaining stories.

I have also felt that when DD has had a good story teller the character is awesome. When not, well you get the Stilt-Man

 

The Silver Surfer cartoon highlighted the limits to the melodramatic nature of the character. While I was always fond of the character, it also got on my nerves quickly this aspect of the character. Silver Surfer is a one note, one dimensional character. It's unfortunate the best Silver Surfer stories usually involve other Marvel characters (see volume 2 to understand what I'm talking about.)

 

I agree with you other statements about Captain America too.

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rjpb

rjpb

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For characters running 20 years or more - Hellboy has been excellent the whole time. Due to Mignola's control, there has been less variety - but consistent quality.

 

For more mainstream characters - Batman has been the most compelling. Even the more questionable eras are entertaining in their own way, and while there is plenty of repetitive mediocrity, the high points more than make up for it.

 

Jonah Hex, while not technically a superhero has had more than his share of excellent stories - personally I'd love to see more of the Lansdale type supernatural storylines.

 

I haven't read the Waid DD books, but the Miller, Bendis and Brubaker runs combined some gems from the Lee/Colan era and decent stories from the Nocenti run make it a solid contender.

 

I'll confess while I love the silver age Spidey, Thor and FF, I haven't read much with any of these characters since the early 70s.

 

As for Superman, the only stuff I've really enjoyed are the early stories where his powers are more limited, and the goofy silver age Lois and Jimmy books.

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Gsims718

Gsims718

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Posted
For me:

 

Spider-Man (before the clone saga)

Iron Man

Batman

Conan

 

Can you name some good Iron Man stories?

 

I think the silver age Iron Man stories featured in TOS and his self titled book were up there with the FF and ASM for best SA Marvel.

 

My vote is for Batman and it's not even close.

 

When I look at my tpb's the majority are Batman even though I have zero DC books and my collection focus is spider-man and silverage marvels.

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Erndog

Erndog

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This isn't even close..... Daredevil.

 

And I'm not saying that because I'm biased. Daredevil BECAME my favourite character because of all the great stories. He was never my favourite... but after reading everything growing up (Miller, Smith, Bendis, Brubaker, now Waid) I just said "screw it, there may be cooler characters but their stories SUCK! DD is now king."

 

True story ;)

 

 

 

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Shaven Kev-migration

Shaven Kev-migration

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It seems like the longer a comic has been out and the more issues that have been published the quantity goes up.

 

So some short lived titles are quality all the way through, but stuff like Superman has some runs mixed in. Like the new 52...

 

I would say the only long running titles that were consistant were done by the same team or individual.

 

Stuff like Cerebus or Savage Dragon come to mind.

 

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Jaded Savage

Jaded Savage

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Weird, I read the OP as which heroes could tell you the best tales while shooting the breeze over a cold one, not ones that have been published. Can you imagine the cosmic tales and overall badazzary of serving Galactus, seeing stars, planets no one has ever imagined? And Cap, his war stories. I'd take those over the grim tales of a bad childhood and even badder women (Batman, Daredevil).

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vaillant

vaillant

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I guess also another way of asking is which Superhero title had the most quality over quantity.

 

If we put it this way (and I understood correctly when you first posted) for Marvel Doctor Strange should rank aming the highest.

 

The fact that he often had to survive in its publishing life, struggling with lower print runs than the major characters, made for higher quality of the stories.

 

The longest-running series, or most of them, have had long periods where either the quality lacked, they were totally uninspired, or worse the characters weren’t respected (I mean up to some point, now each and every characted has been "messed up").

 

A previous poster commented about Daredevil. Well, I have strong doubts Miller can be seen as the person which "made up" for a previous lack of quality, as he pretty thwarted the character (I was discussing this in the thread I started about the best Copper stories). Stan Lee did some great stories with DD in the 1960s, and Steve Gerber as well in the 1970s.

 

Other series which would be good candidates for a good ratio quality/quantity are the original Warlock series, Captain Marvel, Jungle Action (featuring the Black Panther), Omega the Unknown, Fear (both the Man-Thing and the Morbius runs) probably Dracula.

 

Among the biggest series probably Spider-Man has been the one which suffered less from these "low peaks", up to the 1990s "clone stories", of course. :sick:

 

The New Mutants, Power Pack and X-Factor were all good series, after the first issues and before the last ones.

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Gsims718

Gsims718

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Weird, I read the OP as which heroes could tell you the best tales while shooting the breeze over a cold one, not ones that have been published. Can you imagine the cosmic tales and overall badazzary of serving Galactus, seeing stars, planets no one has ever imagined? And Cap, his war stories. I'd take those over the grim tales of a bad childhood and even badder women (Batman, Daredevil).
lol
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