I happened to catch a few minutes of Justice League tonight and noticed that the black guy Green Lantern was on the show. From what I remember he wasn't particularly competent and whined a lot in the few issues of various DC comics I saw him in. That got me thinking about an even worse Green Lantern, Guy Gardner I think he was called. He had an ugly bowl cut hairdo, and was the biggest jackass of a hero that ever existed. Then I noticed that the Martian Manhunter was on the show. He always pretty much sucked too with his amazing lack of personality. Additionally I noticed Hawk Girl with her big mace. Am I the only one who sees a weird incongruity between a really heavy blunt mace and a winged hero?

This got me remembering back to when I used to read a pile of comics on a regular basis. In my memory pretty much all of the DC universe's characters sucked. So I thought about making a list DC characters that don't suck. I'm sure I'll miss one or two but I'll bet I can come up with a pretty complete list without too much effort.

• Flash, Barry Allen: Sure he's dead but before he died helping save the universe he managed to weather a divorce and the worst collection of villains in history.
• Green Lantern, Hal Jordan: I don't know if he's around anymore but at one point he was an insane uber-powerful god. Not bad for a half-assed failed hero. He's definitely the high point of the Green Lantern Corps at least.
• Harley Quinn: She's insane, cute, violent, witty, and humorous.
• Robin, Tim Drake: He put the non-pedophile in Batman and Robin. Kudos to him for not wearing short shorts and being a successful hero on his own.
• Wildfire: Way back when the Legion of Superheroes hadn't been rewritten a billion times he was one of the few characters who actually had some depth and wasn't cookie cutter. In addition to be a tormented being of pure energy who couldn't touch anyone or exist outside of his containment suit, he also had the best costume of anyone else in the series.

Hmm, that's all I can come up with after thinking about it for over an hour. There's some other characters which don't suck totally but aren't good enough for me to put on the non-suck list. Batman has been the man since Frank Miller interpreted him but he's still making up for four decades of pedophiliac undertones, and he'll never live down the 60s tv series or the current string of awful rubber suit movies. Catwoman seems pretty smooth but I don't know, she just doesn't really grab me. Poison Ivy almost makes the list based on her friendship with Harley Quinn but without Harley she's just another weird supervillian. I thought about Lobo but then I remembered that he was a crappy Wolverine ripoff with the Demon Etrigan's sense of humor. Nightwing almost makes the list but he did wear the orange and green underwear for a few decades and was Robin through the flaming 60s and 70s. Additionally is he really anything other than a cross between Captain America and Batman anyway?

The real problem with DC is they have all of these awful characters like the New Gods. Not only do they totally suck compared to the equivalent Greek and Norse pantheons of the Marvel universe, they have the ugliest designs ever. I swear most of the DC people are colorblind. Anyone remember the Creeper? Now that was damned ugly. Or the aforementioned Etrigan? Sure he's an amusing character but fugly and garish. And what list would be complete without mentioning Aquaman, the worst hero of them all. Not only does he have stupid, useless powers, he also dressed in orange and green for decades on end.

I'll look through my comics collection and see if there's any worthwhile heroes I missed. I will revisit the list if I come across any. I'm sure I will get an email or two questioning my choices or exclusions.