Source: comicvine.gamespot.com

14. Starman (Ted Knight)

(JSA/Starman, DC Comics)

Starman is one of the best comics of all time, and for me, it’s among the top ten things DC's ever published.

And Ted Knight, the original Starman, was a character who went through many things over the course of that series, with a truly beautiful ending. Ted was in retirement by the time the comic book commenced, with his son Jack as the protagonist, but Ted stayed on as a father and mentor figure. Toward the end of the book, Ted was given terminal cancer by ex-Batman villain Dr. Phosphorus, and he knows he's going to die.

However, his old arch nemesis The Mist came out of retirement and threatened Opal City with a nuclear bomb. Ted used an enhanced gravity rod to lift Mist and his bomb – and himself – into low Earth orbit, and made peace with his nemesis before the bomb detonated.

And that was how Ted Knight, who was horrified by his own role in the invention of the original atomic bomb, saved his home from nuclear destruction.