The world’s 15 richest fictional characters

It's been a tough year for some fictional billionaires, including 2006's second-richest character, C. Montgomery Burns. The owner and operator of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant saw his fortune plummet after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency attempted to contain pollution by enclosing Springfield in a giant glass dome. The population rioted, and looters ransacked Burns Manor, making off with priceless treasures, including the suit Charlie Chaplin was buried in and a first draft of the Constitution with the word "suckers" in it.

Ongoing controversy surrounds the absence of one character from the list: Santa Claus. After ranking first in the first two editions of the list, we excluded him in 2006, after being bombarded by letters from outraged children insisting that Claus is "real." After taking into account the physical evidence — toys delivered, milk and cookies devoured — we felt it was safer to remove him from consideration. While we continue to take the matter under consideration, Santa remains — for now — strictly real.

To qualify for the Fictional 15, we require that candidates be an authored fictional creation, a rule that excludes mythological and folkloric characters. They must star in a specific narrative work or series of works. And they must be known, both within their fictional universe and by their audience, for being rich.

Net worth estimates are based on an analysis of the fictional character's source material, and are valued against known real-world commodity and share price movements. In the case of privately held fictional concerns, we sought to identify comparable fictional public companies. All prices are as of market close, Dec. 10, 2007.

We reserve the right to bend or break any of our own rules.

This year, for the first time, we also ranked the largest fictional companies in the universe. The task was a mammoth undertaking: Dozens of reporters spent countless hours poring over financial documents, a far-flung network of correspondents traveled much of the space-time continuum, and sophisticated algorithms were perfected to perform the tricky business of converting gold pieces, Zorkmids, other exotic currencies into 2007 U.S. dollars.

It all has, of course, been a labor of love, and we hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it.

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