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Thor
Company – Marvel Comics
Debut – 1962
Most Notable Team-Up – The Avengers
He was originally called “The Mighty Thor” and is Odin and Gaea’s son. He is the God of Lightning and Thunder. As a god, Thor is immortal and immune to illness. His divinity has granted him mystical powers similar to his father’s including superior strength. He received acute training in the arts battle and warfare as a part of his upbringing. He is also able to summon and manipulate lightning, enhanced through the use of his magic hammer, Mjölnir.
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Wonder Woman
Company – DC Comics
Debut – 1941
Most Notable Team-Up – The Justice League
Her real name is Diana, an Amazonian Princess. Her main equipment consists of indestructible bracelets, the Lasso of Truth, a magical sword, and a weaponized tiara. Her abilities include increased speed, strength and endurance as well the ability to fly without the use of wings. In 2011, she was rewritten to be a demigoddess.
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Batman
Company – DC Comics
Debut – 1939
Most Notable Team-Up – The Justice League
Batman is actually billionaire, philanthropist and industrialist Bruce Wayne. His parents were murdered in front of him as a child. This event scarred him and inspired his transformation into the world’s greatest crime-fighting detective. He is a master of martial arts, strategy, acrobatics, and marksmanship, he is highly skilled in the arts of espionage, has a genius-level IQ, and he has the means to fuel his vigilante justice. His signature weapons are a Batarang and any number of vehicles sporting the prefix of “bat-.”
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Deadpool
Company – Marvel Comics
Debut – 1991
Most Notable Team-Up – N/A
Wade Wilson, also known as Deadpool, is a mutant mercenary trained in martial arts, marksmanship and swordsmanship with the ability to heal much more quickly than an ordinary human. He is infamous with other Marvel superheroes for his comedic personality and incessant talking. His other abilities include breaking the fourth-wall and immunity to telepathy and other psychic powers. He is considered a failed experiment in the Weapon X program. Though he does not officially join any superhero teams, he has jumped around to work with different Marvel superheroes including: Wolverine, Cable and Domino from the X-Men.
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Iron Man
Company – Marvel Comics
Debut – 1963
Most Notable Team-Up – The Avengers
Outside of his powered armored suit, Iron Man is actually Tony Stark, a wealthy scientist and weaponry engineer. He has had multiple origin story arcs where he was captured by enemies of war and created the robotic suit to save himself. He was then inspired to use the same suit blueprints to create a better suit with which to fight crime. This suit and the others that he created can fly up to a speed of mach 3, and can fire missiles and energy repulsors. The suit can also increase his strength to an extent, perform medical examinations on Stark, and diagnose any mechanical issues with the suit itself.
6) Guardians of the Galaxy
Company – Marvel Comics
Debut – 1969
Most Notable Team-Up – Guardians of the Galaxy
This is a misfit team of criminals lead by Star-Lord, otherwise known as Peter Quill on his home planet of Terra. His teammates include galactic assassin Gamora, a warrior named Drax, a talking raccoon named Rocket with an affinity for weaponry, and a humanoid tree named Groot. Even though they are classified as criminals, they had saved the galaxy on multiple occasions.
7)Superman
Company – DC Comics
Debut – 1938
Most Notable Team-Up – The Justice League
Superman was born on the planet of Krypton under the name Kal-el. When his planet was destroyed, he was sent to Earth, found by a human couple in a corn field, and renamed Clark Kent. His powers include flight, enhanced speed and strength, heat-vision, frost-breath, enhanced senses, and an increased rate of healing. He is said to be based off the story of Hercules from Greek Mythology.
8)Spiderman
Company – Marvel Comics
Debut – 1962
Most Notable Team-Up – The New Avengers
Spiderman was originally known as Peter Parker and received his powers from a radioactive spider bite. That bite endowed him with enhanced reflexes, speed and strength, the ability to scale any surface, produce either natural or artificial webbing (varies by storyline), and momentary precognition he often calls his “spider sense.” Spiderman in the past worked alone, but has been a part of various teams and partnerships including the Avengers and the X-Men.
9)Loki
Company – Marvel Comics
Debut – 1962
Most Notable Team-Up – N/A
Loki is the adoptive son of Odin in Norse Mythology, but is a Frost Giant by birth. Despite this, his abilities are closer to those of Asguardians rather than the Frost Giants. Loki, like Thor, is immortal and immune to illness. He is also able to shape-shift, cast illusions, fly and fire blasts of energy at a target. In mythology, he is known as the Trickster God.
10)Captain America
Company – Marvel Comics
Debut – 1941
Most Notable Team-Up – The Avengers
Steve Rogers wanted to be a soldier but was not physically fit enough to join the army. To make up for this, he joined a Super Soldier program in which he was genetically altered to become a stronger, faster and more physically fit soldier. He fought in World War II and afterwards was cryogenically frozen until he was needed again for different story arcs. His main equipment is a shield made from an alloy of steel and vibranium. He is considered a natural leader.
11)Storm
Company – Marvel Comics
Debut – 1975
Most Notable Team-Up – X-Men
Storm was born Ororo Munroe in New York City and is a mutant descended from a shaman in Africa. Her abilities include weather manipulation and, through her lineage to the African shaman, some witchcraft or sorcery depending upon the story arc. Storm, since her debut in Marvel Comics, has spent most of her time with the X-Men, though she has been on other teams such as the Avengers and the Morlocks. She also served as the queen of Wakanda during her marriage to the Black Panther who she eventually divorced.
12)Wolverine
Company – Marvel Comics
Debut – 1974
Most Notable Team-Up – X-Men
Wolverine did not always have his adamantium metal claws and skeleton. When he first discovered his mutant powers, his claws were made of reinforced bone marrow and he had an enhanced rate of healing. Eventually, he was enlisted in the Weapon X program and had adamantium infused on his skeleton, which caused his claws to become metallic. Thanks to his healing abilities, he is virtually immortal. Though he is known for working with the X-Men, Wolverine has been in many other groups and has done a fair amount of solo work.
13)Flash
Company – DC Comics
Debut – 1940
Most Notable Team-Up – The Justice League
There have been four major characters to call themselves the Flash since the debut of the superhero. Possibly the most notable is Wally West who gained his powers from a spill of electrically charged chemicals. These powers include superhuman speed verging on the speed of light, enhanced reflexes and immunity to certain laws of physics such as intangibility and, in some instances, time travel. A running gag involving Flash and Superman is to see who would win a race between them, though all past races ended in draws as a result of outside forces.
14)Green Lantern
Company – DC Comics
Debut – 1940
Most Notable Team-Up – The Justice League
Similar to the Flash, Green Lantern is a mantle that more than one character has had at the same time. In fact, the Green Lantern many comic book readers know is a member of the Green Lantern Corps. Possibly the two best known Green Lanterns are Hal Jordan and John Stewart. All Green Lanterns wear an alien ring that houses their powers which include flight, force fields and summoning constructs of solid light and energy. They are also said to derive their powers from will-power.
15)Aquaman
Company – DC Comics
Debut – 1941
Most Notable Team-Up – The Justice League
Aquaman is the King of Atlantis and the Seven Seas. His powers include breathing underwater, enhanced strength, telepathy with sea creatures and water manipulation in some story arcs. His weapon of choice varies in some story arcs from a trident to a hook and chain that serves as a prosthetic limb.
16)Gambit
Company – DC Comics
Debut – 1990
Most Notable Team-Up – X-Men
Gambit, like a few previous characters in this list, has played on both sides of the ‘Good vs. Evil’ divide, which could classify him as an antihero similar to Deadpool. His mutant powers grant him enhanced athletic abilities like speed, strength, dexterity and flexibility and allow him to convert the potential energy of objects into explosive kinetic energy. He also has a knack for persuading others to do what he wants, though only if the subject is unaware of Gambit’s hypnotic charisma.
17)Martian Manhunter
Company – DC Comics
Debut – 1955
Most Notable Team-Up – The Justice League
Martian Manhunter hails from Mars where his is known as J’onn J’onzz. He has had many adventures with other DC characters such as Superman, Stargirl and Green Arrow. His powers include superhuman strength, endurance and speed, shape-shifting, intangibility, invisibility, telepathy, telekinesis, flight and a genius-level intellect.
18)Raven
Company – DC Comics
Debut – 1980
Most Notable Team-Up – Teen Titans
Raven is the half-demon daughter of Trigon, ruler of an alternate dimension, Azarath. Her abilities include flight, telekinesis, manipulation of darkness and time, alteration of memory, linguistics, martial arts, sorcery and clairvoyance just to name a few. She is most notably a member of the Teen Titans, a group of younger superheroes often called “sidekicks.”
19)The Runaways
Company – Marvel Comics
Debut – 2003
Most Notable Team-Up – The Runaways
The Runaways are a group of teenagers who learn that their parents are part of an evil organization called “The Pride” and they have inherited the same traits as their parents. The rag-tag group includes a girl with a telepathic link to a dinosaur, a witch, a prodigy in the fields of logic and strategy, the son of scientists with advanced technology, an alien, a mutant with superior strength, and later a cyborg, a shape-shifter, and a manipulator of plants. Over the course of the publication of “The Runaways” comics, two of the main characters died and the group made cameos in other comic books and story arcs.
20)Havok
Company – Marvel Comics
Debut – 1969
Most Notable Team-Up – X-Men
Havok, or Alexander Summers, is a mutant with the ability to harness cosmic energy and emanate it from his body in pulses or waves of hot plasma at a target. He is the brother of Cyclops of the X-Men and has played on both sides of the battles involving the X-Men, though most of his time was spent with the X-Men rather than against them.
