When you ask your friends their favorite superhero, what do they say?
“Well, I like Wolverine, cuz he kicks ass.”
“Batman, Dude! You know, ‘The Dark Knight.’”
“The Tick. He’s funny, and I have the same color spandex.”
“I… don’t know. That’s a really stupid question.”
Now, while we can all appreciate this random survey of my roommates (and reel at their collective ability to master the English language), there’s obviously something flawed about their method of judging ‘the gifted folk.’ When you get right down to it, there’s got to be some way to objectively rank superheroes (note: this discussion will not address super heroines. That’s an entirely different can of worms. With breasts). So, I had my best men get down and dirty on the issue and find what was the simplest and best method of judging who was the best.
(Before I go any further, I should note that my friends were ecstatic about the news that they were my best men. Then they were pissed that I wasn’t even getting married and that I’d even brought the idea up. Then they left when I told them what I wanted their help for, so I ended up doing this whole thing on my own.)
The long and the short of it:
What makes a superhero really cool and therefore the best? Their dependability? Their muscles? Their costume? Their secret identity? How cool their friends are? Or should we judge them on their enemies? Their one liners? Their eating disorders? How they got their powers?
The answer: well, yeah, if you want to spend all of your time asking all of these questions and then plugging these results into some complex algorithms. I think that’s a waste of time. Instead you need only ask one question: How much of a tool is their sidekick? Now you may be raising some concerns about this answer, but think about it. What are sidekicks for? To get the hero out of a jam when Skeletor’s stolen He-Man’s sword. So, if the hero’s got a load of bricks for a sidekick, that usually means he can fend for himself. Unless of course that load of bricks is ten feet tall and named The Thing (from Fantastic Four, but you knew that). Aside from that, though, if the sidekick sucks: more power to the hero. Who are the top 3 superheroes of all time, then?
- Dangermouse: Pinfold the mole is the archetypal geek. DM wouldn’t even let him drive.
- Captain America: His sidekicks’s name? Bucky. Yup. And could often be seen carrying a rolling pin. (http://www.pazsaz.com/capamer.html). Oh yeah, and you’ve got have some major Wahboz if you’re gonna wear a get-up like that.
- The Impossibles: Why? Well, name one other animator that had the guts to name a side kick the “Big D”.