>With unemployment lingering, partisanship raging, and natural and man-made disasters striking all over the place, we were certainly in the market for a few heroes this year.
Here's a look at some of the men and women—and one dog—who stepped up to make things a little better...
(Also see The 10 Biggest Villains of 2010)
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Sage Stossel is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and draws the cartoon feature Sage, Ink. She is author and illustrator of the children's books On the Loose in Boston, On the Loose in Washington, DC, and On the Loose in Philadelphia. Her graphic novel Starling is serialized on GoComics.com.