Characters That You Feel...

[Gail Simone]

...have never had their full potential reached?

What characters have you always felt COULD be cooler than they are, but for whatever reason, never seemed to make that leap?

For me, one of them was Taskmaster. Now, don't get mad, I haven't read his recent appearances yet, and I hadn't read most of his OLD appearances, either. But something about the guy just screamed potential to me and he's one of the things I miss most about Agent X.


Who else?

Gail

[Agent Helix]

The Vulture.

Yeah, I'm serious.

Here's an old man that dresses up like a carrion bird in order to get his kicks. There's a lot of untapped psychology there that's never been adressed. Considering he's also one of the only honest-to-god elderly supervillains (not just old, because most of those guys are technically immortal), that's never been really addressed (aside from one somewhat great story in Spectacular I remember from when I was a wee lad, called "Funeral Arrangements", I think).

[NickThompson]

Gambit
Bishop


Both of these could work so much better if they weren't just another X-Man. See District-X, for example.

[JeffreyWKramer]

The Shroud....

[Karl J. Barnes]

Kazar..I liked some of this characters stories, but I kept wishing for a more pulp-like version. Maybe Warren Ellis could give him the Planetary treatment?

[Karl J. Barnes]

The Shroud....

Yeah, he could've been the 70's version of the Shadow. Marvel really dropped the ball with this character though he did have some impressive characterization in Ms. Marvel's Civil War tie ins.

[Karl J. Barnes]

...have never had their full potential reached?

What characters have you always felt COULD be cooler than they are, but for whatever reason, never seemed to make that leap?

For me, one of them was Taskmaster. Now, don't get mad, I haven't read his recent appearances yet, and I hadn't read most of his OLD appearances, either. But something about the guy just screamed potential to me and he's one of the things I miss most about Agent X.


Who else?

Gail

Never warmed up to Taskmaster, he came across as too "Deus Ex Machina"-like. Now he could have been cool with a little more characterization, some in-depth background story, but he always comes off as some After School Special bully than a villian.

[Karl J. Barnes]

Gambit
Bishop


Both of these could work so much better if they weren't just another X-Man. See District-X, for example.

Agreed with Bishop. I really started liking the guy in District X, but that went all kablooey with "House of M". Actually would have thought that Gambit(away from Rogue(sp?)) and in District X with Bishop would have been a bright move.

[DuelaDent]

• Gypsy (no offense but everywhere she goes, she's a supporting character)
• Nightshade (really started to take off in Suicide Squad; has had her own identity crisis in every appearance afterwards)
• Geo-Force (Terra seems to be popular, but her older brother not so much)
• Halo
• Looker (a telepathic vampire...come on! :D )
• Damage (everytime he gets built up, he gets torn back down)
• Risk (had potential, until becoming a petty thief and then losing his arm...maybe Titans East will do something for him)
• Lilith (Worst. Death. Ever.)
• Chronos
• Dr. Trap (the guy who killed Chase's father and the rest of the Justice Experience...there's still a lot of story left to be told)

[The Fury]

Toad. A once lacky that is now a genious in electronics that is still treated in comics as a lacky. I think some writer needs to explore his character a bit more instead of having him as a side character all the time. He's done alot and been around a long time.

Also most of his recent appearences and events need to be explored more, I think, his involvement in the Xorneto thing, and HoM most dominatly (HoM he was on the island to start with, got what he wanted in HoM, was awoken and was there at the end...basically he should know what happened).

...Never going to happen though.

[the4thpip]

The Human Cannonball from the old Lois Lane stories.

[Karl J. Barnes]

• Looker (a telepathic vampire...come on! :D )
  

Yeah, I could see her character going a darker route than being just a superheroine.

[areacode212]

I thought Yelena Belova (the new Black Widow) had pretty good potential, and lately I've been kind of bitter about her being killed off so soon after she was created. Natasha doesn't do any actual spying for Russia anymore, and it's not like Marvel has a surplus of espionage characters, so why not keep her around as a semi-antagonist character, say, for when Marvel decides to publish a Checkmate-type book? Hell, Russian spies are back in the news, and she might even work well in a book like Union Jack.

Instead, she showed up in New Avengers working for S.H.I.E.L.D. (wtf?), then got turned into...the Super-Adaptoid (WTF?!?) for a single story. It's like everything that made her interesting got stripped away just to provide the Avengers with some lame villain. Hopefully someone like Brubaker brings her back and explains that the Super-Adaptoid was just some clone or LMD or something.

[siuntres]

Bloodhound-Dan Jolley's DC series should have been allowed to keep going.

Freddy Freeman-but DC seems to be addressing that.

The Guardian (Jim Harper)- should've been another great man out of time character, but too many convoluted recons have screwed him up , including currently being a baby.

Most Golden age characters- I don't see why both comapnies don't tell more ww2 era stories taking advantage of today's quality writers and artists. Take these cyphers and make three dimensional characters.

[BcAugust]

Hannibal King

Seriously, a vampire detective that thinks of himself as Sam Spade, good at his job, who always gets the cases of the dark side of Marvel. The fact he's only been in team books(most of which were great, but didn't let him get a fair amount of exposure), hurts.