question of the day: What are your favorite Mary Sue stories in popular fiction?

For those unfamiliar with the concept of the Mary Sue, she -- or he, sometimes called a Marty Stu -- is a character who is absolute perfection: brilliant, kind, generous, noble, gorgeous... but not in anyway that’s annoying. Oh no: Everyone falls madly in love with the Mary Sue. The Mary Sue is irresistible. Often the Mary Sue gallantly sacrifices her- or himself in order to save the hero. The term came about because fan fiction writers were inventing new characters for their stories -- say, a beautiful, shy, brave, genius ensign newly transferred to the Enterprise, whom Spock has a torrid romance with before she takes a set-to-kill phaser blast for him -- that were little more than stand-ins for the writers themselves, and are not particularly interesting as fictional characters. Then the term came to be seen as having a wider application: James Bond is a Marty Stu, for instance. So is Doctor Who’s Rose Tyler. So is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Mikael Blomkvist (though that’s more obvious in the novel than it is in the movie).

So: What are your favorite Mary Sue stories in popular fiction?

(If you have a suggestion for a QOTD, feel free to email me. Responses to this QOTD sent by email will be ignored; please post your responses here.)