The 100 best Marvel characters ranked: 20-1
See where the likes of Iron Man, Black Panther, Scarlet Witch, and Thor land in the final installment of our massive Marvel countdown
Film Features Saloni Gajjar
The A.V. Club’s countdown of Marvel’s top 100 onscreen characters concludes today with a look at the heroes, sidekicks, and villains who earned spots in the Top 20. Read on to see where the likes of Iron Man, Wolverine, Black Panther, Scarlet Witch, and Thor land.
And to check out the previous installments of the countdown, click on the big Marvel-red buttons below:
140 Comments
I did not see that #1 coming, not at all. I would’ve actually wagered money that it was Iron Man. I thought he was the obvious choice.
I thought it would be Howard the Duck.
What, no love for Danny “Immortal Iron Fist, Protector of Kun Lun, Sworn Enemy of The Hand” Rand?
Steve Gerber’s ghost is somewhere super grateful the Kevin Smith series never happened.
None of this works without Iron Man, to the point where the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe was shaped around his worldview, his sense of humor, and his egotism… so let’s make him #4!Look, Boseman’s Black Panther is top-10 undeniably (maybe top-5) — but Cap and Tony are #s 1 and 2 in some way; none of this works for a the original 10-year arc without them. And then if you’re looking at characters, Jackman’s Wolverine is probably #3… after that, it’s somewhat open though I agree with the top-10 (but would probably squeeze Hulk in there somewhere instead of #11).
Can we get this guy to do the list next time? He actually seems to be paying attention.
As a hardcore comics fan, I actually agree with BP on top.So let’s compare Academy Award Nominations:Iron Man: Nom for best sound editing; Nom for Visual EffectsIron Man 2: Nom for Visual EffectsIron Man 3: Nom for Visual EffectsBlack Panther: Winner for Best ScoreWinner for Costume DesignWinner for Production DesignNom for Best SongNom for Best Picture (I’m sorry, what?)
Nom for Sound EditingNom for Sound MixingSee, the thing for me is that Boseman did this while he had cancer.
Yeah, their top 10 is pretty good, maybe Hulk or Nick Fury in a 3-way tie for #10, but totally agree, the order is a little off – if you’re talking MCU movie characters, RDJ/Iron Man pretty much __has__ to be #1.
I mostly agree, but… just making the most obvious choices #1&2 makes for a pretty pointless list. And carrying the most narrative weight or being the central point of reference doesn’t necessarily make them the best character. Obviously, there’s no Shang-Chi movie without Shang-Chi, but he kindof occupies a slightly passive, neutral-good ‘hero’ spot around which all of the interesting stuff happens. Xu Wenwu is a way more compelling ‘character’ to me (mostly, of course, due to Tony Leung’s portrayal).
Then again this list put Shang-Chi 80 spots higher, so that’s clearly not their criteria, either.
I mostly agree, but… just making the most obvious choices #1&2 makes for a pretty pointless list.If your “point” is filling up a comments section rather than actually ranking the characters objectively(-ish, I know there’s an element of subjectivity inherent in these kinds of rankings), sure.
(it is)
Sometimes the MVP choice is obvious. Boring, but obvious. Occasionally Michael Jordan is overlooked in favor of Karl Malone, just to shake things up, but everybody knows what’s happening.Without the success of Iron Man I doubt we have the MCU as it exists, and Cap was a major energy injection. Thor is building on that. So that has to be the top 3, though I’d accept Wolverine since he was the face of the earliest part of the franchise for a long time.
Yeah, without Robert Downey Jr. about 85 of these characters wouldn’t have been launched.
I don’t think Black Panther is that great. I liked him Civil War, but he was the least interesting character in his own movie.I could criticize a lot more, but it’s easier to just say this whole list is terrible.
Tony and Cap are the #1 and #2 Avengers in the MCU, yes. But that’s not what this list is.
Can’t give top spot to a straight white male. Them’s the rules.
Captain Marvel in the top 20 is straight trolling. Her character was so ill defined. Was she supposed to be coy? No nonsense? Arrogant? She delivered every line with a condescending smirk.
Wow. I came here to say exactly this, and you did it better. RDJ’s Tony Stark pushed the MCU into the stratosphere.
Yupp.#1 here is a sentimental choice because of the tragic loss of the actor. That’s understandable. But Downey’s Tony Stark is blindingly-obviously the correct choice.(I’d also argue that Cumberbatch’s Dr Strange should be higher than he is, from a combination of perfect match of actor with role, and importance across various movies. But I wouldn’t put Cumberbatch/Strange top-5, probably.)
Why is Black Panther in the top 50? The movie wasn’t good and you could have left him out of The Avengers films without affecting them at all. So many more interesting characters…
As much as I like Boseman’s Black Panther, I don’t even think he was in the top 3 of his own movie. It wasn’t Boseman’s performance, who gave T’Challa heart, it’s just…T’Challa tended to a bit of a bore. The ladies ruled the roost in that movie. I’d say one of my top 3 favorite scenes in all of Marvel(#1 being The End Game Final Fight) is Okoye in the club; her spear, flying off the balcony, the music playing, her throwing the wig, kicking butt; the car chase. I can see I’m genuinely excited for Okoye, Nakia and Shuri(yes, Shuri, despite all the bs Leitta Wright is putting out) to get more screentime. And I’m also hoping(and have faith will happen because of Coogler’s respect for women) that Ramonda will have a bigger role. Let’s see Angela Bassett kick some a…I’ll always be sad she isn’t Storm.
As good as Boseman was, and he was great in the role, I don’t see him being ranked #1 if he’s alive.
Did anyone expect AV Club to choose any other character? There is no conceivable metric by which BP could be considered the greatest Marvel film character but he certainly is the choice that signals that one holds fashionable opinions the loudest.
What are you talking about? You’d have to be Ellie Kemper to choose anyone other than Black Panther for the #1 spot.
^ case in point
Oh the irony of you choosing Ellie Kemper—on this dumpster fire of a website that crucified her for nothing—as your choice for racism’s avatar. OP might be a racist piece of shit (don’t know them, never seen them around her before, so I have no idea), but Ellie Kemper did absolutely nothing to get the clickbait bullshit treatment AVC and The Root laid on her.
He did that on purpose as sarcasm you f–ing idiot.
Hi, Ben!
I’ve been posting here as https://kinja.com/drkschtz for 7 years.
Gee, that long and with that wonderful personality… I wonder how you could possibly still be in the grays. /sBy the way, see that “/s” there? That’s the widely-used convention to indicate sarcasm in writing, charmer.
Since all the G/O sites are plagued with Nazi trolls who are inexplicably out of the greys, I wouldn’t really use that as a barometer for who is worthy.
What is the criteria for exiting the greys? Like you said, there are some major trolls that post regularly on these sites and my vanilla posts are stuck in the greys.
I’m not sure anyone really knows. I actually got lifted out on AV Club back in 2019 and spent 3 years “verified” then one morning this February, I was suddenly going grey again.On Lifehacker back in 2017, I offered a clarifying opinion on an IT article and the author replied to me directly with a “thanks” and I was ungreyed there permanently from then on.
I thought I was laying the sarcasm on pretty thick, but apparently I was even more subtle than this site’s attempts to convert controversy to clicks. Nobody with an ounce of common sense would call Ellie Kemper racist, much less use her as the gold standard of racism.
went right over my dome
it’s “fashionable” to like Black people lol? Bet you can’t wait for it to be out of “fashion” again.
wow, world class burn
No, but virtue signaling is in fact very en vogue at the moment.
right, but it seems on this site anytime someone from a targeted community is praised it’s deemed “virtue signalling”. It’s a lose/lose no matter what.
I mean, at the end of the day, this is a stupid clickbait listicle written for a blog run by old white accountants with zero respect for journalistic integrity and diametrically opposed to the content they create. I’m convinced that since the vast majority of writers up and left months back that the new m/o is to make content that intentionally lampoons ‘left-wing nut jobs’. The author never even bothered to discuss any of the criteria for the list correct? What makes a hero ‘Best’? Arguing about seemingly out-of-place entries just feeds the clicks. Gotta keep that advertising revenue up!
exactly, this list is very random, so having Black Panther on the top doesn’t really seem like virtue signalling. But I also think another author could easily argue why Black Panther is the best hero if they laid out a more grounded criteria.
Black Panther, in my humble personal opinion, is a pretty good Marvel movie that became a cultural milestone because of it’s representational significance but it does say something that no such narrative existed back when Wesley Snipes started our current obsession with the genre in Blade.That said, hearing an entire (mostly white!) theatre stomp and yell “YIBAMBE” in united response to Chadwick before the climactic battle in Endgame is definitely one of the greatest moments I’ve ever had at the movies.
he certainly is the choice that signals that one holds fashionable opinions “WHY AREN’T YOUR SUBJECTIVE OPINIONS MORE LIKE MY FACTUAL ACCOUNTING OF WHO THE BEST SUPERHERO IS?”
scroll up – i have already explained why that choice was made
No, you tried to explain why you think that choice was made. One of the reasons they probably picked BP as their number 1 because they knew people like you might get their knickers in a twist.There’s no “signalling” here, son.
I agree with you that the choice was made disingenuously.
If they put someone at 1 in order to drive an angry emotional reaction in racists (like as opposed to actually thinking he’s the “best” on this subjective list) wouldn’t that be signaling of some sort by definition?I just don’t think you’re making the argument that you think you are.
This is pretty much the correct answer . I mean top ten , yes , but he’s not 1 .Also I’m expecting the dismissive ‘anyone who disagrees is a racist’ comments to start popping up.Whole ‘article’ is clickbait , but that choice is absolute clickbait.
Two weeks ago Rolling Stone named Black Panther #1 in a list of the 50 greatest Superhero Movies Ever Made. https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-lists/greatest-superhero-movies-of-all-time-1367814/
yes it’s obligatory
As a black man who teared up when I saw the Black Panther poster in the Theatre for the first time I agree. Dude wasn´t even in the top 4 in his own movie. The Black Panther in Civil War was cool but the Black Panther in Black Panther was boring and wasn’t much of a character.
“As the first superhero of African descent to appear in comics and then big-budget films”Not if African descent, T’Challa is straight-up African, even if it’s a fictional African nation. And while I believe his comic pre-dates Luke Cage and Blade, Black Panther’s not the first Black superhero in film, or even to appear on this list, since you all have already mentioned Blade. I swear, you muthahfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill. (Hell, if I want to be super-pedantic, I could bring up Steel or Spawn, which hit the screen the year before Blade, even if those both sucked)
And if you want to be suuuuuuper pedantic, we’re ALL of African descent if you go back far enough, so it would really technically be whatever the first non-alien superhero was.
A lot of Americans tend to think African-Americans are the only black people, in my experience. It gets frustrating when discussing, say, Indigenous Australians. Their only frame of reference for “black people” is African Americans – so, yeah, black people who came from Africa but now live in the US.Idris Elba got called “African American” a fair few times doing press for The Wire. And while I believe his comic pre-dates Luke Cage and Blade, Black Panther’s not the first Black superhero in film, or even to appear on this list, since you all have already mentioned Blade. “…and even if Hollywood did make a black superhero, they’d probably make him a damn hellspawn or something.”- Black Dynamite
I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s because in at least some cases, that’s because people thought Idris Elba was American. I hear his accent was pretty good and if you combine that with not doing your most cursory of background research, well here we are.
I’m tryin’ to find the vid, but there’s one where he’s being interviewed by a dizzy blonde for ET or something, and he’s speaking in natural Hackney accent, and she still keeps calling him African-American.Instead, have one where he discusses his thoughts on James Bond.
Of course, I’m not excluding that there’s genuine idiots in that mix.
“Man, I specialize in hunting Black vampires, I don’t know what the PC term for that is!”
Especially with the fakeout earlier where Orpheus thinks JT’s in London. “Give him hell, JT!”God, I wish we got more Order in the last few seasons. Especially now that they’ve got a place with a Dr. Strange window!
ANYTHING Referencing Venture Bros gets a STAR from me.
“Idris Elba got called “African American” a fair few times doing press for The Wire.”Which is why it’s frankly a relief to just go back to “black” if you’re going to make a description based upon skin tone. If you’re calling someone African American then you’re just saying they’re black without using the word. It’s pointless. Plus it’s no more insulting as a descriptor than eye color or hair color, unless there’s specific malice attached to it.
I’ve noticed quite a few Americans being so much in the habit of saying ‘African American’ to mean Black that they’ll use it to refer to any Black people at all regardless of which country they come from.
Or, since we’re going outside the MCU, there was also Blank Man and Meteor Man.
Hey, you’re right! Meteor Man even got an “Age of Heroes” write-up on this site.
Was there any other choice for this list’s top spot than the Black Panther, T’Challa, King of Wakanda?Yeah? I think at least 99 other options presented?But really, kind of an insane pick for #1 if we’re looking at the totality of Marvel movies over the last 3 decades. But that’s why you do these lists and make picks that stir up clicks and comments, ikik and here I am feeding into it ikik
Pepper Potts should have been #1 ahead of T’Challa? Mkay
In lieu of actual content, the AV Club is proud to present a 100-slide slideshow, split into five separate posts and stretched out over as many days.
You got anything planned for tomorrow?
Hit some garage sales, maybe. Get the paper, take the dog for a walk. You?
I’m at a luxury resort in Sri Lanka for the weekend and then I’m going to the UK on Monday.
You’re one of those shifty Labor agents Albo sent over there to tell the boats to start back up, aren’t you? AREN’T YOU? CONFESS YOUR CRIMES.
Look, any weekend I don’t have to spend looking after mental health patients from north and western Sydney are definitely ones I’m definitely going make sure as many people as possible get to hear about!
Could be worse.You could be dealing the with the ones from Eastern Sydney.Wait, can mental patients swim? Depending on the answer to this, you may not have a job when you get back.
I live in eastern Sydney and that’s all I’m prepared to say on the subject lest I incriminate myself.
Come up to Queensland to party!
You already did by mentioning you live in the Eastern Suburb-Hey, waitaminute-WAS THIS YOU, YOU AGENT OF MOTHERFUCKING CHAOS?!
Fuck I love that photo of that creepy, evil motherfucker.
I just can’t get enough popcorn ready for when a bunch of Potts Point and Toorak wankers, and the other assorted southern bunyip aristocrats that form what’s left of the rotting hulk of the Libs* have to start taking orders from – checks notes – a former copper. And a Queenslander. Yeah. Those fuckin’ blue-blooded toffs will love that. A redneck policeman? Telling them what to do?! Doesn’t Dutton know who they are?*I’m gonna have to explain this to the Seppoes, aren’t I?
Hahaha yes. I had the same situation while talking to a mate in the US who was all “what the fuck” and had to explain that the Liberals are our conservative party.Also, the trainwreck of the NSW Libs is going to hate Dutton as leader for sure.
Man, watching them figure out how our government works when we were rollin’ PMs like joints at a Nimbin parents and teachers night was hilarious. “YOU LOST YOUR LEADER? HE’S BEEN THROWN OUT? THERE’S BEEN A COUP? DO WE NEED TO SEND THE MARINES?!”Yeah, nah, you’ll probably know about our government being overthrown before we do, Yanks. Because you’d have probably orchestrated it. Again.Also, the trainwreck of the NSW Libs is going to hate Dutton as leader for sure.It’s kinda funny that for all the shitshow the NSW State Libs, and then the Federal Libs, Perrotet has actually been forced to act almost human. That, and probably because they scraped so far through the bottom of the barrel to find someone dumb enough to take on the job he’s operating like he’s defusing a bomb. Because he pretty much is. Watching Dutton et al trying to push the “Albo’s bludging on holiday while NSW floods” (in, um, war-torn Kyiv), and Perrotet pretty much shut him down. I think Dom knows that the current federal Libs are doooooomed; being young, he’s no doubt looking towards his long-term career.
Prepare myself for next week’s Top 200 Characters in Zack Snyder’s Justice League slideshow. Got my fingers crossed the janitor is #1.
#1 is Martha/Martha (tie)
Imagine if they had split it over 100 days…
Also, for those bitching about Black Panther being #1, you’re forgetting the golden rule of online writing:Enragement is engagementThis is Listicle writing 101 – make the top choice controversial so people discuss it more.
Exactly. And since Black Panther is in my Top 5 Marvel movies, I don’t even hate the pick. As the only major lead actor the MCU lost, the historic performance will be saved in amber, so there’s a logic to this I can get behind. But if we are talking character, not cultural impact, then everyone mostly agrees he was outshined by Kilmonger in his own movie. It stands to reason Erik should be higher than him. And that’s why this listicle is so funny: They’re trolling. (Tell me 3 things about the Carol Danvers as a person that aren’t surface-level traits.) And a job well done, if I do say so myself!
I loved Shang-Chi the movie, it’s hard to separate Shang-Chi the character from all the women in his life. That movie did an incredible job of creating side heroines that felt like they had very full and rich lives outside of supporting Shang-Chi. The moment the camera turned away from one of the heroines you still felt like they continued to exist.
probably because they were a lot more fun to watch due to having more charisma
Wanda Maximoff being turned into a psychopathic mass-murderer for reasons that could be most charitably described as spurious (if not straight up stupid) in Doctor Strange 2 for these reasons alone really should have dropped her way down the list (if not off it).
During the entire movie I thought she was some alternate reality Wanda but Mrs. F. told me it was “really her.” So it just confused me even more they’d do that to an Avenger.
Didn’t you get divorced after your wife wanted to go on a business trip with you?
meh it wasn’t that unexplainable, Wandavision literally ends with her off to do some more evil sorcery after accepting Visions death but not accepting her children’s death. It mostly just felt we were missing a connective story between Wandavision and Dr. Strange 2’s film. Sort of wish they did more comparisons between Dr. Strange continuously fucking with things and not being held accountable, and Wanda doing it and being labelled as Woman be Crazy immediately.
This.
I didn’t say it was inexplicable, just that it was shit.
First she was driven mad with grief over the loss of her husband, then, a month or so later, over the loss of her children — which she had only conjured up a few weeks earlier.
She was literally the villain of her own series.
I’m 50 and black and even being able to understand controversy for clicks this list is so bad. I’ll pick Wanda at her spot as the worst, so i must be a misogynist, right?
I can’t believe the AV Club made you a misogynist. What a victim.
Was there any other choice? Sure … Spiderman or Wolverine could easily have been #1. Black Panther is cool and a fine choice, but no slam dunk. So yes, there were other choices.Spiderman 2 is (to me) the best Marvel superhero movie and the nerdery of Maguire makes him the best Spidey.Wolverine had an entire character arc resulting in “Logan,” one of the best films of 2017.
Your challenge is to navigate five randomly slapped together slide shows, my king. But first…we take away the power of the Black Panther…
Jesus what a shit list. Brie Larson is a bore as Captain Marvel and I wanted her not to be to stick it to the fucking sexist shits who wanted the movie to be bad. it was so so. Tom Holland wasn’t a great Spider-man till this last movie.How the fuck is Evans and Downey not 1 and 2 since Marvel movies will take a hit now without them. And where the fuck is Spectacular Spider-man if you are gonna have Wolvernie from the 90’s cartoon on here. This site does suck right now. You old school AV Clubs posters were right when you have been telling me this for a year now. Good lord and the fucking flips lists as well.Anyone know a good Movies board to be on?
Brie Larson is a bore as Captain Marvel and I wanted her not to be to stick it to the fucking sexist shits who wanted the movie to be bad. Yeah, when they started blasting JUST A GIRL by No Doubt during the climatic final battle I had to admit defeat.
ah, a classic of the Bat Mitzvah DJ setlist
Counterpoint: Tom Holland was not good in the last Spidey movie either. He was just kind of their being overshadowed by other actors and characters in his movie.
What a stuped coment.
That is true, Toby is a better Spider-man to me than Holland was/is for sure. And Garfield may have been the best charcter in the new movie.
I was really hoping #1 would be “America’s Ass”. Not Cap–just “America’s Ass” with a close-up pick of Chris Evans’s butt. It would have made the five days of needless slideshows worth it for that gag alone.
I would also accept Asgard’s ass somewhere in there.
Nothing against Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers but once again Pop Culture and it’s experts have done a massive disservice to what was done to Monica Rambeau back in 1988. She was Captain Marvel, the first female with that title, a competent and strong character who was made the leader of the Avengers. When that title’s writer (who created Monica) refused the demands of the writer of Captain America to get rid of Monica, not only was that writer fired, but two White male editors proceeded to diminish Monica’s Captain Marvel, having her inept over several issues, having Avengers think to themselves how useless she was, before depowering her and writing her out. It was staggeringly tone deaf and massively insulting and the fact that Marvel continues to get away with making a white Blonde woman Captain Marvel without answering for this is disgusting.
Brie Larson was excellent in Community.Everything else, to varying degrees not quite so much.Yes, that includes the movie she won an Academy Award for.
I thought she was brilliant in Room. And I’m really glad it was the first thing I remember seeing her in, because that has given her a Free Pass for me for whatever else she has fumbled.
She was good in Skull Island, and United States of Tara
Glad to see Jessica Jones appropriately high on the list. Krysten Ritter was so good & her sitcom skills really helped salvage The Defenders.
I’ve watched The Defenders three times through. I didn’t grow up reading Marvel, and know The Defenders had some slow parts, but so many moments stick in my head.
Jessica: “You look like an asshole.”
Matt: “It’s your scarf.”
How is Tony Stark 4? You remove Iron Man/Tony Stark and the MCU doesn’t happen and Tony’s character arc is amazing and the most complete character development in the MCU. Dumb, like no disrespect to Black Panther, but if he wasn’t added to the MCU, would have anyone noticed?
20-1 Review: Lol
Boseman was a great actor, and Blank Panther was a great character, and the film had a wonderful cultural impact and felt special compared to some of the more cookie-cutter (if still enjoyable) MCU efforts. But putting him first feels very much like a sympathy vote. How do you not put Cap or Stark first? They are the heart of the entire enterprise through Endgame.Otherwise…good top twenty.
COME ON!!!!!!! Where is H.E.R.B.I.E.?
You put Hawkeye and Phil Coulson on the list but you don’t have room for Peter Porker the Amazing Spider-Ham, Taserface, Tawaret, Alligator Loki, Old Lace, Howard the Duck, The Watcher, Not Shuma-Gorath, Invisible Woman ‘94…
Since the MCU basically ret-con’d the character into a Watcher-esqu member, Stan Lee’s “character” is a huge omission
Lol I was right,,they straight up forgot about Zemo.
How can the guy who started it all, Iron Man, not be #1? Plus, RDJ was masterful in the role.
Black Panther is a good character, but he had one solo movie and a couple of appearances ensemble. Hardly enough to justify “best character”.For me:1. Iron Man2. Captain America3. Natasha4. Hulk (or more appropriately, Mark Ruffalo as Banner)5. Undecided…hmmmm. Loki maybe?
He’s not even the best character in his own movie, despite all the affection we have for the actor!
Was there any other choice for this list’s top spot than the Black Panther, T’Challa, King of Wakanda?
Yes, there was! I don’t know how you put Tony Stark and Jackman’s Wolverine so low considering how different the landscape was when they arrived. Black Panther gets credit for being the first Black superhero to have an MCU solo film. Not the first to have a superhero film. Not even the first to have a Marvel solo film. The first to have a solo MCU film! That’s because the MCU was already huge when he came in, and it was huge because Iron Man started it all.The list ranking is just baffling. Shang-Chi just arrived. The characterization of Wanda is all over the place and seems to have been made up on the fly once someone at Marvel Studios finally realized Elizabeth Olsen was actually a very good actress. As for Captain Marvel, as a fan of the comic who also thinks Brie Larson was inspired casting, she’s mostly just a power set at this point. Which, not coincidentally, is the only thing her entry talks about.
I’ll just say the complete lack of transperency into how these rankings were formed continues to confuse and infuriate me. A “best of” list should have some criteria to it, even if some are opinion-based. Otherwise what’s the point?If it were me, I would consider number of appearances, impact to the franchise they appear in, actor performance, and character evolution over the course of time. Again some of that is subjective, which is fine.Personally think it is crazy that Iron Man and Wolverine aren’t 1 and 2. Iron Man for kicking off the MCU and then being its lynchpin for over a decade and Wolverine for being the one constant in the X-Men films for 17 years even as other actors changed. Captain America should probably be 3 as well as Chris Evans was a close second to holding the MCU together.I also think Shang-Chi is way too high. I liked Shang-Chi as a movie but Shang-Chi himself is a one-movie character so far who goes on a fairly normal origin story. If it was about Asian representation, not sure I’d have ranked him above Wong yet.
Such a shame that AV Club, usually so irreverent and apparently immune to convention, climbs wearily aboard the woke (band)wagon and puts Black Panther at the top of the tree. Like so many others on here I genuinely expected to see Iron Man and Cap at #1 and #2, in whichever order (because there’s an argument in favour of both).
Look, I love Chadwick Boseman and I loved T’Challa and the movie. But a bit like that fkn gender equality sh*t with the Marvel ladies in the Endgame battle scene, I can’t bear contrivance. And for the avoidance of doubt – I absolutely and unequivocally support the principles of gender parity, I just don’t think randomly making Pepper Potts a superhero without context and giving the women in the cast sh*t lines to say (“Don’t worry, she’s got help.”) is the way to add weight to the message.
Black Panther was a great film, Boseman was a solid actor – but Killmonger, Shuri and Okoye were ALL better characters, and putting BP at the top of the list here just reeks of wokenism (a cross between woke and tokenism – worst of all evils), which is far more damaging than putting him somewhere between 10 and 20, which is where he probably ought to live. I could go further and suggest that even Ulysees Klaue was more interesting, but maybe that’s pushing it.
And I see the Spiderman mafia is out in force again, which is as disappointing as it is predictable. I know people are going to hate on me for this, but much as I think Tom Holland is a superstar in the making, anyone who thinks his take on Spidey is better than Garfield’s needs their head examining.
The point is, Rogers/Cap, Stark/Iron Man, Thor, Banner/Hulk, and Romanoff ARE the glue that holds the MCU together (yes, I wish there were more women in that list) and there’s no point in trying to pretend otherwise by parachuting into the top 10 certain characters for the sake of being culturally relevant.
“Such a shame that AV Club, usually so irreverent and apparently immune to convention, climbs wearily aboard the woke (band)wagon”
Are you new around here? Because AVClub has been “woke”ing for a decade before that was even a thing.
That was your takeaway. Wow.
It’s literally your first sentence. If it’s not what you’re trying to say, maybe don’t bury the lede. Moreover, I was making comment on your implication that this was a “new” thing for AVC. They’ve been blatantly political for as long as I’ve read them (all the way back to the early days of disqus), and only grown more so since. And their fondness for clickbait articles has grown exponentially since then as well. Changing management, no doubt, but still true.That said, I’m not totally against your general point. I think its a complaint that’s overblown in general nerd criticism circles, but there is a kernel of truth to the idea that Marvel is ham-fisted with its political views at times. Frankly, I think it’s a product of current events more than anything else— politics is SO front and center in everything, that writers and directors consciously stage things that way, and audiences are way more attuned to it. It’s a self-amplifying cycle.
“ anyone who thinks his take on Spidey is better than Garfield’s needs their head examining” Dramatic af 😂
I’m seeing a disturbing lack of Colleen Wing and Misty Knight on any of these lists, which considering they were two of the best characters to come out of the Netflix shows, is disappointing.
I would have included the Daughters of the Dragon as well
Black Panther? GTFO. He’s not even the most interesting character in his own movie! lulz…
While Boseman`s waaay-too early death was certainly tragic, and his waaay-too brief portrayal of T`Challa is frustrating as all there will ever be of that spot-on characterization; there is no way that The Black Panther rates as ‘#1′ on a list such as this.
Going with a rationale such as ”one more sentimental reason to name T’Challa our all-time favorite Marvel character” relegates this list to the level of two fan-boys bantering amongst the new release shelves and the back issue boxes at the comic shop on any Wednesday afternoon.
Is it any shock that Black Panther was 1 with your fetish. Maybe you will meet one in real life someday.
Deadpool and Jessica Jones are absolute windups, surely.Now I like Black Panther as much as the next man, but he’s only at number 1 because of the actor. Not a particularly standout character.
I created my own top 5 below and I completely forgot about Deadpool. He’d be top 5 easily.
Wow. How predictable the number one was. This is sooo boring…yawn.
I love Tom Holland but his movies aren’t as good as I feel they should be. I don’t know what it is. Finally saw No Way Home and it was so disappointing. Probably the most disappointed I’ve been since Thor 2. Awesome seeing everyone come back but the ENTIRE movie hinges on Peter being a completely idiotic and selfish ass. After Civil War, Infinity War, Endgame, and his solo flicks you’d think he’d be a little smarter but nope, just made terrible and stupid decisions that were the only reason for everything else that followed.I’d probably put Wolverine as my #1 and Miles and #2 with T’Challa as #3 but that’s just me. Loki and Blade probably would round out my top 5. No way Blade isn’t in my top 5. First Black superhero I ever saw and I will never forget those films (maybe I saw Spawn first, but Blade really stuck with me).
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