Who were the top ten golden age characters?

[the antithesis]

I'm sure this is an old, stale topic. The sort of thing a newb would ask. Which is what I am. So I'll ask anyway. Who would you say were the top ten golden age characters?

I know Captain Marvel was way up there as he was outselling Superman.

I'm not sure what criteria would be useful here. Sales, maybe, as that indicates popularity. I'm also wondering who, outside of DC and Marvel (well, later DC and Marvel) characters were the most popular.

[narfstar]

I think market outside of comics is a good indicator. Newspaper comics were read by more than comic book readers. Superman, Batman and Captain Marvel all had movie serials and other products. Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy and the Phantom were comic strips with huge popularity and appearances in and out of comics. In many ways Annie and Dick had adventures every bit as super as the men in tights with no super powers. Mickey Mouse had many wild adventures in comics as did Donald Duck. This topic came up listed in decades on the GCD mailing list and generated some interesting lists. Since you are referring to the more traditional costumed characters I would believe there are sites with sales figures. I think we probably look at Timely/Marvel from modern eyes as being higher up the ladder than it was at the time. If some of the other companies had survived the superhero bust then we might look at their heroes as being higher than we think of them now. Cover appearances may be a fair indicator of a company's heroe's  popularity. So who would be on my list would be varied based on what parameters. Here goes one kind of list.

Superman
Captain Marvel
Batman
Wonder Woman
Captain America
The Phantom
Human Torch
Submariner
Flash
Green Lantern
The Shield
Black Terror
Magno

[Drusilla lives!]

Disney characters via Dell (Mickey, Donald, etc...)
Captain Marvel & Captain Marvel Jr.
Superman
Batman
Sheena
The "All Star" characters (Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, etc...)
Timely-Marvel characters (Captain America, Submariner, etc...)
The Spirit

That's more then ten, but it leaves out a huge number of very popular lesser characters (from today's perspective... back then they were huge) like Plastic Man, Blue Beetle, Hangman/Black Hood, Doll Man and The Blackhawks just to mention a few.  And then there's various newspaper comic strip characters via Eastern and Dell, and the pulp crossovers like The Shadow and Doc Savage.  

The GA was such a time of great creativity in the medium that it's hard to narrow it down further than that IMO.