Welcome to the 2012 DC/Marvel Comic Character Tournament!
We're mixing things up a bit this year. As the NCAA basketball tournament goes along, so will a series of polls matching various comic book team runs against each other. You'll have 48 hours (from when the polls go up) to pick whichever team run is your favorite in each match-up (judged by whether they're more interesting, more appealing, whatever criteria you feel like choosing). The winner will advance to the next round, so on and so forth until we get a champion in the beginning of April!
To seed the teams, I used the 2012 Comic Book runs poll (with a little re-jiggering to fit in notable teams that did not have "runs"). I was initially just going to pit teams against each other, but it seemed to make no sense to judge "X-Men" or "Legion of Super-Heroes" when there have been so many different takes on those groups over the years, so I decided to split them down into their respective creator runs (with Claremont's post-Byrne stories going by each artist he worked with). They're seeded the way the actual tournament seeds the teams (like the top #1 seed is in the same region as the worst #2 seed, etc.)
So you're judging which RUN you liked better (whatever criteria leads you to "like better" is fine. Which one has more nostalgic value for you, which one you think is the higher quality work, whatever floats your boat).
Here are the regions...
DANGER ROOM REGION
1. Claremont and Byrne's X-Men
2. Giffen and DeMatteis' JLI
3. Whedon and Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men
4. Morrison's Invisibles
5. Levitz and Giffens' Legion of Super-Heroes
6. Johns' JSA
7. Claremont and Silvestri's X-Men
8. Claremont's New Mutants
9. Simone's Secret Six
10. Simone's Birds of Prey
11. Johns' Teen Titans
12. Thomas' All-Star Squadron
13. Gerber's Defenders
14. Claremont and Lee's X-Men
15. Lobdell's Generation X
16. Cornell's MI: 13
X-MANSION REGION
1. Morrison's New X-Men
2. Wolfman and Perez's Teen Titans/New Titans
3. Morrison's Doom Patrol
4. Vaughan and Alphona's Runaways
5. Ostrander's Suicide Squad
6. Bendis' Avengers
7. Remender's Uncanny X-Force
8. Giffen and Bierbaums' Legion of Super-Heroes
9. Moore and O'Neil's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
10. Claremont and Davis' Excalibur
11. Englehart's Avengers
12. Hickman's Secret Warriors
13. Busiek and Bagley's Thunderbolts
14. Claremont and Cockrum's 1st X-Men
15. Parker's Thunderbolts
16. Abnett and Lanning's Guardians of the Galaxy
BAXTER BUILDING REGION
1. Kirby and Lee's Fantastic Four
2. Ellis and Cassaday's Planetary
3. Byrne's Fantastic Four
4. Stern's Avengers
5. Peter David's current X-Factor
6. Ellis and Hitch's Authority
7. Claremont and Smith's X-Men
8. Claremont and Romita Jr.'s X-Men
9. David's 1st X-Factor
10. Casey's Wildcats
11. Thomas' Avengers
12. David's Young Justice
13. Nicieza's Thunderbolts
14. Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme
15. Shooter's Avengers
16. Thomas' Infinity Inc.
WATCHTOWER REGION
1. Morrison's JLA
2. Moore's Watchmen
3. Busiek and Perez's Avengers
4. Millar and Hitch's Ultimates
5. Hickman's Fantastic Four/FF
6. Ellis and Immonen's Nextwave
7. Milligan's X-Force/X-Statix
8. Waid and Wieringo's Fantastic Four
9. Ellis' Thunderbolts
10. Ellis' Stormwatch
11. Mignola and Arcudi's BPRD
12. Abnett and Lanning's Legion of Super-Heroes
13. Shooter's Legion of Super-Heroes
14. Millar's Authority
15. Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men
16. Drake's Doom Patrol
Here is the tournament bracket - click on it to get the full bracket and feel free to print it out if you'd like (I doubt it fits on one page, though).
Here are the first two regions up for voting!