Sorry, folks, I suffered from perhaps the most dreaded malady in all of message board posting, premature expostulation. With your kind indulgence, I'll pick up with # 3 on my list...

# 3.) Spiderman - Superman and Batman may have longer
histories, but not more illustrious ones. Spiderman
came along at just the right time and saved the
industry by showing the pitfalls of having super
powers and abilities. A gawky teenager at the start,
he made us realize that heroes had more to contend
with than super villains... like acne. Seriously,
Spiderman cast a whole new perspective on the lives
of heroes that hadn't really been explored in-depth
before.

# 4.) Wonder Woman - Quick... name DC's Big Three...
Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Longevity in the
comics business is hard to argue with, and she's been
around about as long as Superman or the Bat. She is
arguably the greatest female hero in all of comics.

# 5.) The Hulk - "Seven feet, one thousand pounds of
unfettered fury, the strongest creature ever to walk
the face of the Earth..." There was a time when that
meant a lot more than it does today. In his heyday
from the late 60s to the late 70s, the Hulk made just
about everybody nervous and hesitant to take him on,
and even heavyweights like Thor had reservations
about trading shots with him. The Hulk was the first
truly successful anti-hero, fighting both good guys
and bad guys with equal vigor and ferocity.

# 6.) Wolverine - Even though I've come to dislike this
character, there was a time when I respected him.
Like Spiderman before him, Wolverine cast a different
slant on what being a hero meant, and didn't mean.
He crossed lines that other heroes wouldn't, and that
meant killing opponents when necessary. More than
any other mutant, Wolverine propelled the X-Men to
the forefront of comics in terms of sales and
popularity.

# 7.) The Silver Surfer - Whether you like this character
or not, he made a huge splash on the comics scene
when he debuted, almost as much of one as Spiderman.

# 8.) The Thing - Marvel's perennial tough guy. As was the
case with Wolverine, the Thing was the most popular
character of the Fantastic Four, and many folks got
the magazine just to read about him.

# 9.) Spawn - I don't much follow this character, but it
would be fruitless to argue his impact as an impact
player on the independent house scene.

# 10.) Savage Dragon - Okay, how many other heroes do you
see crawling out of an opponent's anal sphincter?
Erik Larsen made the Savage Dragon a groundbreaking
character and comic.