After over 1,000 ballots were cast, YOU the reader ranked your favorite DC and Marvel 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 for the rest of November and into December. The countdown continues now...
I used to do sort of "biographies" for each of the characters on the list, but you know what, they're on the Top 100 DC and Marvel characters list, so I think we should be working under the assumption that you all pretty much know the basic information about these characters. Instead, I'll just write about whatever interests me about the character in question, including a notable comic book moment featuring the character.
35 Vision - 393 points (1 first place votes)
Besides a one-off appearance by Wonder Man, the Vision (created by Roy Thomas and John Buscema) was the first Avenger to join the team who had actually debuted in the pages of the Avengers, and like Wonder Man, he was created by an enemy of the Avengers, but also like Wonder Man, the android Vision broke free of his controlling by the evil Ultron, and soon became a valuable member of the Avengers, which made the Vision so happy that he cried...
Vision eventually became basically the backbone of the team, as you could tell from the corner box, which often depicted only the Vision.
Vision began a romance with teammate, the Scarlet Witch, and the two became the second Avenger teammates to marry each other. The two lived wedded bliss, even having twin boys, until double devastation happened. Soon before their children were born, The Vision was injured and had his mind hooked up with an alien computer - the alien computer corrupted The Vision, leading him to attempt to take over the world (in the process, the Vision did create the West Coast Avengers, which existed for quite a long time afterwards). Although the Vision was basically cleared of all wrongdoing, some government officials disagreed, and awhile later, they kidnapped him and took him apart, resulting in him losing all emotion and feelings for the Scarlet Witch.
On the heels of this, it was revealed that their children were not real, as well!! Now basically re-booted, the Vision continued on with the Avengers, and ultimately began to re-establish emotions, even pursuing a romance with his teammate, Carol Danvers. However, when the Scarlet Witch went insane and tore the Avengers apart, one of her moves was to turn the Vision evil, leading to a berserk She-Hulk to tear him apart, apparently killing him.
A rebooted Vision showed up with the Young Avengers, made up of the remnants of Iron Lad's armor, but this Vision had no connection (besides visual) to the original Vision. The original Vision, though, was returned to life and the Young Avengers Vision was destroyed.
The Vision then received his first solo ongoing series by Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta, where the synthezoid created his own suburban family to live a seemingly perfect life (his wife, Virginia, and his son, Vin, and his daughter, Viv), but things are shaken when the Grim Reaper suddenly attacked...
Virginia, Vision's wife, then brutally murdered Grim Reaper to protect her family and the rest of the series became a taut psychological thriller, as Virginia did whatever she could to cover up her action and eventually pulled Vision down with her. It got dark at times - very dark, but at the heart of it all was real emotional depth. These characters were doing these things because of love, or at least what they thought was love.
Currently, the Vision has returned to the Avengers, and is part of the main roster of the team.
34 Namor - 397 (4 first place votes)
Namor, the Sub-Mariner, was created by Bill Everett, and sold to Marvel (nee Timely) Comics, soon becoming one of their "Big Three," along with Captain America and the Human Torch.
Namor was from the lost city of Atlantis, son of a human and an Atlantean, and was one of the comic world's first anti-hero, as he was not exactly definitely on "our" side (his first stories involved him flat out just MURDERING any human that he came across), although that changed with World War II, where Namor supported the Allies against the Axis.
After the war, Namor eventually pretty much vanished, only to return in the pages of the Fantastic Four, where he decided to declare war on humans (although, at the same time, he did like one human a whole lot - Sue Storm, the Invisible Girl).
Over the years, Namor has swung from noble villain (like this famous Daredevil moment)...
to hero to villain to hero to villain to hero (even joining the Avengers!), that you really have to keep a scorecard.
Namor joined the X-Men after the events of Civil War, and he was one of the members of the team who ended up being possessed by the Phoenix Force during Avengers vs. X-Men. While possessed by Phoenix, Namor hit Wakanda with a tidal wave. As a result, he began to escalate conflict between Atlantis and the African country of Wakanda, and Namor and Black Panther became sworn rivals. That drove a good deal of Namor's stories for a few years. This was a key aspect of Jonathan Hickman's "Time Runs Out" storyline in the Avengers titles, as Namor joined forces with Thanos and some other villains to destroy alternate worlds to save our Earth, as bleeds in the Multiverse were leading other worlds to the same space as our Earth and only one Earth could remain, so they decided to destroy the other Earths (Black Panther and the Illuminati were trying to come up with other solutions to the dilemma). Black Panther got his revenge on Namor during all of this mess.
After Secret Wars restored the Multiverse, a number of realities still had to deal with their Earths being destroyed (as the return of the Multiverse saved those worlds that were not already part of the Incursions, but not those that had already been destroyed previously). A group of heroes who were the lone survivors of their respective worlds formed a new Squadron Supreme and killed Namor to avenge their worlds. Later, they had to bring him back to life.
After a brief return to the X-Men, Namor then formed his own group called the Defenders of the Deep, who would protect the oceans by any means necessary, returning Namor to that weird sort of villain/anti-hero role he has rocked for so many decades. In the last few years, Namor has bounced between being a hardcore villain and a bit of an anti-hero. He's one of those characters where you really could just do whatever you want with him, and anyone would be hard-pressed to say, "That doesn't make sense for Namor!" Since EVERything is really on the table with this guy.
33 Punisher (Frank Castle) - 405 points (1 first place vote)
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.
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...
During the Secret Empire storyline, the Punisher was duped into joining Hydra as he felt that whatever Captain America said must be true. When he realized that he had been duped, he spent time hunting down and killing every Hydra agent he could find. Most recently, the Punisher had been given mystical powers by "The Blessing of the Beast" as the Highslayer of The Hand, with a new logo denoting his new, mystical stature. Part of the deal for him to take on this role was for his dead wife, Maria, to be returned to the land of the living. However, at the end of the series, Maria was disgusted by the Punisher's actions in the name of her original death, and tried to kill him. She failed, but she still divorced him (and didn't tell him about the fact that she was pregnant).
The Punisher survived Maria's attack, but lost his powers, and also disappeared from this plane of existence. He was last seen in the alternate dimension known as Weirdworld, where he has become a protector of some orphaned children. Recently, a new Punisher has been introduced in the Marvel Universe.
32 Iron Fist - 407 points (10 first place votes)
Created by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, Danny Rand was on a trip to the mystical city of K'un L'un as a boy when his parents were murdered. The orphan was taken in by Yu-Ti, the ruler of K'un L'un, who trained Danny in the martial artists.
Eventually, Danny became the best of the best, and attempted to become the holder of "the Iron Fist." He succeeded, and now possessed the fist, which allowde him to focus his chi and enhance his natural abilities to far greater than a normal human, and since Danny was one of the world's greatest martial artists withOUT said advantage, you can only imagine how helpful that is.
Danny eventually paired up with the hero Power Man, Luke Cage, as the two formed a hero partnership and a great friendship that lasts to this day, even though Danny was missing for a time, and Luke was accused of murdering him!
Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction, along with artist David Aja, gave Iron Fist an awesome ongoing series called the Immortal Iron Fist, where we learn that K'un L'un is not the ONLY magical city out there!
Iron Fist later joined the Avengers and also formed a new Defenders team with his old friend, Luke Cage (they also revived the Heroes for Hire team, as well). More recently, Danny has given up the Iron Fist title and the power of the Iron Fist, and he has become a mentor to the current Iron Fist (who was previously the superhero known as the Sword Master).
31 Ms. Marvel - 418 points (4 first place votes)
Created by Sana Amanat, Stephen Wacker, G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona, the new Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan, is basically this generation's Spider-Man. She is a kind-hearted young woman who has been thrust into being a superhero and she has embraced the challenge with grace and aplumb, all while never losing what makes her such a special person in the first place (this, of course, is all balanced against her life growing up in a fairly conservative Muslim home in Jersey City). Here she is teaming up with Wolverine (during the period where his healing powers had cut out), showing off her unique outlook on life as they fight a giant mutated reptile...
Kamala really grew into a major part of the Marvel Universe over the past decade, with a stint on both the Avengers and the Avengers spinoff team, the Champions. Recently, while working undercover spying on Norman Osborn, Ms. Marvel befriended Spider-Man (as Peter Parker, he was also working under Osborn). During an attack by a supervillain who was trying to kill Mary Jane Watson, Kamala used her shapeshifting powers to take Mary Jane's form, and was killed in MJ's place.
However, her death was a catalyst for a major change in her destiny in the Marvel Universe, as the X-Men discovered that she was part mutant (her powers came from the fact that she was also an Inhuman, but she also has the X-Gene, it just hadn't kicked in yet, as the fact that her Inhuman powers kicked in first caused her X-Gene to remain dormant), so she was resurrected on Krakoa (at the time, the X-Men were able to resurrect dead mutants). Soon after her resurrection, the X-Men were attacked, and most of the mutants were driven off of Earth. Kamala was one of the few mutants to escape. So she has now joined the underground team of X-Men fighting back against the evil organization known as Orchis. Someday, we might learn what her mutant powers are, as well!