Empire's 50 Greatest Comic Book Characters

In my continued spoilage of these overlong list columns, I now present Empire Magazine Online's 50 Greatest Comic Book Characters. For those unfamiliar, Empire has been the film magazine of choice of the U.K. since about 1989, and their list is decidedly Brit-centric. I'd say it's also eccentric, and doubt there was a large pool of authorities gathered in compiling this list. Still, it's more interesting than the usual Wizard crap, even if they somehow not only let Venom on the list, but ranked him just above Dr. Strange. Shite! On the other hand, notables like Usagi Yojimbo, Cerebus, and the Tick deserve more attention like this.

50) Spawn
49) Captain Haddock
48) Harvey Pekar
47) Apollo and Midnighter
46) J. Jonah Jameson
45) Deadpool
44) Jenny Sparks
43) Astro Boy
42) The Saint of Killers
41) Green Lantern
40) Scott Pilgrim
39) The Mekon
38) Cerebus the Aardvark
37)Daredevil
36) Agent Graves
35) Hellboy
34) Dr. Strange
33) Venom
32) Lex Luthor
31) Usagi Yojimbo
30) Emma Frost, the White Queen
29) Swamp Thing
28) The Tick
27) Johnny Alpha of Strontium Dog
26) Violent Marv (Sin City)
25) Dr. Doom
24) Deena Pilgrim (Powers)
23) Obelix (Asterix)
22) Hunter Rose (Grendel)
21) Captain America
20) Wonder Woman
19) The Punisher
18) Halo Jones
17) Iron Man
16) Rorschach
15) Death of The Endless
14) The Incredible Hulk
13) Vladek Spiegelman (Maus)
12) Spider Jerusalem
11) Jesse Custer (Preacher)
10) The Thing
09) Magneto
08) The Joker
07) Judge Dredd
06) Morpheus/Dream of The Endless
05) Spider-Man
04) Wolverine
03) John Constantine (Hellblazer)
02) Batman
01) Superman