Remember back when Tigra was brutalized by the Hood and his gang of supervillains? Those were good times. Or they could have been. At the time, it seemed like the only reaction to it was outrage that Brian Michael Bendis would demean a female Avenger like that and accusations of Women In Refrigerators (an overused term now thrown about when just about anything remotely bad happens to a female character) were flying. Did no one stop to think Hey, this could be pretty awesome like I did? It was a brilliant launching pad for Tigra's character to step up like she never had in the Marvel Universe. Because let's be honest, we love Tigra because she's a hot cat woman. It's rare the character actually does something of interest. Here, we finally had Tigra on the verge of a compelling story and everyone seemed too busy with self-righteous rage to take note.
But then time did prove me to be way too optimistic on this one.
Here's what should have happened. Tigra should have joined the New Avengers. They were the primary ones going up against the Hood's gang, and no superhero had more of a vendetta against him than Tigra at this point. The Initiative had failed to protect her and her family like it should have, so it made perfect sense for her to go rogue. Her actions as a pro-registration spy during Civil War would have no doubt come back to bite her on the team, but that would have made things more interesting. Bendis even romantically linked her to a Skrull posing as Hank Pym. There's something that could have paid off well during Secret Invasion.
Instead, the biggest thing for Tigra was getting knocked up by a Skrull. Because coming out of Secret Invasion, readers in general wanted more Skrull drama. And the potential of Tigra having a half Skrull child didn't at all convolute a character who had enough trouble hitting it big.
I'm not ignoring Avengers: the Initiative. The threads Bendis left were picked up on in that book, and Christos Gage is a solid writer. But come on. Tigra's reward for getting humiliated in a top-selling title was getting to lead group made up mostly of New Warriors rejects as a subplot in a mid-selling book. Not exactly the deal of the century.
Tigra had the opportunity to hit it big on the Avengers scene for once. It's a shame Marvel fell short of delivering.
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A little late on this one, but I couldn't just leave it at a list for Marvel. DC's list was a little tougher. It was hard to find many characters who had a consistently good decade in the DCU. Most of the time it seemed like a good run for a character would be balanced out or outweighed by some pretty terrible stuff also in the decade. Batman's a prime example of that, if anyone wonders why he isn't on the list. But here it is: the top DC characters of 2000-2009.
10. Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)
This was the decade Hal Jordan made a triumphant return and retook the spotlight of the Green Lantern franchise. Thanks to Geoff Johns and an assortment of top artists, Green Lantern was one of the company's bestselling titles for the rest of the decade with Hal Jordan at the forefront, benefiting the most. His origin was retold, his villains fleshed out and added to, and greater detail and thought went into framing the Green Lantern Corps he belonged to. 2009 came to an end with Hal Jordan starring in DC's event Blackest Night and being set up to lead his own unique Justice League of America lineup.
9. Captain Cold
Somehow, the Flash's Rogues become one of the most interesting villain groups in comics. The characters were colorful and campy at first glance, but Geoff Johns turned each of them into three-dimensional human beings. No longer did they seem outrageous. They became grounded and relatable. You understood who they were, and why they did the things they did. Chief among the Rogues was Captain Cold. He stopped being a joke villain with an ice gimmick. He epitomized the working class metacriminal. He was smart and dangerous without being a villainous mastermind. He just had common sense and a set of rules. Later writers of the Flash would drop the ball on the development Johns had accomplished with Cold and the other Rogues, but reparations came during Final Crisis with Rogues' Revenge. Captain Cold was back to form, and with Geoff Johns returning to the Flash franchise, it looked like things would stay that way.
8. The Question (Renee Montoya)
Renee Montoya was a character from the animated series who had found her way into comics in the nineties, but it was during this past decade that she really shone. Greg Rucka took the character under his wing when he first came to Detective Comics and stuck with her through what became years of excellent writing and development. From Detective Comics, she went on to be a main character in the critically acclaimed Gotham Central. Following that, 52 followed her journey into the next Question, and two limited series later, she was back where she belonged in Detective Comics.
7. Green Arrow (Oliver Queen)
Overlooking a hero returning from the dead is hard to do, especially when that return is followed by almost ten years of good writing. Oliver Queen was brought back in 2001 by Kevin Smith, followed by an arc from Brad Meltzer and a prolonged run by Judd Winick. Through this time, he reunited with his former sidekick Roy Harper, rekindled things with Black Canary, embraced his biological son Connor Hawke and picked up a new Speedy in Mia Dearden. The Arrow Family became one of the closest and most compelling families in the DC Universe, and Oliver Queen went on to appear prominently in othe rmajor books, such as Identity Crisis. The decade may have come to an end with Green Arrow & Black Canary in an unstoppable nosedive of quality, but Oliver Queen spent most of it as one of DC's most engaging and interesting characters.
6. Superman
The Man of Steel got off to a shaky start at the turn of the century. Honestly, it seemed a lot like DC had run out of ideas for what to do with Superman ever since they killed him. But this was the decade things began shaping up again for the man meant to be DC's top hero. Writers like Kurt Busiek, Greg Rucka and Mark Verheiden began pulling together all the frayed edges of Superman's franchise and set the stage for Geoff Johns to really revitalize things. As bad as the idea of bringing in 100,000 other Kryptonians seemed at first, New Krypton worked to not only expand on Superman's heritage in ways never done before but also to show what makes the character so great even in a population with powers equal to his own. And if that was not enough, this was also the decade of Mark Millar's Red Son and Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman.
5. Booster Gold
Here's one of those characters who came out of nowhere. Booster Gold was one of those characters thought well past his prime, back in the days of Justice League International. It took the death of Ted Kord to shine a new light on Booster in the Omac Project and beyond. He went on to be one of the main characters in 52, spinning off from there into his own series. The most surprising thing was just how successful his ongoing series was, becoming one of DC's top selling ongoings thanks to Geoff Johns. Booster Gold carved out his own niche in the DC Universe as its new premiere time hero, and the decade came to an end with his series outlasting his original run.
4. Catman
Catman was even more nowhere than Booster Gold. He appeared early in the decade as a loser of a crook well past his prime, and somehow he became one of DC's more badass villains. This was all thanks to Gail Simone. He appeared in Villains United as part of a new Secret Six and was immediately welcomed with a new fan following. It only took a few limited series and appearances before he and the rest of the Six were given their own ongoing series that persisted for the rest of the decade. Catman never had it so good. It probably helped that he ended up naked a lot. It was a cold, but good, decade for Catman.
3. Oracle
Barbara Gordon was already well established as Oracle before this decade began, but this was the decade of Birds of Prey, where she really became a character to be reckoned with in the DC Universe. She broke away from the Bat-franchise and along with Black Canary was treated as one of DC's top female heroes. It was a shame that Birds of Prey didn't make it to the end, but there's no doubt that the book had a good run. Oracle remained a major player even though she returned to the Bat-family, adopting the role of mentor over the newest Batgirl.
2. Sinestro
Hal Jordan wasn't the only one brought back in Green Lantern: Rebirth. Sinestro used to be the epitome of the mustache twirling villain cliche. Just look at him. He even has a mustache for twirling. Geoff Johns didn't make him any less a villain, but Johns did expand on Sinestro's motivations. In his own way, Sinestro was trying to save the universe and he created his own Corps for the job. He had friends, loves and a daughter. Throughout the decade, we saw Sinestro at his best and at his worst. We saw him in his days as the greatest Green Lantern and the seeds being planted that would lead to his eventual downfall. We saw him lead a war against the combined might of the Green Lantern Corps and Earth's heroes. The decade came to the end in the middle of Blackest Night, where we saw Sinestro as one of the last hopes for fighting back the darkness. Sinestro was arguably the true star of Geoff Johns' Green Lantern run.
1. Mr. Terrific
Created in the late nineties, it was this decade when Mr. Terrific rose in the ranks of DC's characters. The character was redesigned and joined the JSA as the third smartest man in the world. It wasn't just hyperbole, because it wasn't long before Mr. Terrific was appearing all over the DC Universe as one of its most brilliant heroes. Soon, he was the chairman of the Justice Society of America and then went on to be the White King of Checkmate. No other character in the DC Universe had anywhere near the ten years worth of quality writing and growth that Mr. Terrific had, making him the #1 hero of the decade.
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Lists seem to be the thing to do at the end/beginning of a year. So here is a list of the top Marvel characters of the past decade. These are the characters who stood out and made out the best in the past ten years. This was their decade.
10. Punisher
Welcome back, Frank. Has Frank Castle ever had a better writer than Garth Ennis? His multiples series tanked out in the mid-nineties and desperate tries to revive interest in him left him an avenging angel no writer or reader wanted to touch. In 2000, Garth Ennis brought Frank back to his roots. It wasn't just a good run. It was multiple runs. It was nearly a decade worth of material spanning a limited series, a Marvel Knights ongoing and the flagship title of the MAX line. Frank Castle didn't need gimmicks or a slew of colorful guest stars. He was a critically acclaimed force of nature issue after issue. Ennis' Punisher material was so good it overshadowed Matt Fraction's Punisher: War Journal, a mediocre series that seemed transplanted from the nineties. Despite that, Frank has never had it better than he has in the past decade.
Now, it's Frankencastle entering the next decade. Something about that tells me old Frank won't be making this list in 2020.
9. Thor
Just because a guy spends a couple years dead doesn't mean it wasn't a good decade for him. Thor came back from Ragnarok better than he ever was. No longer was his speech pattern a Shakespearean tragedy in and of itself. No longer did a Viking god run around in a leotard and tights. Between JMS' ongoing series and Matt Fraction's oneshots, Thor and his fellow Asgardians came back as true warriors of myth.
8. Nick Fury
For awhile there, Nick Fury became a parody of himself. A cigar-chomping, gruff, unshaven guest star who'd show up to bark cliches at Wolverine or whoever the feature star was and do little else. Fury stepped up his game this past decade, spending much of it underground engaging in his own secret wars under the pen of Brian Michael Bendis and Jonathan Hickman. A glorified guest star no more, Fury's become a driving force in the Marvel Universe again. Meanwhile in the Ultimate Universe, Nick Fury became Samuel L. Jackson. Enough said there.
7. Iron Fist
This was the decade of the Immortal Iron Fist, and Danny Rand has never been better. Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction's run will go down in history as the ultimate Iron Fist story and cemented him as Marvel's kung fu star. Duane Swierczynski followed their run with a quality run of his own. In the end, Danny Rand had a rich mythology and cast of characters unlike anything he ever had before. Best of all, he abandoned the bare-chested, ballet slippered look for better design. He also became a more high profile character, appearing in Civil War and Secret Invasion. He joined the New Avengers, though more as a background character than a feature player. Even though his series didn't quite survive the decade, this was the time when Iron Fist mattered.
6. Cyclops
Scott Summers has become the man. For years, he was being treated as the boring boy scout of the X-Men. The lame duck of the Scott/Jean/Logan love triangle. The guy the cool characters had to oppose to earn their cred. This was the decade all of that changed. He became the focal point of a love triangle of his own. He became the true leader of the X-Men, making the hard decisions others couldn't do. The mutant race united behind him and not Xavier or Magneto, and the character stepped up to be the leader he was groomed to be from the beginning.
5. Bucky Barnes
A cardinal rule of comics was broken. Bucky was brought back from the dead. And it was brilliant. A new vision looked back at the Bucky of the past, and the teen sidekick became a young elite commando. The dead hero became simply lost, and the Winter Soldier emerged. Bucky's ongoing struggle became another reason to read Captain America every month, and then he became the book's star after Steve Roger's death. The success of Bucky's seamless transition into the role of Captain America easily makes him one of the top characters of the decade.
4. Nova
While most other New Warriors went downhill, Richard Rider faced off against Annihilus and became Marvel's leading man on the cosmic scene. He became the universe's last remaining lawman, much like Kyle Rayner became DC's only Green Lantern in the nineties. Except in this case, the concept of being the last man holding the line in the universe was capitalized on. Nova stayed a space-faring hero in an increasing chaotic universe. And when he did return to Earth, he and Iron Man talked as equals rather than a founding Avengers talking to a young rookie. Nova's status quo had been permanently changed and elevated. That happens when you have the balls to reach down a monster's throat and tear out its heart.
3. Luke Cage
Over the past decade, Luke Cage has been a textbook example of how to elevate a character. As Brian Michael Bendis rose in Marvel, so did Luke Cage. Cage began with just guest appearances in Daredevil and Alias. Then as the father of Jessica Jones' baby, he joined her in the Pulse. Finally, when Bendis kicked off New Avengers, Cage took center stage as an Avenger. He was the stubborn force that held the team together in the aftermath of Civil War, when he became the de facto leader of the team. He finished off the decade still as a major member of the Avengers franchise and a far cry from the puffy shirted, "Sweet Christmas!" character he had once been.
2. Jamie Madrox
Where the hell did this character come from? Multiple Man was a C-list X-character even at his best on X-Factor in the nineties. A fun character to be sure, but he was always just a supporting player. Then out of nowhere, he starred in a limited series by Peter David so well received that it developed into a whole new X-Factor book with him as its primary star. He was suddenly a noir-ish mutant detective running an agency, and it worked. His title survived having its concept undercut not once but twice by major status quo changes in the X-Men franchise as Mutant Town becomes no more and all remaining mutants relocate to the west coast. The decade ended with X-Factor being renumbered to #200, and Madrox continuing on strong.
1. Daredevil
The top character of the decade really couldn't have been anyone else. No other character has had such a continuous stretch of quality work than Daredevil. Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Andy Diggle. Daredevil went through multiple writers without ever dropping in quality. Each run blended seamlessly together with the next writer continuing on from the cliffhanger the previous writer had left them, making it feel like Daredevil has been on one long epic all decade. Matt Murdock had his identity temporarily exposed to the public. He married. He became the new Kingpin of Hell's Kitchen. He went to prison and then went fugitive. He became the new lord of the Hand. Daredevil's story never stopped and never slowed down.
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