For me, one of the top on my list is the Willie Fawcett version of Captain Thunder. Shocked that they used the name for Flashpoint but this version never appeared again.

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/William_Fawcett_(Earth-276)

Any one appearance, or rarely done characters you'd like to see?

Micah.

Synn.

The Punisher. With the old logo.

Danger Unlimited.

I'm surprised to read this, I thought you liked the more "old fashioned" pure good guy superheroes like Captain America, Superman, Thor, etc.

It's the ruthless vigilante like Punisher that makes me appreciate the Steve Rogers types more. If you think about it, a character like Punisher has to exist, if only in our minds. Because the outer bounds of how far we would go is something we've all thought about.

I like Punisher as a crime story. Particularly, written by Mike Baron or Chuck Dixon. Lots like a Elmore Leonard character.

Conquer-Lord! How could a character with this kind of potential only appear three times?


https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Conquer-Lord_(Quinn)_(Earth-616)

Man-Thing

The Atomic Knights

I'll think of some more...

The Earth 2 Batman.

The Invisible Woman.

Thanks, buddy.

You're making a mockery of a most sober topic.

Fine.

My serious answers are the Spectre and the Phantom Stranger because I love them and hate how little they are used these days.

I also always had a soft spot for the chubby nerd kid in the mid-80s Spider-Man comics who had his own Spider-Man costume but mechanical arms like Doc Ock. I can't remember his name. He also dated the hottest girl in his high school because comics. But then when he reappeared in Spider-Man Unlimited in the 90s briefly, he was buff and handsome.

This sounds like something you dreamt.

No, no, it's real. I'm 99% sure he was created by Tom DeFalco and treated earnestly, and then when PAD did some fill-in issues of ASM later on he treated him as a joke, teaming him up with other losers like Toad and Leapfrog.

See, 'tis true.

Ah yes.

I think I remember Peter David posting an image of the trio in a But I Digress column, drawn by Kyle Baker.

It was a good drawing.

Also Tom DeFalco sucks.

Tom DeFalco is a very underrated "meat and potatoes" type of writer. My son loved the DeFalco/Ryan Fantastic Four when he was little.

Yeah, I loved his ASM run with Ron Frenz (the artist he works with best, I feel) back in the 80s....even as a kid, I knew it was a step down from Stern/Romita Jr., but I still loved it and how retro (a term I didn't know then) it was and how it evoked the Lee-Ditko stories.

However, when he came back to write ASM again in the 1990s, what had felt "retro" a decade earlier felt dated by then...partly, I think because Ron Frenz elevated his writing but I also think his writing style just aged badly. There were so many forced topical references in both ASM and FF, and I still remember cringing that he still had characters going "NOT!!!" like 6 years after Wayne's World.

I didn't like his FF, but I did really like the Spider-Girl stuff of his that I read. Pat Oliffe seemed to be another artist that "got" him.