Your Personal Mount Rushmore For Comics

Doug:  What if you could create your own version of Mount Rushmore for whatever comic book foursome you chose?  I'm thinking this could be your opinion on the four ultimate characters from one company -- for example, if I were going to create a monument like this to Marvel Comics in the Bronze Age (how about that wrinkle?  Time specific!), I would probably have Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, Conan the Barbarian, and Captain America.  I would choose them as representatives because a) Spidey was by this time the "face of the franchise", and known to many kids for his spotlight on The Electric Company -- a great cross-marketing idea from the House of Ideas, b) the Hulk on television became a dominant advertising element for the company, c) Conan was being heavily promoted in many of the in-house ads, right alongside the heroes, and was quite prevalent in Marvel's B&W magazines, and d) Captain America just epitomizes the bicentennial of the U.S.A. in 1976.

Doug:  For those of you not in the know, Mount Rushmore is a monument to four U.S. presidents, and is located in the state of South Dakota.  Those presidents are (L to R): George Washington, the 1st president (served 1789-97) and so-called "father of our country", Thomas Jefferson (served 1801-09), whose administration purchased the Louisiana Territory in 1803 from Napoleon's administration,  doubling the size of our nation, Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt (served 1901-09), who was instrumental in the creation of our national parks, and Abraham Lincoln (served 1861-65), under whose administration the nation was preserved after a bloody civil war.

Doug:  So what's your angle?  Are you going with overall characters for a given company?  Era?  What about creators?  And even then, from a particular company or time period?  How about comic books -- the most influential or in your opinion best-selling of all time?  Remember, whatever you choose to discuss, you can only choose four.  Have fun!