Here are mine, with no particular order:

1. Wendy (very agile, can evade all monsters, not just in the street, and that elder sign is nice, too)
2. Zoey (ultimate monster slayer once you give her a weapon)
3. Trish (jack of all trades, very powerful once she completes her personal story)
4. Silas (an extremely helpful ability with all expansions- sailing to kingsport, innsmouth and arkham)
5. Mark (great starting weapon and a very badass ability)

What are yours?

Cool another opinion topic. This time there is no arguing however.

These guys are in no particular order so I'll list them in order their expansions came out.

1. Bob Jenkins - Great starting equipment and great stats for dealing with monsters. Very likely to get a good item and if he doesn't he can go shopping for an increased chance to get one. Also any street sweeper who has a 3 max sneak (pre Insumuth) and lore I consider to have great stats.

2. Wilson Richards - Probably the best starting items in the game. Wendy is the only other contestant for this spot I think but his items are much more fun. Wish he had less sneak and more will but whenever I'm him I always start my game by going to the unvisited isle and then the black cave to try and get John Legrasse or the Mountain. I've actually gotten lucky and gotten both since he is pretty well set up to get either. Infinite focus is a lot of fun though I wish odd jobs worked in the street.

3. Rex Murphy - Another fun guy to play. With this character when bad stuff happens you can blame it on his family curse so he's relateable. Other than that he has very fun starting items and a very good PS. It's funny that even though his PS has one of the steepest costs no one minds paying it. I've had him with a press pass . It's very unfair.

4. William Yorick this guy is actually very similar to Bob Jenkins which is probably why I like him. His abilities are pretty good and he can pass his PS early if he's lucky. Just needs to fix his speed.

As for 5th I have about 7 investigators vying for that position but none who I can definitly put there. If I have to put one I'll say Darrel since I think he's one of the most fun to play.

In no particular order:

Darrell the Photographer: I love Encounters, and Darrell finds the best ones. Decent stats, nice array of starting items, and a starting Retainer makes for great early shopping. Plus, there's something comfortably heroic about playing Peter Parker against Great Old Ones.

Trish the Spy: Just so much FUN to play. Really, one of the best movers or fighters around (just not necessarily both in the same turn! ).

Finn the Bootlegger: Finn has STUFF, and lots of it. A fantastic Innsmouth killer, with good "survival" stats while trying to avoid fights. Recently, I have discovered that Finn is the almost-perfect defense against my personal arch-nemesis Glaaki.

Lola the Actress: She has terrific stats, a great spread of items, and starts with a gun. But mostly because I love "shopping" the Skill deck!

Carolyn the Psychologist: First, because at the end of the game, when everyone's on the edge, Carolyn NEVER is. Second: she can be AMAZING in a fight, and it is easier to fix her Speed than it is to fix some other Investigators' shortcomings. Finally, because I can be the Spellcaster I want to be without everyone on the forum bitching at me for being Daisy.

1. Patrice, though I do know she's really cheap. I use her when I'm do't want to lose!

2. Wendy. cute, fast, speedy, sneaky, elder sign.... what can I say bad about her?

3. Monterey Jack: immediate weapons, and ability allows me to camp out at the curiousitte shoppe!

4. jenny Barnes, a great partner with Jack: she gives the money, he gets the elder signs

5. there's so many tied at no. 5. there's: Joe,Rex, Daisy, uh.... etc.

1) Wendy. She's really adorable (feels like a young Yuna, from Final Fantasy X), and have superb stats, two spectacular abilities (though one of them is conditional) and equivalent to 8 clue tokens. I almost forgot her 3 Focus, which may be lessened to 2 if you fail her PS, but that is rather difficult to do, unless you're playing against Glaaki.

2) Trish. She is probably the most fun, and yet one of the most powerful investigator in the game. If you have enough other investigators to prevent failure condition from occurring (and hopefully nobody starts off immediately with P. Rice, for Trish's sake), you should be able to achieve her PS around turn 3 or 4, on average. That would make her ridiculous (moving 6 times on her slides equals 20 points! That's higher than Wendy's base 17!)

3) Wilson. Fun guy to have from the beginning. 4 Focus, able to slide skill sliders anywhere, ability to negate Black Cave and Woods encounters (oh, may I clean up those corpses for you, dear Cultists? For a small fee, of course), and of course, shotgun. Oh, and PS, which is really expensive, but extremely worth it.

4) Silas. Spectacular abilities, and the ability to travel to those two horribly troublesome places with a guarantee to return (if you don't get Innsmouth-ed) for clues which most people ignore. Once he has his PS ready to pass, which is rather easy to do, he can camp at Kingsport to prevent rifts (though not his best job) and get ready to end game (usually when there are 5 seals on the table, or only one open gate).

5) Marie. Get someone (or two) to pass her $6 from the beginning, and you're set to have two doomers off from the AO, plus two additional spells! Unless, of course, you're unlucky enough to have Ghroth/Father Dagon, as well as a double doomer Mythos, but even then you should be able to draw one additional spell. Combine that with her starter 2 spells, Voice of Ra, and the two which she bought, I don't see how at all she cannot find something which fits her. In fact, if there is another spellcaster in the game (with higher Lore), and she gets Arcane Insight, the game should be as good as won.

Other contenders would be Joe, Rex, Darrell, Gloria, Calvin Wright (from League 2).