According to this entry about George Perez in wikipedia, he himself does not have a favorite Superhero, which is why he likes to illustrate team books.

http:// en.wikipedia .org/wiki/George_P%C3%A9rez#Personal_life

I don't know about ya'll, but I find this to be incredibly profound, ESPECIALLY from such a prominent and prolific creator and artist in the industry (especially considering the track record for intelligence and rampant fanboyism and hate they can be known for (*Cough* Frank Miller and Chuck Austen *Cough*).

That single statement alone has been able to put to words something I've been feeling for a long time but haven't been able to fully express.

Sure, I'm a Superman fan, but that doesn't mean I can't like or get into any of the other DC or Marvel characters just as much and wouldn't come to their defense with as much gusto (or Aquman's. Poor, poor, Aqua-man. Seriously. Him and Supes seems to get it the worst today thanks to the Super Friends. Sure, I don't hate that show and find it full of Silver Age awesomeness, but that still don't excuse it for what it did to the public consciousness around the two, making people so ignorant and prejudiced that they won't even listen to arguments of both of their fans (NOT fanboys. There's a difference between those two, at least for me) that the Super Friends has been an inaccurate portrayal of both characters for decades and write them off as stupid mad men. Did Martin Luther King Junior teach ya'll nuthin'!?).

I just wish there were less fanboys on both sides so that I don't being ashamed of liking any characters that are compared to another, because, at the end of the day, they're (typically) both heroes and that's what matters the most. That their both on the side of good and willing to make sacrifices for it against those that would see good snuffed out.

Hence, why, if you put a gun to my head, you'd have to blow my brains out, because I WILL NOT, and REFUSE to say that I have a favorite superhero.

What are you're thoughts?

Um...frankly, I think it's a little silly.

I know who my favorite superheroes and supervillains are...and I get new ones overtime. As I read more comics, my opinions are continually reassessed and changed. To be so affected by the opinions of a few bad apples that you don't even want to have a favorite superhero seems a tad bit of an overreaction. Competition and comparisons are a big part of any fandom, and it's natural to come to the defense of your favorite heroes. As long as everything is kept in line, and we realize that these are all just fictional characters, it's all good.

I didn't come to this conclusion JUST out of reaction to bad apples. I came to this conclusion based on the fact that the majority of not all TRUE comic books heroes have valid points to them that make them awesome, and, as such, I think it's a bit unfair and somewhat insulting to label them favorites or say one is better than the other (ESPECIALLY when you know nothing about them and should, rightfully, either do some research or kindly shut your noise hole until you do) because of all of these perfectly valid points they all have to them.

Some characters with lots of valid points (chosen in the order my mind could rate them and roughly at that speed until I reached ten):

Superman.

Spider-Man.

Batman.

The Hulk.

Captain America.

Iron-Man.

Wonder Woman.

Martian Manhunter.

Thor.

Vision.

@perezite

....Just because you say something is 'good' - doesn't mean you're saying everything else is bad. As I said in my post above, you live and you learn. A year ago, I didn't give a rat's a*s about Bucky Barnes. I didn't hate him, I just didn't know anything about the character. Now, he's number ten on my top ten favorites list.

Of course every superhero has valid points that make them awesome. I'm sure Wally West is an interesting character; he's an established hero with a large fanbase. But he just doesn't interest me as a character in the times that I've read him. Does that mean I'm insulting him, or that I'm ignorant? No, it's just that his merits aren't to my liking. And that's perfectly fine.

Every comic-book fan is entitled to whatever heroes or villains he or she connects with. Just because I label Batman as my favorite over Superman, it doesn't mean that I think Batman is objectively 'better'. Everything in comics is subject to opinion, and to not have preferences is ridiculous. If you're afraid of having favorites just because you don't know every character - what sort of sense does that make? How is one person gonna be completely aware of every facet of every character?

So you admit you're a prejudiced, biased person with immense apathy for things he's not inherently familiar with?

@perezite

Really, that's the best response that an open-minded and enlightened individual such as yourself can give? I try to offer my opinion and I'm immediately labelled a prejudiced, biased person? I suppose because of my apathy to things I'm not familiar with I'm clearly a close-minded, myopic individual. Read that out aloud and maybe you'll realize how silly it sounds.

Your notion that apathy towards unfamiliar characters is 'bad' and your fear of having favorites are both ridiculous. You can have fun claiming that you like all superheroes equal. As for me, I'm gonna be here enjoying my favorites, and gaining new ones as I continue to read comics.

Good day.

Thank you for your admission Veshark. Granted, I wish you could just admit it yourself and live with it like a man, but I suppose that'd be asking too much of you after such a life shattering revelation.

I will leave you with this idea though: it is often said that mankind's WORST quality, is our apathy. Our shear levels of unwillingness to give a shit.

Good day to you too. :)

Also, who said being open-minded was enlightened? Or that I was, in fact, open-minded? Or "enlightened" (whatever that means)? Or even that being "open-minded" and "enlightened" meant you were intelligent? Heck, I bet those Scientists who built the V-2 rockets were GENIUSES, and yet they were Nazis.

@perezite

Wow, ad hominem attacks and using the Nazis to make a point! Clearly, those are the signs of an intelligent debater on the Internet.

Please, reply. Give me another reason to embarrass you.

@veshark: I would say don't feed the troll, but I'm being entertained so just go ahead and keep schooling the kid. :D

I don't really care what wiki says. If there is no good source, then I would put in in a "not verified" in my personal "hard drive". If anything it seems like an answer you gibe to don't upset people.

What? All I'm saying is that being "open-minded" and "enlightened" doesn't inherently make you smart or intelligent in many ways and is not a marker for intelligence. All I did was bring up an example that supported this claim by bringing up some of the smartest people ever, who made great strides in the field of rocket science, that were what our modern society would call some of the most close-minded and un-enlightened people on the planet, that, despite all that, still were leaps and bounds ahead of their enemies.

I know the hatred of Nazi's and people like them is a deeply has been deeply ingrained and indoctrinated in us Americans since youth, but despite their subjectively awful qualities, there's no denying there commitment and their intelligence in military fields.

@perezite

One, I'm not American.

Two, clearly the sarcastic innuendo completely flew over your head.

You started a thread expressing your opinion. I gave a counterargument. When you realized that you had nothing valid to say in response, you immediately labelled me 'prejudiced and biased'. Me. You didn't address my points, you didn't support your own argument - instead you made it personal. Rather than argue over the issue itself, you did what all 13 year-olds on the Internet do - ignore the argument and attack whoever disagrees with you. This is known as ad hominem. Look it up.

Now you're off on some nonsensical tangent about 'open-minded and enlightened' being related to intelligence. The only poster who has even mentioned the word 'intelligence' in this thread is you - I don't even know where you're getting that from. This has nothing to do with intelligence (or the history of Nazi Germany's rocket program, for that matter) - this is about me trying to have a discussion, and you acting like a Youtube commenter.

Alright then, can you restate your opinion then. I promise to debate this calmly with you from now on.

Also, you were the one who brought up "open-mindedness" and "enlightenment" first with the connotation of questioning my intelligence in the sentence you used them, but I digress. Let's forget that part.

@perezite

Alright.

First off, thank you for being reasonable and conceding. I came into this thread will the full intention of expressing my opinion, not to get into a war of words. I apologize if you thought that my comment about 'open-mindedness' was a jab about your intelligence - but frankly, after your accusations about me, I was a little peeved. But I'm willing to drop the matter.

As for my actual point, it was this: I don't think that it's wrong for someone to have favorite characters. Like any fandom, we will all naturally develop preferences, and the emotions and value that we have to our favorite heroes and villains is one of the best parts about comics. I like Captain America and Superman - these are heroes that I have read for a long time, and fictional characters that mean a lot to me.

But just because I like them, it doesn't mean that I'm discounting the value of other characters. I'm sure heroes like Wally West or Daredevil have merits that their fanbases enjoy, but for me, I can't honestly say that I like them. It's all personal preference: I acknowledge that the characters aren't objectively 'bad', but that I don't like them simply because they don't suit my tastes or my inclinations. It's not 'unfair', it's just me as a comic-book fan expressing my own opinion.

You can't know every aspect of every character to accurately determine who is better. Comics are a hobby - and so are all subject to subjectivity. As you continue to read comics, you develop likings and attachments to certain characters, while disliking others. In short, I disagree that it's 'insulting' to characters to favor one over the other. It's life - you live and you learn.

My point is that, as an aspiring writer in College who may someday (if circumstance's tyranny would allow) be given a variety of different tasks for a variety of different characters and someone who was trained since high-school to look at something critically from multiple different angles despite how painful, difficult, and strenuous that may be (characters included) and as someone who was exposed to a variety of different things and characters ranging from Fluttershy to Marv...I will not say I have a favorite character or character type. I CANNOT. Because the moment I do, I'm at risk as a writer with actual aspirations to be unable to get inside a MUCH different character's head with the same thoughtfulness and enthusiasm and willingness to see just what makes them tick. I'd also be at risk of holding them up on a pedestal while making everyone else look worse in order to make them look better and sacrificing their character (which I know they have) to do so as well (*Cough The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Returns, All Star Batman and Robin, JLA: Act of God, and etc). And I CAN'T do that. As a writer who wants to write lots of different things across different genres, I CAN'T afford to be a fanboy, or even just a fan who'll ignore other characters that don't IMMEDIATELY catch his eye like a shiny silver nickel on the street and not even bother questioning appearances, what others say, and histories and the like. Because someday, I might have to pick-up the character a lot of people just see as a dull penny on the street and bring out the gold dollar that was always there to begin with for both the people who could already see the value in it and those that couldn't before.

For you, comics and characters might be just a hobby, but for me, they're what I'm going to have to immerse myself in for years, and quite possibly, a career path.

@perezite

Again you go making assumptions about others. For the record, my dream job is to work in the comic-book business, and I hope to have a career in there as well - I have since I was in the 7th grade. But I know that there's a distinction between a job and personal preferences, and that it's perfectly healthy to have a balance of both.

If you want to be a comic-writer - a key fact that you hadn't mentioned earlier - of course one has to be objective when writing characters. We've often seen the personal preferences of writers becoming painfully obvious, Johns' treatment of Batman springs to mind. But there's no issue with having favorites, as long as your smart enough to not let it influence your work. You can be subjective with characters, but objective with your writing. Not every writer is going to be stellar with each character - there are just bound to be some heroes or villains that you don't truly 'click with' or comprehend. Mark Millar, for all his merits, writes a great Ultimate Cap, but his characterization of 616-Cap is questionable at best. It's just human fallibility.

While I applaud your attempt to stay objective, the fact of the matter is that we're all comic-book fans, and that is at best - a lofty goal. The moment you label yourself as a writer first and disconnect any favoritism you might have for characters: sure, you gain objectivity, but you also lose one of the best parts about comic-books - the appreciations and the attachments that you already have for characters that you like. If you want to do that, and as a writer you feel it's your obligation, then by all means. But as for myself, I can't say I agree with that.

Oh, name one person who doesn't make assumptions about others. Judging someone is not a problem. It's only when you get it wrong based on what they said that it's a problem (though, I had nothing else BUT what you told me and what I l knew of you to go on, so that didn't help. Anyways, back on topic).

You misunderstand me. I'm not saying that I want to gain objectivity and, in the process, lose subjectivity. I'm saying that, I want objectivity so that I can gain subjectivity and favoritism and attachment for EVERY thing I may have to write and write it all with that same kind of gusto and passion and attention for detail and continuity that people like myself like, Captain. I don't want things I may have to write be lackluster or average because of a lack of passion for the source material and characters involved. Only because of my lackluster and average ability to put that passion and execute it well on a word document. :)

For me, the relationship between gaining objectivity and subjectivity is not an inverse relationship. It is a more direct one. It's BECAUSE of my ability to take a step back and think logically, that I can look at comic book characters and like a whole bunch a whole lot and be interested in them all.

@perezite

Not to throw the entire discussion into a tangent, but judging someone with nothing concrete to back it up is a problem, as your comments several posts prior can tell you. But I digress, this is an unnecessary segue.

As for the actual discussion itself, I think that we've hit something of an impasse here. The unstoppable force and immovable object, for lack of a better metaphor. While a writer with an inclination for any character would naturally produce a more varied portfolio, I still don't think it's feasible, and I still maintain that objectivity not only diminishes the 'pizzazz' but that it's not plausible for any writer to fully comprehend every character. It's the nature of human behavior. That being said, if you can find an equal level of passion by considering all characters equal, more power to you. You wanting to remain objectivity to better serve your writing is a fact you should've mentioned from the get-go though, it's a pretty big point that could've avoided several posts of barbs.

We'll just have to agree to disagree, I guess. At this stage, I don't think there's much I could say to convince you, and vice versa. All rhetoric aside, I can see where you're coming from, and even if I don't agree with it, I can respect it.

Same here. If only Frank Miller, the asshat who wrote JLA: Act of God, Superman: Distant Fires, and batfanboys and even supermanfanboys had a little bit less "getting" of one particular character...

@perezite

I think it's fine for fans to have preferences, but writers definitely have to maintain a degree of objectivity when it comes to their actual work. Fanboys, of any fandom, are never welcome either.

For what it's worth, I had a good discussion over this. Even if we don't necessarily assent with one another's viewpoints, at least we sparked some food for thought. I'm glad we could put aside our differences.

Did we put aside our differences though? Hmmm? XD

@perezite

Well, at least on a personal level, if not in terms of opinions ;)

Nice talking to you, buddy.

Did we even accomplish that? Or did I even accomplish that? ;)

@perezite

You tell me ;). I'd like to think so - I've learned not to hold grudges over the Net.

Eh...I dunno yet. :P