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. Gambit – 523 points (17 first place votes)

Gambit is sort of like the Chachi of the X-Men. He was introduced out of nowhere, thrown into the popular group dynamic, suddenly became a major character, starts dating the young, popular female on the show to the point where their relationship practically dominates the storyline, then the backlash happens and all those Chachi T-Shirts are thrown out and people pretend that they never liked "Wah wah wah" as a catchphrase or tied bandannas around their jeans.

The same thing happened to Gambit. He shows up out of nowhere and became one of the most popular members of the X-Men, but got so tied to a particular era of the X-Men that when people turned against that particular era, he was sort of the poster boy of that time period, so he got mocked mercilessly.

I mean, don't get me wrong, he deserves most of it, but don't practically ALL of the X-Men? Gambit's no sillier than the tiny guy who always moans about how he is the best that there is and what he is the best at isn't pretty (is he talking about being really good at unclogging toilets?). Granted, Gambit DID break Banshee's jaw that one time, so screw him, but still, he doesn't deserve any more derision than any other X-Man.

Gambit showed up in the pages of Uncanny X-Men as an aide to Storm, who, at the time, was de-aged. Created by Chris Claremont, Gambit was an incorrigible rogue who Claremont originally planned to have turn out to be a villain, but the character grew so popular, the plans were dropped, and Gambit became one of the most popular members of the X-Men.

In one of his early battles as a member of the X-Men, Claremont and Jim Lee gave him an awesome scene, like, every other page in their fight against the Skrulls!

Growing up, Gambit's people were not too bright, so they actually had to form guilds so that everyone would know what their job was. Gambit was in the Thieves' Guild, and he became quite the master thief. Along the way, he had problems with his powers (Gambit can charge objects with kinetic energy then throw them and they explode) so he went to Mister Sinister, who agreed to help him in exchange for Gambit putting together a team of marauders called, well, the Marauders. Again, Gambit is not the sharpest card in the deck, so it just occurred to him as he was leading this group of killers into the tunnels of New York that they were up to no good. This was the Morlock Massacre.

Later, when Gambit was a member of the X-Men, and had done a lot of good, his role in the Mutant Massacre was revealed, and the X-Men kicked him out for a time. He eventually returned, and in one of the odder turn of events you could expect, he and Rogue each ended up leading one half of the X-Men.

Rogue ended up being on the team of X-Men who searched for the Diaries of Destiny, and she met up with Gambit again. They lost their powers and settled down for a relationship. Eventually, their powers came back and they re-joined the X-Men. In a particularly notable example of incompetence, Gambit blinded himself with one of his own playing cards (he would charge playing cards up with energy then throw them). That eventually healed, but he and Rogue had continued problems and Gambit eventually decided to join up with Apocalypse (hey, no one ever said he was a brilliant thinker) and become a Horseman of Apocalypse. This did not work out so well, and Gambit headed off with another one of Apocalypse's Horseman, Sunfire, for one of the most bizarre friendships ever. Eventually, they joined up with Mister Sinister's Marauders, only Gambit, naturally, was just pretending to go along to protect Rogue.

After that whole mess went down, Gambit and Rogue worked out their problems and Rogue managed to control her powers enough to kiss Gambit without it being an issue. Eventually, their relationship progressed to the point that the two married each other. This led to an awesome series starring the two by Kelly Thompson and Oscar Bazaldua...

He and his new wife are going to be part of the new Excalibur.

29. Spider-Man (Miles Morales) - 538 points (8 first place votes)

Created by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli, Mile Morales took over as Spider-Man from Peter Parker in the Ultimate Universe after Peter was tragically killed in battle against the Green Goblin.

Miles' journey to being a superhero hit a snag when he realized that his own uncle was a supervillain (his uncle had actually stolen the genetically mutated spider that bit Miles and gave him his powers in the first place). Miles, though, is such a sweet kid that that comes out big time in his work as a hero. He has such a big heart. Maybe even more so than Peter Parker!

Pichelli's design of Miles stands out, as she gave him such stunning fluidity.

Miles soon met the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker, in a crossover called Spider-Men...

After Secret Wars, the Ultimate Universe was temporarily taken off of the page and Miles and his family were merged into the regular Marvel Universe, where he has remained ever since.

Miles was the main character in the recent Academy Award-winning film, Into the Spider-Verse, which opened Miles up to a whole new degree of fame. He has been one of Marvel's biggest new character in recent years.

28. Emma Frost – 551 points (19 first place votes)

Created by John Byrne and Chris Claremont, Emma Frost was a member of the Hellfire Club, an ancient organization who had nefarious plans for the X-Men.

Frost was a telepath, and clashed with the X-Men a number of times. Frost had started up her OWN school for mutants, and she sought to bring Kitty Pryde to her school. She failed.

Later on, when Xavier added a new group of young mutants to his school, the group clashed often with Frost's group of young mutants, known as the Hellions.

Sadly, in a vicious attack, most of Frost's Hellions were murdered by a sneak attack by the evil Trevor Fitzroy. Frost was put into a coma in the same attack.

When she recovered, she was naturally distraught over the deaths of her charges, and basically turned over a new lead, agreeing to be the co-head of a new Xavier school, which would be based at the site of her old school.

This group of students (known affectionately as Generation X) were taught by Emma and Sean Cassidy (Banshee). Eventually, though, the students tired of Emma and Cassidy (who were both going through significant trauma in their lives), and all left the school.

Emma ended up traveling to the mutant nation of Genosha, which was at one time greatly suffering from the Legacy virus, but once it was cured, became a thriving mutant community. Frost began teaching there, until the evil Cassandra Nova led a Sentinel attack upon the nation of 16 million, killing almost every single mutant on the island.

It was at this time that Frost developed a secondary mutation - the ability to form her body into a sort of diamond form.

With her second group of students murdered, Frost decided to join the X-Men to help her revenge herself upon Nova. She grew comfortable there, as finally she was somewhere where all the students didn't die on her.

After carrying out an affair with the X-Man, Cyclops, Emma was shocked to find she was actually in LOVE with Cyclops, and after the death of Cyclops' wife, Jean Grey, the two began a relationship, and also took over as co-heads of Xavier's school, which was now much smaller due to the events of Decimation, where Scarlet Witch wiped out almost all mutants on Earth.

This led to her taking on some drastic measures, such as getting Namor to align with the X-Men in a classic annual by Matt Fraction where she arranges a deal with Namor to deliver his loyalty to her by gaining revenge on Shaw (flashbacks show Namor and Shaw's fights in the past)- to achieve this, she takes some rather...extreme measures.

Extreme but awesomely delivered by Fraction.

She was one of the X-Men possessed by the Phoenix Force during Avengers vs. X-Men. It sort of threw a wrench into her relationship with Cyclops, but she continued to work with him. When he was killed by the Terrigen Mists of the Inhumans, Emma Frost then used her powers to make everyone believe that Cyclops was still alive. "Cyclops" then led to the X-Men into war against the Inhumans and Emma took control of Magneto's mind and forced him to slaughter a number of Inhumans. Once the war was over and her deceit was revealed, Emma had to go on the run. She later created her own mutant nation during Secret Empire. Recently, she has been worked back into the fold with the rest of the mutants in House of X.

27. Venom – 564 points (6 first place votes)

Venom combined two popular Spider-Man plots from the mid-80s, the tale of the alien costume that Spider-Man got during Secret Wars (that turned out to be a symbiote that wanted to bond with Spidey) and the Death of Jean DeWolff (where the mysterious Sin-Eater killed Spider-Man's cop friend, Jean DeWolff). During the Jean DeWolff storyline, a man confessed to being the Sin-Eater but it was all a hoax. Well, the reporter who reported it was Eddie Brock and he was ruined when Spider-Man discovered the REAL Sin-Eater. Now out of work, Brock discovered the alien costume and the pair bonded together to form a being who really hated Spider-Man. They called themselves Venom.

Now, to be frank, a GREAT deal of Venom's appeal came in the way that Todd McFarlane drew him. Here is his intro...

And here is one of their fights...

McFarlane sure knew how to make Venom appear distinctive!

Venom believed that he/it/they was a good guy and Spider-Man was a jerk. So Venom had this whole thing about protecting "innocents." This ultimately led to Spider-Man and Venom having a short-lived truce while Venom went across the country and was an anti-hero for awhile.

Eventually Venom returned to New York but Brock had developed cancer. The two split and the Venom symbiote bonded with a few other guys, most prominently Flash Thompson, before Eddie got the symbiote back and has become more of a traditional hero character with the symbiote. He is also learning some hidden secrets about the symbiote, particularly its past on Earth.

26. Punisher – 570 points (5 first place votes)

Created by Gerry Conway and artists John Romita and Ross Andru, Frank Castle was a Marine veteran with a lovely wife and great kids who saw his life torn about one sunny day, when, at the park, his family was caught in a mob gun battle, leaving Castle a widower with no children.

He basically snapped, and thereby began a one-man war on crime as the Punisher.

Unlike other heroes, Castle killed - and he killed a LOT.

And that's basically what he's been doing ever since.

Garth Ennis had an amazing run on the Punisher's book, including showing when Frank first became the Punisher, when he accepted the darkness during Vietnam...

Punisher has long had a bit of a hero worship deal going on with Captain America and when Captain America seemingly threw in his lot with Hydra, the Punisher briefly decided to join in. He came to his senses, though, and has since dedicated himself to eradicating Hydra and sort of redeem his already kind of messed up name (from, you know, all the murdering).