Could Marvel make Nighthawk popular as Batman?

[VenomsMom]

Given Marvels insane success at turning characters into box office gold is there any chance they could ever make Nighthawk into a marque character? Would they ever even attempt it? Discuss

 

[MadVillainy]

No.

Batman is a cultural icon for over a half a century.

 

[daddydivine]

Edit: I'm going to delete this... because it sounded pretty harsh.

too late...

 

[MadVillainy]

Never bet against Marvel. They could make Moon Knight more popular then batman. Then again people will say that Batman and Superman are more popular in the human conciousness or some nonsense and therefore will always be more popular.

Because if batman is in your movie its gauraunteed to make a billion.

I mean...that's not really nonsense

 

[Mike Murdock]

While parody characters sometimes can become more popular than the original (cf. Deadpool), Nighthawk doesn't really add a lot. He was OK in the Defenders for awhile, I guess. And that's going against possibly the most popular superhero in the world - the guy who is so popular they use him as a unit of measurement for comic book sales.

 

[Aztec]

Anything is possible with Marvel Studios.

I mean seriously, how can you even bet against them at this point? Black Panther has been elevated to god status and very few in the general public even heard of him before February. Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor, etc. Heck, even Ant-Man and Dr. Strange are upper B-Lister’s now. It’s crazy when you think about it.

And DC has done so much to hurt their brand in the last few years. However I suppose people will always know Batman.

 

[UltimatePyro9]

First, they'd have to make the Squadron Supreme popular. Who knows? As long as Marvel Studios is involved, anything's possible.

 

[SPO2 Dalisay]

I don't see Nightwing as a priority for Marvel Studios. Now if some auteur was able to start developing something and Marvel retained the rights as with Ant-Man it might have happened. Only now anyone would know that the auteur would never have the rights and anything he did on spec would still need to fit in with the greater MCU. And that is just to get MCU chapter 20 or 30 something made.

In no way could that match the popularity of Batman even if that one movie pulls off something like the box office that Black Panther did. Nightwing would still be without the social/political bump that Black Panther and Wonder Woman benefited from.

 

[Chance Jackson]

I've said it before I'd love for Marvel to take a crack at adapting JMS' "Supreme Power" mini-series. After Killmonger that version of Nighthawk is now doable imo

 

[Batmannerism]

No. Not going to happen - I very rarely state things in absolute terms, because there are very few, if any absolutes in téms of comic book characters, but I feel pretty safe here. Batman has been good, bad, awful and even great- he's jumped the shark a bunch of times and he's still here.

But, having said that, there are other MCU characters can certainly challenge him for popularity with the GA, I' m thinking of Cap and Black Panther, and BP has a lot more movies left in him.

Batman has such a long history and a huge cultural status - it's going to take someone much more interesting than Nighthawk ( who originally was a Batman pastiche) to overshadow him.

 

[DrCosmic]

I'm going to say yes. It is possible. Certainly Iron Man has eclipsed Batman in popularity among children. If that keeps up for twenty years, then Iron Man will be to Batman what Batman is to Superman, and it'll only be a bunch of 50-80 year olds who think Batman is better. It can be done.

That being said, Marvel is very unlikely to choose to do that with Nighthawk. Even moreso because what makes Supreme Power Nighthawk so interesting has already sort of been touched on with Killmonger so it can't hit as hard the second time. It'd be a lot of work, and they'd have to really spotlight Nighthawk in a way that doesn't really make sense with the path they've been on.

However, IF they were to do a Supreme Power series on, say, the new Disney streaming service and develop Nighthawk over the course of several years, he could become the sort of Jon Snow to Batman's Legolas. Sure, Legolas is more popular, but Jon Show is loved in a more fierce and present way, and that ain't nothin.

This also presumes that WB doesn't get it together and give us a glorious Batman franchise in the near future.

 

[2kt09]

The editors and adapters haven't established enough basis for him to make a splash.
A couple cameos between 2 cartoons...contrast that with the Avengers.

GOTG was unknown? Sure, but isn't that still THE cosmic corner of the Marvel universe?
They're "the frickin' Guardians of the Galaxy"

Nighthawk is the name of several fictional characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. There have been six versions of the character: a supervillain-turned-superhero from the mainstream Marvel Universe continuity, Kyle Richmond, who belonged to the team Squadron Sinister; and five from alternate universes, who belonged to various permutations of the team Squadron Supreme

So, his thing is being a heel turned face OR some alternate universe guy...
His name isn't even that eye-catching and a hypester here even mixed him up with someone else.

 

[writer0327]

Well, to answer the question, Marvel can do whatever they'd like, but no studio can determine the popularity of a character. All Marvel can do is put the character out there and see what happens. Audiences will determine what they like, love, hate, etc.

If any company could "make" any character become as popular as Batman, they would rule all of entertainment.

 

[MbJ]

The editors and adapters haven't established enough basis for him to make a splash.

The vast majority of the general public doesn't read comic books, so that isn't really a problem. Scott Lang was a character who was never a lead until 4 or 5 years ago and had a very small library of published material that could actually be mined for a film, but he was still a success.

Note: I'm not saying Nighthawk could be as popular as Batman. I doubt that. Batman has a level of international pop culture cache that most heroes can only dream of. But Nighthawk not having a lot of stories in the comic books doesn't really have much, if anything to do with a movie's success at this point.

 

[2kt09]

The vast majority of the general public doesn't read comic books, so that isn't really a problem. Scott Lang was a character who was never a lead until 4 or 5 years ago and had a very small library of published material that could actually be mined for a film, but he was still a success.

Note: I'm not saying Nighthawk could be as popular as Batman. I doubt that. Batman has a level of international pop culture cache that most heroes can only dream of. But Nighthawk not having a lot of stories in the comic books doesn't really have much, if anything to do with a movie's success at this point.

But he's still an Ant-Man even if not THE Ant-Man.

I expressed the other notions as to why it's going to be an even bigger hurdle.

 

[Iceman]

I don't see Nightwing as a priority for Marvel Studios. Now if some auteur was able to start developing something and Marvel retained the rights as with Ant-Man it might have happened. Only now anyone would know that the auteur would never have the rights and anything he did on spec would still need to fit in with the greater MCU. And that is just to get MCU chapter 20 or 30 something made.

In no way could that match the popularity of Batman even if that one movie pulls off something like the box office that Black Panther did. Nightwing would still be without the social/political bump that Black Panther and Wonder Woman benefited from.

Nightwing doesn't even seem to be a priority for DC right now, nevermind Marvel! t:

 

[MbJ]

But he's still an Ant-Man even if not THE Ant-Man.

Yeah, but Ant-Man had virtually no mainstream pop culture presence prior to the movie. Except that SNL skit.

The only people who were aware of him were kids who knew him from the old Avengers cartoons.

 

[2kt09]

Yeah, but Ant-Man had virtually no mainstream pop culture presence prior to the movie. Except that SNL skit.

The only people who were aware of him were kids who knew him from the old Avengers cartoons.

That's exactly what I mean. Nighthawk barely has that.
There's obviously still a bar in terms of _-listers and there are other Batman-lite Marvel characters who come before a character like Nighthawk.

 

[SirStrangefolk]

I'd say the right mix of original Nighthawk with race and costume of Supreme Power Nighthawk would be pretty cool. But it wouldn't become more popular than Batman.

 

[Tg11]

Closest thing Marvel has to a Batman noir type character would be Moon Knight

 

[Set]

Closest thing Marvel has to a Batman noir type character would be Moon Knight

I was just thinking that I'd rather Marvel focused on someone like Moon Knight or the Prowler (or just continued with their pre-existing street level vigilante characters like Daredevil), than try to develop someone so blatantly a riff on Batman. (Or other Squadron Supreme types, like Hyperion, Power Princess, etc., for that matter.)