All right, let the brown-nosing commence!

[b]Best Character:[/b] Spider-Woman (HenryJonesJr).
There are few things that irk me more than the current "everyone's replaceable" mentality with which Marvel (and DC to a somewhat lesser extent) treats its heroes, so for Henry to take one of those replacement-heroes and make her into something I genuinely look forward to reading is no small feat.  Spider-Gwen has a distinct voice, a fleshed-out supporting cast, a rogues gallery that's filling out nicely, everything necessary to turn a character from the comics that I find 'blandly competent' at best and make her feel like an actual mainstay.

[b]Best Character Concept:[/b] The Punisher (Simple Unicycle)
There are some genuinely great concepts that people have been putting out-- Bounce's police-procedural Green Lantern and Morden Man's Fantastic Four were [i]very[/i] damn close contenders for this prize.  But just in terms of sheer enjoyment to read, Unicycle's take on the Punisher from someone who usually wallows in self-loathing and ultra-seriousness into a Hong-Kong-action-flick who positively revels in spectacular gunplay has been a blast and a half.

[b]Best Character Development:[/b] Thor (Lord Wraith)
It may be a bit of a slow burn compared to most of us jumping out of the gate, but Donald Blake's struggle with the identity of Thor-- and his literal struggle with Victor Creel-- has been very entertaining and engaging, with a very clear before-and-after, whereas a lot of us (myself very much included) have been more focused on future setups and plot-navigation and made our characters more or less fully-formed out of the box.

[b]Best Story:[/b] "Welcome to the Jungle" (John Constantine [Byrd Man])
Byrd's been playing hard-boiled detective types so long I wouldn't be surprised if his house was lit like a set from [i]The Big Combo[/i].  That said, when he's in his element his stuff is amazing, and his introductory arc for Constantine was genuinely excellent.

[b]Best Post:[/b] [s]Lord Wraith's Sex Scene[/s] For real, though, I'm terrible at picking individual posts to declare them the best, so let's go with the conclusion for Bounce's "Mary Jane's Last Dance" because that was a great arc that I would've given Best Story if not for Byrd being Byrd.

[b]The John Lees Memorial MVP Award*:[/b] Master Bruce
How, how did you pull this off?!  I've been trying for like three years to re-launch the old Hype Basement games, only for each of them to burn out after like a week.  What's your secret?  What dirt do you have on folks to keep them posting?  What obscene hoodoo incantations did you perform?  I demand answers, dammit!

For real, though, MB is doing the lord's work here-- and incidentally writing a Batman that utterly annihilates any of the current official incarnations of the character.