Good day, Escapists!
Since we're having a thread about your favorite videogame characters every other day, and I'm just as much a comicbook geek as I am a videogame geek, I figured it'd be fun to find out who the Escapist's favorite comicbook characters are (graphic novels can come play too, since they're just snootier comicbooks). This thread is mostly meant for Western comics, but if you can't think of any, Eastern/manga characters are fine too.
Please share your favorite characters, let everyone know what makes them so much fun, and feel free to post some pictures!
My favorite:
John Constantine
http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq84/DurrHurr/characters/kingathefrigginvampires.jpg
British occultist, con-man, humanist, cynic, hero, demon summoner, foul-mouthed, chain-smoking, illusionist, necromancer, clairvoyant, ex-punk, evil twin, demon-blooded, irredeemable asshole with a heart of fool's gold and an unfortunate habit of pissing off supernatural entities and getting his friends and relatives killed.
Forget the mediocre movie. Comicbook Constantine is awesome. A man of brains over brawn, he is the archetypal trickster in a world filled with sorcery and demons. Constantine has his heart in the right place, but circumstances, old enemies, and his own rotten personality keep getting him into trouble. This wouldn't be too bad since he always manages to get out of it relatively unscathed, were it not that the people closest to him usually end up paying the price. While he frequently gets into violent situations, Constantine is a pretty lousy fighter, preferring to use a little magic and a lot of cunning to save his hide and (as a secondary priority) get the job done. Always on humanity's side in the ongoing war between Heaven and Hell (Constantine isn't much of a fan of either side), he's saved the world more than once during his career, but for Constantine success never comes without a pitch-black lining.
Notable achievements: Tricking the devil into drinking holy water, killing the king of vampires (see picture), selling his soul to three different demons (meaning that if he dies, the three would be forced to go to war over his soul, granting him immortality as a compromise), sleeping with Zatanna (yes, that Zatanna), exorcising his own evil side and then growing a new one, going to Hell and back (both literally and figuratively), causing the archangel Gabriel to fall from grace, escaping from a maximum-security prison, outsmarting and/or defeating a whole bunch of supernatural beings, and saving the world a few times.
The Hellblazer series in which John Constantine appears aren't consistently brilliant, but parts of it certainly are. Being published under the Vertigo imprint, it allows the stories to be a lot more mature and 'realistic' (as far as horror-ish stories about demons and magicians can be considered realistic) than the standard DC superhero stories.
http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq84/DurrHurr/characters/upyours.gif
Other personal favorites include:
- Hitman 4
- Deadpool 4
- Nova 4
- Spider Jerusalem 4
- Guy Gardner 4
And a couple of honorable mentions:
- Squirrel Girl *
- The Redeemer *
- Zatanna *
- Cassidy *
- Iron Fist *
- Elijah Snow *
- Invincible *
- Irredeemable Ant-Man *
Since we're having a thread about your favorite videogame characters every other day, and I'm just as much a comicbook geek as I am a videogame geek, I figured it'd be fun to find out who the Escapist's favorite comicbook characters are (graphic novels can come play too, since they're just snootier comicbooks). This thread is mostly meant for Western comics, but if you can't think of any, Eastern/manga characters are fine too.
Please share your favorite characters, let everyone know what makes them so much fun, and feel free to post some pictures!
My favorite:
John Constantine
http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq84/DurrHurr/characters/kingathefrigginvampires.jpg
British occultist, con-man, humanist, cynic, hero, demon summoner, foul-mouthed, chain-smoking, illusionist, necromancer, clairvoyant, ex-punk, evil twin, demon-blooded, irredeemable asshole with a heart of fool's gold and an unfortunate habit of pissing off supernatural entities and getting his friends and relatives killed.
Forget the mediocre movie. Comicbook Constantine is awesome. A man of brains over brawn, he is the archetypal trickster in a world filled with sorcery and demons. Constantine has his heart in the right place, but circumstances, old enemies, and his own rotten personality keep getting him into trouble. This wouldn't be too bad since he always manages to get out of it relatively unscathed, were it not that the people closest to him usually end up paying the price. While he frequently gets into violent situations, Constantine is a pretty lousy fighter, preferring to use a little magic and a lot of cunning to save his hide and (as a secondary priority) get the job done. Always on humanity's side in the ongoing war between Heaven and Hell (Constantine isn't much of a fan of either side), he's saved the world more than once during his career, but for Constantine success never comes without a pitch-black lining.
Notable achievements: Tricking the devil into drinking holy water, killing the king of vampires (see picture), selling his soul to three different demons (meaning that if he dies, the three would be forced to go to war over his soul, granting him immortality as a compromise), sleeping with Zatanna (yes, that Zatanna), exorcising his own evil side and then growing a new one, going to Hell and back (both literally and figuratively), causing the archangel Gabriel to fall from grace, escaping from a maximum-security prison, outsmarting and/or defeating a whole bunch of supernatural beings, and saving the world a few times.
The Hellblazer series in which John Constantine appears aren't consistently brilliant, but parts of it certainly are. Being published under the Vertigo imprint, it allows the stories to be a lot more mature and 'realistic' (as far as horror-ish stories about demons and magicians can be considered realistic) than the standard DC superhero stories.
http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq84/DurrHurr/characters/upyours.gif
Other personal favorites include:
- Hitman 4
- Deadpool 4
- Nova 4
- Spider Jerusalem 4
- Guy Gardner 4
And a couple of honorable mentions:
- Squirrel Girl *
- The Redeemer *
- Zatanna *
- Cassidy *
- Iron Fist *
- Elijah Snow *
- Invincible *
- Irredeemable Ant-Man *
