Category Archives: Versus

DC may have decreed back in 2013 that "heroes shouldn't have happy personal lives" but we here at Heromachine beg to differ (or at the very least, I do). The personal lives of characters in comics can often be just as engrossing as their many battles with their various villains and there are entire genres of comics based entirely around personal relationships as the main hook. And often the relationships we get the most invested in are the romantic ones, whether it be the rollercoaster of Archie Andrews love octagon (Jesus, I had to leave him off the poll to start with just because I could have made the poll be just him and his various love interests) or the long lasting love of Reed Richards and Sue Storm, the interplay between these characters and their emotional ups and downs are just as special as any antagonistic relationship between the hero and the villain. So this time out we're going to try and find which couple is the greatest in comics history. This is going to be interesting.

So, few rules. You can nominate your own answers as per usual, but I want to try and stick to purely cannon romances, so no alterniverse pairings or one-off "what-if's" or potential future couples, just couples that are cannon to their tilte's main continuity. And as we are talking about the greatest couples in comics the list doesn't have to only include superhero pairings, you can also include villainous couples and non-superhero genre couples as well (I've only started us off with 10 heroes because I couldn't decide between either Betty or Veronica (much like Archie) and I personally wouldn't put Joker and Harley in the top 10), as long as both characters originated in comics and not any other medium. Oh and as per usual, if you add a character to the poll that has had multiple people use the same identity (e.g. The Flash) can you specify which version of the character it is.

The poll closes a week on Friday (8th November) and you can select as many answers as you like per day and add one answer to the poll per day.

So, considering last time out we looked at DC's greatest heroes, let's be utterly predictable and this week look at DC's greatest villains. And as with last time, it is utterly predictable who is going to win: it's Joker, with Darkseid and Lex Luthor rounding out the top 3. However, after that trio, I really don't know who will make the top 10 this time. I've got some good predictions, they're our starting 10, but I'm looking forward to seeing a lot more names added. I mean, you can make a seperate top 10 just out of Batman villains and still leave out some amazing candidates so there'd better be some good names added when considering we've also got The Flash, Superman and Green Lantern's top tier rogues galleries and that's before we get to Teen Titans, Wonder Woman, The Legion Of Superheroes and Justice League amongst the many, many others.

Anyway, as usual, you can add your own answers once per day and vote for as many entries as you want, again once per day, poll closes a week on Friday (Oct 18th).

Ok, I guess we've got to do this. So, we've done Marvel's best heroes and villains and we took a break to cover the greatest superteams last time out, but I guess we've got to do DC now. So yeah, Batman is going to win, it'll be between Superman and Wonder Woman who comes in second, a Flash and a Green Lantern (probably the ones already in the poll) will round out the top 5 and the rest of the poll will be made up of the other classic justice leaguers (Aquaman probably coming 6th because of his movie) with the 10th spot being open to the possible surprise nomination that isn't on the poll or a legacy version of one of the characters on the poll. I'll change the settings the day before the poll closes (which is a week on Friday, so the 27th Sept) so people can see if I was right or not before we put the list up.

Oh and obviously, you can enter your own nomination once per day, make sure you put the secret identity of the character if the superhero name has been taken by multiple characters (e.g. Green Lantern- Hal Jordan or Green Lantern- John Stewart).

So, as per our short poll last week, this week we are asking who you think is the greatest superhero team of all time.

As per usual, you can enter your own answers once per day and vote for as many teams as you wish per day. When adding your answers, if you are going to add a team that has had drastically different line up variations can you please specify which line-up you are nominating (for example; there have been two variations of the Guardians Of The Galaxy, one which ran during the 70's starting in 1969 consisting of Vance Astro, Yondu Udonta, Charlie-27, Martinex T'Naga and Stakar and Aleta Ogord, where as the one on the poll is the more recent and well known 2008 version featuring Star-Lord, Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, Drax The Destroyer, Groot and Adam Warlock). Voting will run until the 7th of September, so a week on Friday.

So, in our last poll we asked the question as to who you guys thought Marvel's Greatest Superhero is/ was. So this week let's ask the alternative, who is Marvel's Greatest Supervillain.

As per usual, I've given you 10 to start with and you can enter your own answers. If a psuedonym has been used by more than one character (e.g. Adrian Toomes Vulture vs. Blackie Drago's Vulture) can you leave the civilian identity along with the villains name the character takes. You can vote for as many characters as you like, but can only add an answer once a day. The poll will be open until the 16th, so a week on Friday.

Now, a quick note on Venom, because I know he will probably be added to the poll and I would like to give my reasons as to why I feel he probably shouldn't. As with Hulk last week, I won't prevent him from making the list should he be nominated and recieve enough votes, but I haven't put him as part of my starting 10 for a reason. He's just too heroic. Sure he started out as an out and out villain and has gone back to that well now and again, but as the character's popularity grew, he became more of an anti-hero (it didn't even take him 10 years before he was fighting the good fight alongside Spider-Man, as uneasy as that alliance was). Even as the Eddie Brock version, who would be the version most likely to be nominated, Venom had his own series where he was fighting for good (well as good as it gets when you're an alien symbiote with an unhealth zombie-esque obssession with brains) against other, decidedly more villainous symbiotes. Now, after a brief sojourn back to the dark side courtesy of Mac Gargan and the Dark Avengers, the Flash Thompson version is just a flat out hero and , whilst that's great for character development, it isn't all that great for great villainy. Even in the movies he's appeared in Venom has gone half and half, being the villain in Spider-Man 3 and the hero (all-be-it an unorthadox one) in his own movie. So, yeah, that's why I don't think Venom should be in consideration, but I'll leave that one up to you guys.

So, we're going to do a big poll this time out. For our next list, I want you guys to decide who Marvel Comics Greatest Superhero is. You can take into account anything and everything; the comics, the films, tv shows, their place in pop culture history, the characters longevity, all of that jazz.

As per usual, you are allowed to add your own answers, one per day. If you are going to add a character though, can you also include their civilian identity, it helps if there has been more than one person using the name (e.g. Ant-Man: Hank Pym/ Scott Lang/ Eric Grady). I've given you a list of 10 to start off with, you can vote for 10 a day and the poll closes a week on Friday (Fri 27th).

Also, I feel I should explain why I've left Hulk off this list. For most of his existance, Hulk, whilst being a hero nominally, has been mostly considered a hyper destructive loose-cannon, someone who is just as (if not more) likely to destroy an entire city as he is to save it. As a pop cultural icon, Hulk is obviously one of Marvel's greaest creations, but I don't know if I'd count him as one of their greatest "heroes". I dunno, I'll leave that one up to you guys to decide. It's kinda like Punisher. If he wasn't focusing on the bad guys, dude's just a straight up supervillain.

Anyway, JR out.

So, as we've just found out what the community believes are the top 10 best superhero movies of all time, why not do the opposite. As with the poll for the best movies, I've started us out with 10 movies that most people will agree are to some extent pretty terrible, but you can add your own choices to the list (preferably with the year they came out, so we don't have any confusion between movies with the same or simular names, i.e. Fantastic Four) one per day. We are including any film that has superheros as a main theme and had a theatrical release, both live-action and animated. So we wouldn't accept the 1992 Fantastic Four film because that went unreleased and can only be viewed on VHS bootlegs or on the internet, but we would accept Hancock, because it was about superheroes and wasn't great. You can vote for as many choices as you want once per day and the poll is open until the 6th of July (so a week on Friday).

So, Batman. He's the second oldest character still in publication in mainstream American Superhero comics, having been published non-stop since his debut in May of 1939. He also has unarguably the greatest gallery of villains of any superhero, ranging from the stone cold classics (such as The Joker, Penguin, Two-Face and Catwoman) to the underappraciated gems (Calender Man, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee) to the down right ridiculous (Ten-Eyed Man). And it is also fair to say that he has the best supporting cast of any character in comics, be it his Bat-Family (the various Robins, Bat-Girls and Bat-Women) or his allies and confidents (Alfred Pennyworth and Jim Gordon being the standouts here). So with such scope and range in what to look for, it should be fairly easy to find Batman stories that can be classified as classics of the comic book medium. But which is the best?

As per usual I have given you ten options to start with and you can add your own. You can add specific comic issues if you so please, but try to refer to any multi-issue storylines by name (e.g. Batman #492-511 would be refered to as Knightfall). Elseworlds stories do count, as do any World's Finest or team-up stories provided Batman is a title character (so no The Brave and The Bold stories). We are not including any Bat-family storylines that do not include Batman, nor Justice League or Outsiders, Batman-centric stories only.