After nearly 1,100 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 revealing that list throughout the rest of the month. The countdown continues now...

30. Mister Miracle – 425 points (4 first place votes)

Mister Miracle was a creation of Jack Kirby, as part of his Fourth World line of comic books.

Scott Free was the son of Highfather, the leader of New Genesis, but as a part of a truce, was swapped with the son of evil Darkseid, leader of Apokolips. Scott grew up on the wretched planet, Apokolips, with his heritage unknown to him. He eventually grew to despise Darkseid, and began to rebel against the tyrant's regime (it was here that he met his future bride, Big Barda).

Free escaped to Earth (which nullified the truce, just as Darkseid had planned it all along), where he apprenticed to an escape artist named Mister Miracle (Thaddeus Brown). Brown was murdered, leaving Scott to take up the name and the costume (although refitted with technology from New Genesis).

Kirby made sure to try to work in at least one amazing escape into every issue of the series (Kirby was influenced by Jim Steranko's stories of working as an escape artist when he was a young man. Those stories would later inspire Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, as well).

Eventually, Barda escaped as well, and the two were eventually married. Outside of a brief revival in the late 1970s with Marshall Rogers drawing the book, Mister Miracle was mostly in comic book limbo for a decade or so. That was changed in 1987 when he became a member of the then-newly rebooted Justice League.

The approach that Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis took to the character was that Scott and Barda moved to the suburbs and were trying to adjust to life on Earth as yuppies. The success of the Justice League series led to a spin-off featuring that take on the couple. Scott also continued to be a successful entertainer with his escape tricks.

After their time in the Justice League ended, Scott and Barda were mostly peripheral characters for the next couple of decades, with Barda's time in the Birds of Prey oddly enough briefly making her the MORE prominent character of the two. When the New 52 happened, it took a few years before Mister Miracle and Big Barda finally showed up.

Recently, though, Tom King and Mitch Gerads had a critically acclaimed maxiseries spotlighting the couple, bringing new prominence to Mister Miracle. The series opens with Scott attempting suicide and the rest of the series deals with the ramifications of that act...

It's an inspired look at life, love and mental health that redefines the character for today.

29. Hawkman – 449 points (3 first place votes)

Hawkman is a tricky one, as he is basically a merger of two heroes who were quite distinct for many years. Luckily, this year, the votes were all pretty consistent as being just for "Hawkman" as a whole, so I didn't have to worry about combining votes for Carter Hall with votes for Katar Hol (and the always difficult "Carter Hall ranked in one spot and Katar Hol ranked in another spot on the same list" dilemma).

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 adviser.

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! He did not do a lot of superhero work, but what he did was excellent.

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.

Here, James Robinson, Geoff Johns, Rag Morales and Michael Bair show the combined Hawkman, as he and Hawkgirl discuss the fact that they are recincarnated lovers who also happen to have a space connection to Thanagar...

In the New 52, Hawkman went through a whole bunch of different takes until they finally settled on just going back to the tried and true set-up that Geoff Johns had come up with in JSA, the idea that there is just one, reincarnated Hawkman who has lived all sorts of outrageous lives in a variety of settings, but in general, is just an archaeologist who flies and carries a big mace...

It's been roughly 80 years and no one has really upgraded that original character design from way back when.

28. Supergirl – 509 points (6 first place votes)

Created by Otto Binder and Al Platino, Supergirl had one of those amazingly condensed origin stories that were so popular in the 1950s and 1960s...

Plastino's Kara is practically a cuteness overload!

Anyhow, that was the status quo for a number of years - Kara operated as Superman's "secret agent." She should have been mad at Superman, because when he finally revealed her to the world, they loved her. "This is what you were so afraid of, cousin?!" Over the years, Supergirl also found herself adoptive parents, as that is where the Danvers part of her background comes from.

That version of Kara went through many different relaunches until she died during Crisis on Infinite Earths, sacrificing herself to save her cousin. After an alien version of Supergirl came around during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s (and then a weird future version at the turn of the 21st century), a new version of Kara was introduced about twenty years after the Pre-Crisis Kara died.

This version, too, needed to go through a few different relaunches (all within a single book, oddly enough) until it finally settled on a nice status quo...just in time for the New 52 to come around and reboot the character!

Once again, this version of Supergirl went through a couple of different approaches (she was even a Red Lantern for a time!) before roughly settling on an approach similar to the original Supergirl (it always happens like that - they try new takes on the character before they ultimately say, "Hey, the nice teenage female version of Superman is a pretty good character approach - why not just do that?")

Supergirl's popularity got a big signal boost when she received her own CW TV series that has been on the air for a number of years now and continues to be one of the more consistently performing CW superhero series. Supergirl was briefly without an ongoing series, but she got it back around the time that Brian Michael Bendis took over the Superman titles, with longtime Bendis collaborator, Marc Andreyko, taking on the reins of Supergirl's series. She is currently involved in the "Infected" storyline, as the Batman Who Laughs is corrupting a number of DC characters, including Supergirl. Actually, so is Hawkman, so that's kind of funny that they are back-to-back on the countdown.

27. Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) – 512 points (15 first place votes)

Kyle Rayner, created by Ron Marz and Daryl Banks, was just an average struggling Los Angeles artist when a strange little man came up to him outside a bar and gave him one of the most powerful weapons in the whole universe.

For quite a time, Kyle was the last Green Lantern in the universe, given the responsibility to carry on for the entire Green Lantern Corps legacy. Kyle soon found that being a hero came with a price, as his girlfriend was murdered by a government agent looking for Kyle's power source.

In fact, Kyle had three notable girlfriends in the old Post-Crisis DCU, all of whom were killed at one point or another. Luckily, two of them at least, Donna Troy and Jade, later returned.

Very early on, Kyle was continually forced to prove himself against Hal Jordan, the greatest Green Lantern ever, who had gone mad and become the villainous Parallax.

Kyle soon got the hang of being a superhero, joining the Titans and then the Justice League of America, where he served with distinction.

When the Green Lantern Corps were finally reborn, Kyle was honored as being the torchbearer for the Corps. He was also given a NEW responsibility, the "Ion" power. However, after getting possessed by Parallax himself, he returned to being a Green Lantern, one of the top members of the Corps.

Eventually, Kyle found himself in charge of a group of beings who represented the various energies of the lantern spectrum (Green, Yellow, Red, Indigo, Blue and Orange) and Kyle became the only being to be able to wear ALL the rings. He then became a sort of White Lantern himself, but eventually tried to split off the power, so as to not drive himself crazy from having TOO much power. During this time, he also developed a relationship with Carol Ferris.

Kyle played a major role in the Tom King Omega Men series, as he was seemingly murdered by the group at the start of the series, but in reality they faked his death and then secretly recruited him to join their ranks.

Kyle made his way back to the Green Lanterns eventually and was once again a major member of the Green Lantern Corps. Recently, he joined the Titans again, just in time for that series to come to a close...

However, he is still a major part of the Green Lantern Corps.

26. Poison Ivy – 518 points (6 first place votes)

Poison Ivy is an odd little duck. Introduced by Robert Kanigher, Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Giella, she first appeared as a normal crook, just one with a great deal more flair than most...

Soon she developed into more of an expert in toxins and stuff like that. Sort of like the Captain America villain Viper.

She also gained an origin and a name (Lillian Rose) from Gerry Conway that Neil Gaiman later retconned for the cooler Pamela Isley origin, which is still around to this day (read about that in this old Abandoned an' Forsaked).

Over time, she gained plant powers and that made her a much cooler villain and I think helped her popularity a ton. Here she is using her powers in No Man's Land, taking revenge over Clayface, who had imprisoned her for a time...

Badass.

In recent years, she has taken on more of an anti-hero role. Her relationship with Harley Quinn has been a major focus of her character over the years, as well. During Heroes in Crisis, she was one the many characters who were killed, but she was resurrected by the end of the series, which was a major source of relief for Harley, who had been framed for the murders. She and Harley now star in their own limited series that launched out of the events of Heroes in Crisis...

Ivy has been a major character in a number of media adaptations of the comics, with her relationship with Harley Quinn originating in the Batman: Animated Series, as their friendship was a major part of a number of episodes. It has only grown deeper in the years since, as a romantic element was eventually introduced, which will be an interesting aspect of their current series together.