Wallace Wells, of Brian Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim, is someone who I try to model my life after. Five volumes later and I’m still stuck on the step where I get to share my bed with a straight man.

As far as serious answers go, I think I’m gonna have to say Superman. Many seem to feel that he’s become to symbolic of “truth, justice, and the American Way” to be relatable as a character, yet I’ve always been fascinated by the very way in which Superman is situated as a quintisentially “American” hero, tirelessy fighting to protect the American populace’s culture and way of life, and how that contrasts with his alien origins. I wonder how someone whose status as an outsider is so ingrained in him as to literally be the source of his powers is even able to come to love and understand something so foreign that they’ll conciously decide that, “yes, I will dedicate my life to protecting it.” I’m reminded of the one bit in Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman where Superman welcomes Lois Lane into the Fortress of Solitude and tries to share with her all these heretofore personal aspects of his life and she is so alarmed by how alien it all is that her only response is to attempt to kill him. And she’s in love with the man! And what of his alter-ego, Clark Kent? It’s essentially an alien’s attempt to pass for human, adopting what he percieves to be essential qualities of humanity. And what are those? More than mild-mannered, Clark Kent is hesitant, doubting, and the most utterly middle-class weakling ever invented.

For a hero who is supposed to be so “pure” (and to some, even boring), and who fights for truth and justice in those black and white terms, there’s a lot of greyness written into his character and about the reconciliations the self and one’s status as an outsider, and how predominant cultures respond to minorities.

Also, Superman is a dick. So there’s that, too.

Authored by Warrent Ellis, the Transmetropolitan series (1997-2002) from Vertigo featured Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson) in the distant Future. Spider Jerouselem, the Gonzo journalist in question, used live blogging and no-nonsense fisticuffs to rectify mass injustice and hypocrisy.

Who else can f*** people up with twitter and some amphetamines?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmetropolitan

I’d give Constantine the overall nod. I love Hellblazer.

Writer wise I like Andy Diggle a lot. He even responded to my e-mail haha.

you know him you love him, he’s the perfect blend of smart ass and bad ass.

outside of that?

Marko Djurdjevic.

I mean damn… have you not seen that man’s work? that man single handedly is ringing in the new era of the comics industry and totally revolutionizing and setting the bar so damned high that many artists that have been working for decades before him are throwing in the gauntlet. check this out (god save the person on dial up that clicks this:) http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=137859

Seriously, as a comic lover, and as an artist, marko is not only a hero, but a true inspiration.

As far as picking a “Hero” from the industry, I think Stan Lee would be the obvious choice.

Since this is a contest for DC-related items, I’ll take a minute to consider heroes from the DC universe(s). To be honest, most of my exposure to DC comics have been the more stand-alone/what-if stories: Red Son, Kingdom Come, Dark Knight Returns, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, Secret Identity, etc.

However, I did grow up in the 90′s, with the increasingly terrible 80′s/90′s Batman movies, the awesome Batman/Superman/Batman Beyond/Justice League animated universe, and I even used to watch reruns of the 60′s Batman… So I’m somewhat predisposed to say “Batman” on the DC side.

So, coming down to the wire and having to say just one… I’ll go with Stan Lee.

Hulk.

Planet/World War Hulk is probably one of the most favourite things I’ve ever read. I still get a little misty-eyed at the end of PH. Only other comic I can think of to consistently ‘get to me’ is Death of Superman.