They've been called metahumans. Preternaturals. Mutants. And if you are Rob Liefeld and you haven’t yet had grownups take your company away from you, you may call them Newmen. But comic book and movie fans known them the world over as superheroes. Some have god-like powers, some are just emotionally damaged obsessives who spend way too much time at the gym, but all of them have one thing in common: they are bigger, stronger, faster and / or smarter than everyone else, and use their fantastic abilities to come up with ridiculous costumes to wear as they’re kicking bad guys in the head.
Who are the best of the best of these poorly-dressed superpowered vigilantes? Everyone has their opinion. And most of those opinions are st00p1d, in that they usually reference Grant “Comics Set to Nickelback” Morrison. So here I am, in my usual capacity as someone who is smarter than you and everyone you know (including Grant “OMG U GUYZ Silver Age!!1!” Morrison), to tell you what you should be thinking.
Note: These top five are literally that – five Number Ones. I’m only listing them in the order I am because it’s my fucking blog, and I can do whatever the hell I want. So if you’re going to leave a raging fanboy comment, use it to point out how I’m an idiot because I’m not including Midnighter and/or Ka-Zar, instead of hoping I burn in hell because No. 5 should be No. 3 and No. 1 should be No. 4.
Who are the best of the best of these poorly-dressed superpowered vigilantes? Everyone has their opinion. And most of those opinions are st00p1d, in that they usually reference Grant “Comics Set to Nickelback” Morrison. So here I am, in my usual capacity as someone who is smarter than you and everyone you know (including Grant “OMG U GUYZ Silver Age!!1!” Morrison), to tell you what you should be thinking.
Note: These top five are literally that – five Number Ones. I’m only listing them in the order I am because it’s my fucking blog, and I can do whatever the hell I want. So if you’re going to leave a raging fanboy comment, use it to point out how I’m an idiot because I’m not including Midnighter and/or Ka-Zar, instead of hoping I burn in hell because No. 5 should be No. 3 and No. 1 should be No. 4.
No. 5 IS No. 1. No. 1 IS No. 5. End of yet-to-happen st00p1d nerd fight.
Besides, I’m again using this opportunity to talk about how much Mr. Fantastic sucks. Last time I read the by-laws, that was a far greater “Sin Against the Nerdlective” than any arbitrary list numbering. I know you’ll be frothing in Mountain Dew-scented rage, but please try to remember your trolling priorities here, guys.
Number 5: The Incredible Hulk
Dr. Bruce Banner was a physicist using his advanced understanding of the workings of nature to make a new variety of radioactive bomb for the government (apparently MIT pays for shit). Because God hates it when we try to fiddle with His perfect creation, there was an accident and Banner was exposed to the gamma radiation from his own bomb. So kind of like the Biblical Tower of Babel incident, but with more explosions.
Instead of the radiation killing Banner or giving him cancer or sterilizing him or something else that would make sense, the gamma rays gave him the ability to transform into a giant square-headed monster every time he gets scared or mad. Fortunately for all of us, the Banner were-Frankenstein comes complete with a pair of giant purple pants, so that when the magical bomb radiation expansion tears his clothes off, we never have to see his two foot green monster wang (or two foot gray monster wang, in the original comics).
In his purple pants, the Hulk then punches bridges apart or hurls cars at the police and / or military, who are trying to stop his Rampage!-esque destruction of wherever Banner happens to be when someone makes fun of his nerd glasses. The Hulk also battles other monsters, sometimes to save lives, sometimes just because they are on his turf, I guess because a monster hates nothing more than another monster destroying everything before he gets a chance.
Huh. Now that I think about it, the Hulk barely counts as a hero. But sometimes his car-throwing accidentally stop villains, like if they were about to steal that car. So it counts.
Are YOU going to tell him it doesn’t?
Best Moment: See, there was this one time (the Planet Hulk saga, starting in 2006) when all the other Marvel Comics superheroes finally got sick of the Hulk destroying all their expensive shit. So Namor, Iron Man, Professor X and Mr. Fantastic decided the best way to get rid of the him was to shoot him into space. Because Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic actually sitting the fuck down with all their super-science equipment and trying to come up with a cure for Bruce Banner would have been the non-douchebag thing to do.
So the Hulk ends up on the planet Skaar. Here he kicks so much alien ass that they make him Emperor of Space. At this point he doesn’t change back into Bruce Banner but apparently has Bruce Banner’s brain, and while I can’t remember why this happened, it doesn’t matter, because THE INCREDIBLE HULK IS NOW EMPEROR OF SPACE. At any rate, Space Emperor Hulk marries this alien woman and is just about to settle down to a long life of having sex with an alien woman, when the spaceship carrying her and his mutated, hybrid, unborn son gets blown up. Space Emperor Hulk assumes that the douchebag Marvel heroes must have blown up the ship to remind him that even if he IS Emperor of Space, he’s still not as cool as they are. So he gets another spaceship and goes to Earth to confront them. With an ANGRY ALIEN BRUTE SQUAD.
As you can probably guess, this leads to a lot more expensive shit getting destroyed than if everyone had just left the Hulk alone. In the end the Hulk loses his war, but only because he eventually realizes that sooner or later, he might accidentally BLOW UP THE ENTIRE EARTH. So he lets Iron Man nuke him with satellites, which turns him back into Bruce Banner. At which point he is promptly arrested and locked up in a compound deep underground. Because Namor, Iron Man, Professor X and Mr. Fantastic are dicks.
Worst Moment: Bruce Banner. At this point Bruce Banner is so afraid of turning into the Hulk that he spends most of his time locked in his room, jumping at his own shadow. Which of course only makes it more likely that he’ll turn into the Hulk the moment the wind whistles through the windowsill. Also, because he’s a Marvel character, most of his dialogue is moaning about how much he hates himself because he has superpowers. And you all know how much I love that.
