Tuesday, July 8, 2014

2014 Dorkly “The Best Justice League Members Ever” Reader Showdown Poll



Dorkly is one of the many, many geek-centric news/opinion/distraction sites on the interwebs, but a tweet related to them caught my attention...

Which led me to the site and this description...
"The Justice League - the best of the best superheroes in the DC universe. Filled with incredible heroes like Superman, Batman and...other, non-Superman/Batman people. But who are YOUR favorites? Vote below - FOR JUSTICE!

The official voting period ends Sunday July 13, 2014 at 11:59PM so get your votes in now."
The way it work is that there are 55 rounds pitting two JLAers against one another. You vote your preference in the given match, and that sets up another round with new adversaries. Each character seems to receive multiple elimination chances, but the repeat victors turn up ever more frequently as the rounds wind down. The last dozen or so is typically dominated by favorite characters, especially if you run a Martian Manhunter blog and vote for him every time by default, even against your beloved Wonder Woman, though you do legitimately feel J'Onn J'Onzz is the quintessential Justice Leaguer. Or is that just me? Anyhow, the results are massively tainted by there being multiple bearers of the same mantle (four Green Lanterns, three Flashes, two Hawks) without full representation (no Connor Hawke or Red Arrow, only one lady Hawk or Ice) or gross over-representations (two entry identities for Dick Grayson, inclusion of Barbara Gordon as Batgirl, two Rocket Reds,) plus there are legions of past members left out of the running.

You're allowed to take the challenge as many times as you like, potentially/probably yielding different results, and I'm not sure whether the mulligans are counted as one vote or cumulatively. You're given results that rank your top five picks based on voting. I tried three times, each sitting Martian Manhunter on top, but with more varied results thereafter (Wonder Woman at #2, 3 & 5, Zatanna at #2 once, Steel at #2 twice & #3 once, The Atom at #4, The Vixen at #4 twice, and Doctor Light II at #5 twice.) There was a fourth try where I went purely with who I liked over who works in the JLA, and ended up with Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Blue Devil, Martian Manhunter and Superman, which was very inaccurate with regard to how I feel overall, especially where Superman is concerned. While some cream consistently rises, a lot of the shakedown comes to how the cards are dealt.

Currently, the overall top five across respondents are Batman (Bruce Wayne) at 87%, Superman 74%, Wonder Woman 71%, Nightwing 70% and Martian Manhunter 68%. Yes Nightwing, but hooray for the Alien Atlas over so many bigger names, though surely the lion's share of credit goes to brand delusion over multiple Green Lanterns & Flashes. Aquaman has no such excuse.

Try it for yourself, but don't look for any of these heroes...
  • Phantom Stranger
  • Steel (Hank Heywood III)
  • Gypsy
  • Fire
  • Hawkwoman
  • Lightray
  • General Glory
  • Tasmanian Devil
  • Maxima
  • Black Condor
  • Agent Liberty
  • Bloodwynd
  • Blue Jay
  • Silver Sorceress
  • Maya
  • Justice League Antarctica (entire team, including Major Disaster)
  • Triumph
  • Nuklon
  • Obsidian
  • Amazing Man
  • Icemaiden
  • L-Ron/Despero
  • Mystek
  • Zan & Jayna
  • Aztek
  • Oracle
  • Zauriel
  • Hourman
  • Jade
  • Antaeus
  • Jesse Quick
  • Dark Flash
  • Moon Maiden
  • Faith
  • Manitou Raven
  • Justice League Elite (non-marquee members)
  • "52" League (ditto)
  • Black Lightning
  • Geo-Force
  • Starman
  • Guardian
  • Donna Troy
  • Starfire
  • Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes)
  • New 52 Justice League International (non-marquee members)
  • Element Woman
  • Captain Cold
  • Justice League Dark (entire team except Zatanna)
  • Justice League 3000 (entire team)
  • Katana
  • Stargirl

2 comments:

LissBirds said...

I'm having fun with this. I just went with who I liked, and I'm not sure why Hal Jordan and Batman keep popping up in my top 5 (conspiracy of some sort...), but overall, my JLI bias is showing with Ice and Blue Beetle showing up. I got J'onn vs. Adam Strange about 10 rounds in, and I thought that was just plain cruel.

Also, too many villains in the Justice League, but I guess that's a complaint for another day...Catwoman vs. anybody as the best Justice Leaguer...is that even a contest?!

Count Drunkula said...

The poll pit Wonder Woman vs. Black Canary in the first round. Clearly I have some affection for Black Canary, but I couldn't pick her over Wonder Woman in the first round!

Also, somehow Cyborg ended up in my Top 5 just because I voted him over Ice and Kyle Rainer.