Comic Vine Votes! - Best of the Month ( May 2013) ***RESULTS***

So we are back to doing this poll regularly! Huzzah!

and first month back from our month or so delay (Best of the Month (MAY 2013)) we had 10 voters:

1. BaneStrokeLoboGrundyBatArrow
2. sinestro_GL
3. kamakazi152
4. scouts1998
5. V_Scarlotte_Rose
6. JamesKM716
7. MadeinBangladesh
8. EnigmaLantern
9. The Poet
10. DonFelipe

not bad since I didn't pm anyone minus advertising it in a thread...

REMEMBER TO VOTE FOR THE BEST OF THE MONTH OF JUNE!

Anyway, let’s get down to business, shall we?

Best Writing

1. Green Lantern #20
2. Animal Man #20
3. Daredevil #26
4. Justice League Dark #20
5. Batman #20

Best Interior Art

1. Green Lantern #20
2. Green Arrow #20
3. Flash #20
4. FF #7
5. Justice League Dark #20

Best Cover Art

1. Batwoman #20

• Bikini Cowboy
• Flash 20
• Green Lantern #20
• Superboy #20
• X-men #1

Note: there was a 5 way tie for second place (hense the bullets instead of a ranking)

Best Marvel Comics

1. Thor #8 / Deadpool #9 (TIE)
2. Daredevil #26
3. Avengers: The Enemy Within #1
4. FF#7 / Gambit #13 / Nova #4 (TIE)

Best DC Comics

1. Green Lantern #20
2. Animal Man #20 / Batman #20 (TIE)
3. Batwoman #20
4. Justice League of America

Best Non-Marvel or DC

Going to do something a little different here because the ties are really really bad so I'll list everything for this...

Tied for 1st place:

• Five Weapons #3
• Steed & Mrs. Peel #8
• Ten Grand
• X Fight or Flight #1

Tied for 2nd:

• Clone #7
• Five Ghosts #3
• The Wake

Tied for 3rd:

• East of West
• Son of Merlin #4
• Walking Dead #110

Most Underrated Comic of The Month

No official winner since there is a tie for 1st:

• Animal Man #20
• Avengers: The Enemy Within #1
• Clone #7
• Five Ghosts
• Steed & Mrs. Peel #8
• Superboy #20
• Ten Grand

(if you are tired of me saying the word tie then I would advise you to get more people to vote because we never had this problem when we had more voters...just thought I'd mention it...other wise I may go back to cosmo's system of results was if there was tie the host fixs it based on the other results and I don't personally like that...)

Comic Vine's Male Hero of the Month!

1. Hal Jordan - Green Lantern #20
2. Ant-Man(Scott Lang) - FF#7
3. Batman
4. Martian Manhunter Justice League #20
5. Deadpool - Deadpool #10 / Green Arrow - Green Arrow #20 / Scarlet Spider (TIE)

Comic Vine's Female HeroHeroes of the Month!

1. Batwoman - Batwoman #20 / Captain Marvel - Avengers Assemble 15AU / Avengers: The Enemy Within #1 / Wonder Woman - Wonder Woman #20 (TIE)
2. Atom Justice League #20
3. Penelope (Son of Merlin)
4. Red she-hulk

Comic Vine's Male Villain of the Month!

1. Sinestro
2. Secret Society of Villains Leader - JLA #4
3. Clayface - Batman #20
4. Komodo from Green Arrow #20
5. Kang - Uncanny Avengers #8AU / Kazi (Hawkguy #10) / Prankster Nightwing #20 (TIE)

Comic Vine's Female Villain of the Month!

No official winner since there is a tie for 1st:

• Morgana Le Fey(Morgan Le Fay) - Age Of Ultron #8
• Moon Wonder Woman #20
• Mystique from All New X-Men #11
• Sargon (Constantine)

Comic Vine’s Wild Card: Best Ending of the Month

1. Green Lantern #20
2. Justice League of America #4
3. Animal man #20
4. Avengers Assemble #15AU / Hawkeye #10 / talon #7 / Uncanny X-men #5 (TIE)

If you have a suggestion for next month's wild card category, post it below.

Comic Vine's Best Comic of The Month!

1. Green Lantern #20 with 49.5 points
2. Animal Man #20 with 15 points
3. FF#7 with 13 points
4. Batwoman #20 with 12 points
5. Daredevil #26 with 11 points

@banestrokelobogrundybatarrow@sinestro_gl@kamakazi152@scouts1998@v_scarlotte_rose@jameskm716@madeinbangladesh@enigmalantern@donfelipe

thanks everyone for voting! here are the results.

Please remember to vote in Best of the Month of June which will be posted on June 26th, 2013!

Also: if you have any suggestions for this month's wild card category, post below!

I love that Captain Marvel sort of tied with herself in the best female hero category. :)

@v_scarlotte_rose said:

Poet should have broken the tie here and let Captain Marvel win.

I kind of agree, but I'm not sure if it's quite fair, as I think Batwoman only appeared in one issue in May.

I'd say Captain Marvel beat Wonder Woman though.

no she wouldn't have won nessasily, but here is the problem: I can't separate the two appearences. There were users voted for "Ms Marvel" without listing which appearence (why they said Ms rather than captain is odd since she's been known as captain for a little bit., but anyway...)

So, it might be unfair I supose, but some users don't fill out the needed information like appearences which forces me to combine a character's appearences in a month as you can see here. Irrates me beyond belief that I have to do things like this to keep their votes in the collection (if you notice Green Lantern got 49.5 total points which was caused by a user not understanding that "Best Writing" doesn't mean "best writer" (and they listed several titles and thus I had to split their votes).

Appologies for the madness which is this poll (of course all of that is beyond my control but anyway). I will say though that Captain Marvel with her 2 appearences (which are combined I should say) are equal to Wonder Woman and Batwoman's totals. each got 6 pts. Can't really tell you exactly how much CM would get if we seperated her appearences without calculating the two totals again.

@v_scarlotte_rose

Speaking of fair, what about the winner for Female Villain of the Month?
Morgana La Fey

Here the Poet oddly combined your and my vote. However my vote was for Morgana from Son of Merlin (Top Cow/Image) and not Age of Ultron (Marvel). It's funny to combine their votes. Technically they might be the same (evil witch) but they're from different universes somehow (and publishers). Perhaps they had used their magic and telepathy on the Poet and apparently got away with it. In fact yours got away with it ...all the glory. Lol.

@donfelipe: well, that was an honest mistake in my defense. I'll fix the results...

@donfelipe: forgot to say: fixed.

sidenote: I love all these ties...need to fix the system again if we have these low numbers again because all these ties are a little ridiculous...

Awesome results, not really surprised about the best comic of the month result, GL #20 was pretty awesome.

@the_poet thanks for the heads up on the results post. I'd suggest for Wild Card for June perhaps... Best Beginning (of new arc or new event)? Just a quick suggestion, not saying it should definitely be there.

@the_poet: I like Sinestro but of course he's a villain. He's a sympathetic one and I could see how that would throw people off as we feel bad for him a lot, but lets not forget he's a fascist who wants to rule through order and totalitarianism. So yeah, he's a villain. I'd maybe consider an anti-villain possibility as he sometimes helps out the good guys for a common enemy, but that's as far as I'd go.

@extremis: I would like to dispute your statement about him "of course" being a villain. I would definitely agree he should be considered a villain or at least an anti-hero. for goodness sake he SPOILER! killed almost all the guardians in that issue. But what else did he do in Green Lantern #20 to make him be considered a villain? He was not trying to be a "fascist who wants to rule through order and totalitarianism" in that issue (maybe he'll do that in his next appearance or in the september issue). There is no plot to take over a world or anything for that matter. He did what he did because he thought it would end all the evil brought by those blue men. That twisted logic would be considered evil. However, he was by far not the antagonist of the issue. The antagonist was first Lantern who everyone INCLUDING SINESTRO fought against.

Was Sinestro's tactics at the end a little over the top to the point it could be considered evil? probably. But we also saw him as being kind at the end (if you read the issue you would know he was not fully hard core evil because of what he did or rather didn't do). I don't have any thing other than the killing I can think of which would make him be considered a villain, can anyone else? (and I'm talking ONLY in the month of MAY). And even if we accept killing as the worst thing this month then I guess everyone forgot there was a guy (first lantern) "with the intent to reach into the fabric of history and unwind it for [his] own twisted purposes" (to quote gauntlet). they have to summon Necron, have to use Parallax to say nothing of all of the corps fighting TOGETHER against this force. so I would say Sinestro's one action at the very end is dwarfed by everything First Lantern was doing. Everyone had been angry at the Guardians for that Third Army nonsense. All Sinestro did was a step up from what everyone else was thinking.

What he did was evil I agree, but I don't think that makes him the best villain of the month. There was a bigger villain in that issue other than Sinestro to say nothing of villains from other series.

So my point is that he IS a villain, BUT he was NOT a villain this month or at least NOT the biggest one. This poll is not about combining previous appearances from all of the character's history (that is a top 100 list's job). it is one month and one issue (unless something happens) that we focus on and NOTHING more (hense the Best of the MONTH).

WELL DESERVED GREEN LANTERN!!

and YAY for Animal Man!!

@the_poet: but it's impossible not to consider who the character is in totality. And considering this specific issue was basically an ode to Sinestro, it's fitting that he'd be the villain of the month. And as you said, he IS a villain. Him doing good things temporarily doesn't change that.

@extremis: I believe I need to explain the purpose of these threads.

I'm not sure if you are aware, but I have hosted a series of "Top 100" Community Projects (the most recent of which is Spider-man's top 100 stories which is in final Order voting). Those projects focus on stories or characters from any time period in comic book history (present to past). They are designed as snap shots of opinions on what people like/dislike to better reflect the participating community at the time.

Later I took over this poll. these threads are different from my "top 100" projects in the sense that they are more specific in time period and appearances. You can't just vote Spider-man like you would in our annual top 100 superheroes list. Instead, you are limited to a specific month. So it is less about who the character is and what they did in the past and more about what the characters did that month and who the participants favor. You can say " impossible not to consider who the character is in totality" but we've been doing it for the past year and I have to say it's worked fairly well. The point I make in telling you all this is that this poll is not a top 100 list. we don't take a general snap shot. we go more specific and focus only on a one month period and only the events of that month. If we didn't focus on just a month we would have a harder time. We would have to consider what the character has done in the past. Take the characters nominated for each of the catagories and see if you can take a character from one catagory of hero/villain and fit it into it's oposite. Some characters have past events which could have them be considered villains or heroes. That is not a realistic system so we focus on a time period.

I don't believe Sinestro should have won Best villain of the Month, because I don't believe he was a villain IN THIS MONTH. He did things in the issue, but nothing that would make me think would let him be the best. Let's look at the top 3 villains this month: 2nd place: Secret Society of Villains Leader - JLA #4 (reason: apparently killed Catwoman), 3rd Place: Clayface - Batman #20 (reason: fought batman and almost exposed his identity). Punisher kills. Deathpool kills. Why aren't they on best villain? they would have the same reason to be on the list as Sinestro.

Nothing you have listed has persuaded me to not list Sinestro as an Anti-hero on my personal chart for this month. You keep talking about his past actions and you need to talk about the present. He might have been a villain, but he is actually kind in this issue (do I need to even mention Gauntlet? or have you overlooked that?)

@the_poet: it's one thing to disagree if he should have won, but you can't say he wasn't a villain this month as he's always a villain every month. Just because he wasn't killing GLs this month doesn't mean he's not a villain. He was chosen because of how great of conclusion we got to the Sinestro character in Johns' final ish. And rightfully so, as he went out as Parallax and killing Guardians. Pretty villainous if you ask me.

@extremis: so you are saying a hero is always a hero and villain is always a villain? intersting.

You cite the killing of the Guardians but you don't even mention the fact he doesn't kill Gauntlet and reunits him with Sayd. Is that a sign of pretty villainous activity? And what of the book keeper in that issue? would taking that role repent from his sins (assuming he is the same character)?

I think any character would be angry at a group if they were connected to the deaths of a person's homeworld. Would you say Green Arrow would be considered a hero or a villain when he killed Prometheus? or when Wonder Woman killed Maxwell Lord? or when Magog killed Joker in Kingdom Come? or (going non superhero and non-killing) what about when Michonne dismembers the Govenor? Surely there were better ways of solving those events, but in your oppinion would they be heroes or villains if you just based your decision entirely on those appearences alone?

I think we'll have to agree to disgree on this discussion because we both have our own oppinions on this subject and I doubt either of us will change them, but I am interested in how you would answer my questions...

@the_poet said:

Interesting indeed.

I do agree with Poet this voting should be based on the appearance and actions in one comic and month only; if it's a story arc one may consider the actions that had taken place in previous issues (of this arc) in terms of development and cause of action. However we rarely consider Batman to be villain (of the month) though many times he could be exactly that. I consider Batman a vigilante, an anti-hero even, who is doing bad things in many cases, but he usually fights crime and tries not to kill people; especially no innocent bystanders. He tries to serve the people of Gotham and make his city a better place. Most of the time this is considered to be good and heroic hence he's more of a Hero of the Month.

Michonne is another perfect example. What is she? Super-sexy and badass!

I can't say much about Sinestro though. I don't read many GL stories. What I do want to say is there's a thin line between a vigilante and/or anti-hero being considered good or bad; hero or villain. Back to the start, it seems to be difficult at times to ignore the past and history of a character and make our decision only based on the appearances in the previous month but the latter should in fact make a decision between good/hero and bad/villain easier. Did the character do good things? Did he/she serve the greater good? Even a villain can be a hero for a day (month).

@donfelipe: you know...I really enjoy these discussions...Whether they are discussed here on the poll, or on one of the community projects, or else where they are always fasinating to see different perspectives from your own...

I really do think there is a reason why CV doesn't have a hero/villain label on the wiki character pages. People would have edit wars over which label a character better fit under. It would be horrible :)

@the_poet: It's Ganthet. And yes he killed all the other guardians, which makes him a bad guy. Just because he didn't kill Ganthet doesn't mean he wasn't a villain in the issue. He killed all those Guardians. Sinestro thinking he's justified in doing it doesn't mean he is. He murdered people. That's just the mark of his strongheadedness in believing he's ultimately right all the time and that he should be allowed to kill if he thinks so. No one gave him this power, its self prescribed, as no good person could trust him or his twisted judgement. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If Sinestro would listen to the voice of reason I'd say he made a character change to be good. But it's still the same old twisted Sinestro.

He's a villain in the issue (if you want to talk about one appearance). And the votes reflect that.

@the_poet: This is great!

Is there a way I would be able to cast a vote for this month?

@battle_forum_junkie: the voting thread for next month (or rather this month) will be posted on Wednesday, June 26th, 2013. The Best of the Month poll voting thread is always released on the last Wednesday of the month and goes until the first wednesday of the next month (with the results thread released shortly afterward). Love to have your participate.

Apologies for spelling errors on Ganthet. I never claim to be an expert and although it's often been disputed I'm human :P

I should say to the last part I never disputed the votes I originally said I personally was iffy about him being a villain (a personal opinion rather than me disputing the opinions reflected collectively from the participants). I must rephrase myself in saying I'm iffy about him the biggest villain in that issue or the biggest villain of the month, but that's just my opinion and we all have our own opinions. it's what makes us unique...

Speaking of opinions, I'm honestly curious, what is your opinion on these questions: Would you say Green Arrow would be considered a hero or a villain when he killed Prometheus? or when Wonder Woman killed Maxwell Lord? or when Magog killed Joker in Kingdom Come? or (going non superhero and non-killing) what about when Michonne dismembers the Govenor? Surely there were better ways of solving those events, but in your oppinion would they be heroes or villains if you just based your decision entirely on those appearances alone?

@the_poet: I can't say as I've never read any of those.

But as far as Sinestro, I have to maintain that he is a villain. If he was open to other ideas of doing things or clearly had a change in character by the end of Johns run, I could entertain an anti-hero possibility. This debate I think shows Johns did a great job of posing this question as to what makes Hal a hero and Sinestro seen as a villain. They are both extremely similar in their outlook. But it's Sinestro who chooses to see living people as expendable and ultimately that's a big part of the difference between them.

I especially liked the part where the bookkeeper (Sinestro) says that it isn't the story about Sinestro, but rather about Hal Jordan. This is interesting as it reflects the notion how we quickly sweep under the rug how much good a villainous character like Sinestro accomplished. By the end of it, I found that statement to be made out of irony by Johns, as these past 9 years have (arguably) really been about Sinestro's story and NOT Hal's. Sinestro's transformation over Johns' run is the characterization that is most compelling IMO. He did some things that are maybe even heroic, but we can't dismiss that he murdered the Guardians in cold blood. In this sense, Sinestro is Salieri to Hal's Mozart. He's made the footnote to the championed hero. It could be said he is a necessary evil - getting rid of the careless guardians and all. But still evil nonetheless. But regardless he can be so damn likable at times, especially this issue. He's one of those characters you love to hate, as they say.

@extremis: I definitely want to invite you to participate (if you can) in the Best of the Month of June poll which whose voting thread will be released next week, because I definitely enjoyed this debate (love discussions like this in general...) and I think your perspective would be entertaining addition to our participants

@the_poet: wow thanks and that'd be great! What do I do exactly? Just participate? Haha

@extremis: Just to start you thinking, what we always do is a voting thread (speaking of which I forgot to link Comic Vine Votes! - Best of the Month (MAY 2013) in the op...fixed) and I always give a voting template voters can fill out their top 3 for each catagory (minus the Best comic of the month which compiles the non-character related catagory votes to get a grand total ranking).

The June template will be slightly different with a different wild card catagory and I might also tweak the template so users remember to list appearences (because that was a serious problem which sponned alegations that some of this contest was unfair which I agree with and I will strive to make sure it does not happen again with putting "____ [character's name] - [comic book title] #__" or something like that. Just letting @donfelipe and @v_scarlotte_rose know I will work on making sure all voters use our template to prevent another "Ms. Marvel" incident), but anyway....you would get a sense of what we do to create the results of these polls based on the template...

@the_poet: You could maybe try just putting in big letters:

Incorrectly filled in votes will not be counted. Read guidelines thoroughly.

That might get peoples attention. :)

Though if you think tweaking the format would be better, you're probably right. It's your system after all.

@v_scarlotte_rose: we'll just have to play this by ear I supose and if we have our usual 20 this coming poll (since I have time to communicate with people this time), then I might do that.

something I am remembering now is that I won't be here the week afterwards (the week of July 3rd) due to my annual canoeing and camping trip, so what I might do is extend the deadline so it is not June 26-July 3rd but rather June 26-July 6th (or so). That might also help some late comers and allow me time to bother voters about what appearance they mean when they vote for say Wonder Woman for example. I might also vote first rather than last like I usually do so they have a good example of what I'm looking for...

but like I said, we'll just have to play this by ear...

@the_poet: I imagine people wouldn't mind a 3 day extension, so that seems like a good idea. And there must be reasons for certain votes, so I'd imagine it wouldn't be so hard to get a complete answer if you ask for more information.

Can I just check, have I been voting correctly? I'd hate to be messing things up.

@v_scarlotte_rose: glancing at least at the voting thread for this one you look fine to me...I would have to look at the past spreadsheets or voting threads, but it seems to me you are fine when it comes to voting...

Adjusting the format will certainly help to remind people of providing complete information; at least the comic title should always be mentioned.

"____ [character's name] - [comic book title] #__"

That looks fine but it's quite annoying to select and replace the parts. Try the following format below - this way it's much easier to double-click on each part/detail and fill in the blanks accordingly:

1. CharactersName - ComicBookTitle - #xxx
2. CharactersName - ComicBookTitle - #xxx
3. CharactersName - ComicBookTitle - #xxx

and

1. ComicBookTitle - #xxx
2. ComicBookTitle - #xxx
3. ComicBookTitle - #xxx

@the_poet: Cool. I think I vote the same kind of way each time, so it looks like I'm alright. :)

This actually does seem like a good idea. It would make it clear exactly what needs to be put in each line.

@donfelipe: yeah, that would probably work much better...

also compiling would be easier for me because I wouldn't have to get rid of all the "1st", "2nd" "3rd" or similar words. just need to remove the programed numbers

I could live with that new format...