After over 1,200 ballots were cast, YOU the reader ranked your favorite comic book characters from 1-10. I assigned point totals to each ranking and then tabulated it all into a Top 50 list. We're now revealing that list throughout the next few weeks. The countdown continues...

35. Midnighter - 356 points (8 first place votes)

Introduced in the pages of the second volume of Stormwatch by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch (who was, at the time, just working as a fill-in artist for Oscar Jimenez), Midnighter was originally nothing more than a Batman analogue, as part of a story where we met an earlier Stormwatch black ops team (that was basically a riff on the Justice League). However, the character intrigued Ellis (as did his lover, Apollo, the Superman analogue) and eventually Ellis decided to ditch Stormwatch entirely and build a new book around Midnighter, Apollo and the members of the black-ops Stormwatch team that Ellis had introduced in his previous run on Stormwatch. They called themselves the Authority and they dispensed judgement on a global scale.

Midnighter has the ability to predict his opponent's moves and how to counter them, which allows him the ability to defeat most people, but sometime knowing what your opponent is going to do isn't enough - they're just too powerful. Even in those situations, however, Midnighter doesn't know what to quit. This was shown in amazing detail in a sequence in Authority #4, which also showed off Bryan Hitch's wide screen genius. The set-up is that this longtime Wildstorm villain, Kaizen Gamorra, has begun attacking Los Angeles with an army of superhuman beings. Midnighter transported into Gamorra's island sanctuary but could not defeat him in person. So he came up with a better idea...













Amazing. Midnighter continued as a member of Authority through a series of writers, and even married Apollo at one point.

After the New 52, the Wildstorm Universe was merged with the DC Universe and Midnighter and Apollo were rebooted, but eventually got back together anyways. Midnighter currently has his own ongoing series.

34. Hawkman - 403 points (8 first place votes)

Hawkman is a tricky one. I decided to treat votes for Katar Hol as the same for votes for Carter Hall, especially as going into the New 52 they were basically the same guy.

Carter Hall was created by Gardner Fox and Dennis Neville, while Katar was created by Fox and Joe Kubert.

The former was an archaeologist who discovered an ancient metal that allowed him to fly, and discovered that he was the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian prince. Hall used weapons from his museum to help fight bad guys. He was in the Justice Society of America, but Post-Crisis he would later also became a member of the Justice League, as a sort of senior advisor.

Katar Hol was a tough space cop from Thanagar, a world where people fly around with fake wings using basically the same metal. Hol was a member of the Justice League of America. He (and his wife and partner) was kicking ass right from the get go.









Dig that Joe Kubert art!

After some confusing continuity over the years, Carter and Katar merged together - forming one Hawkman.

But this was kinda weird, so he literally went into limbo at the end of his series.

When he returned, in the pages of JSA, Hawkman was just Carter Hall. Katar was dead, and it was just Carter Hall controlling the body (while sharing the memories of Katar and Carter). So Hawkman was then back to basics - archeology, flying, museums, and big maces.

In the New 52, the situation is pretty much reversed - Carter Hall is secretly an alien living on Earth (he doesn't even know he's an alien) named Katar Hol. He gets a special armor made out of the special metal I mentioned earlier and then he fights bad guys as Hawkman.

33. Power Girl - 438 points (6 first place votes)

Kara Zor-L, created by Gerry Conway and Ric Estrada, is the cousin of the Earth-2 Superman. She traveled to Earth at the same time of her cousin, but her ship landed much later, as she had already grown to be a young woman.

Entering the hero scene, Kara quickly joined the Justice Society of America, where she stayed for a number of years until the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

After the events of Crisis, Kara was misled into believing that she was not of Earth-2, something that she only recently discovered was, in fact, the case.

Kara was a member of the Justice League for a number of years, and eventually re-involved with the Justice Society of America, as her Earth 2 heritage was re-revealed. She even got her own ongoing series...









In the New 52, Power Girl is still from Earth 2, but she was the Supergirl on this Earth and she and Robin (Helena Wayne) end up stuck up on Earth 1, where they become Power Girl and Huntress, respectively. They returned to Earth 2 eventually and Power Girl ends up taking on the S symbol, although it is unclear if this means she is no longer Power Girl.

Go to the next page for #32-31!

32. Death - 467 points (6 first place votes)

Death is one of the Endless, the group of siblings who represent powerful forces or aspects of the universe, like, well, Death. Created by Neil Gaiman and Mike Dringenberg, Death often stops by to chat with her brother, Dream, and sometimes to get involved in other plot points.

In a clever approach, Death is portrayed as a hip young woman, who is really quite nice.









She often has interesting encounters with mortals, which made up the bulk of the two Death mini-series (also by Gaiman, but with artist Chris Bachalo).

31. Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) - 474 points (11 first place votes)

A Steve Ditko creation, Ted Kord was a student of the original Blue Beetle, Dan Garrett. When Garrett was killed, he asked Ted to carry on the name. The problem was, Ted did not have any powers.

However, Ted was so awesome - that when he needed to take over for a hero while not having any powers of himself, he went out and trained himself to becoming a World Class fighter, and he then spent his money (and his technological know-how) on building weapons to fight crime, including a giant flying bug ship. He served Chicago well...







Ted was an inaugural member of Justice League International, where he served for many years. It was while with the League that he became best friends with his teammate, Booster Gold. Writers Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis soon began to develop the two as almost comic relief, at the very least they took a more "everyday guy" approach to being superheroes...







Ted had been mostly retired after his days with the Justice League were finished, until he discovered a sinister plot. None of the major heroes would take him seriously, so he investigated it himself, leading to his tragic murder at the hands of Maxwell Lord, a man Ted thought was his friend.

In the New 52, Ted was just recently reintroduced. Who knows if he will become the Blue Beetle in the New 52, as well!