Popularity of Marvel Characters Prior to MCU

[KevTravels]

and their popularity post their introduction in the MCU


like how popular were the likes of Iron Man or Ant Man/Doctor Strange/War Machine/Falcon and how drastically did their popularity change after their films or appearances in several films of the MCU?

 

[NealKenneth]

For the general public? A lot of the characters became drastically more popular.

Amongst Marvel comic fans? Not as big of a change. It really annoys me, for example, when people refer to Iron Man as former B-lister at Marvel. He was definitely A-list at Marvel, hence why, when it was time to shock every one with a Civil War, it was Iron Man vs Captain America. They were A-listers already.

Here's the results of a popularity poll that CBR did in 2006 (Iron Man came out in 2008.)

01. Spiderman 2164 (103)
02. Captain America 1616 (43)
03. Daredevil (Matt Murdock) – 1006 (22)
04. Dr. Doom – 872 (15)
05. The Thing (Ben Grimm) - 850 (12)
06. Hulk – 730 (15 for Joe Fixit, 9 for “Professor Hulk”) (13)
07. Wolverine – 728 (10)
08. Hawkeye – 676 (17)
09. Thor – 605 (12)
10. Cyclops – 604 (13)
11. Iron Man (Tony Stark) – 603 (11)
12. Nightcrawler – 497 (12)
13. Magneto – 465 (7)
14. Dr. Strange – 464 (12 )
15. Silver Surfer – 461 (8)
16. Beast - 456 (8)
17. Deadpool - 443 (13)
18. Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) - 427 (9)
19. The Multiple Man (Jamie Madrox) - 399 (11)
20. Jean Grey (Marvel Girl/Phoenix) - 374 (13)
21. The Punisher – 360 (8)
22. The White Queen (Emma Frost) – 332 (1)
23. Iron Fist – 325
24. Thanos – 287 (5)
25. She-Hulk – 283 (9)
26. Ultimate Spider-Man – 261 (12)
27 (tie). Sub-Mariner (Namor McKenzie) – 222 (2)
27 (tie). Nova – 222 (6)
29. Nick Fury – 221 (2)
30. Storm – 209 (3)
31 (tie). Colossus – 208 (2)
31 (tie). Galactus – 191 (4)
33. Power Man (Luke Cage) – 190 (1)
34. Adam Warlock – 186 (3)
35. Ms. Marvel – 185
36. Rogue – 183 (2)
37. Invisible Woman (Sue Storm/Richards) – 170 (1)
38. Princess Powerful/Bruiser (Molly Hayes) – 167 (1)
39. Human Torch (Johnny Storm) – 163
40. Ultimate Captain America – 161 (1)
41. Gambit – 147 (5)
42. The Vision – 146
43. Mary Jane Watson – 144
44. Black Panther – 137 (4)
45. Jessica Jones – 134 (3)
46. Iceman – 132 (5)
47. Howard the Duck – 131 (1)
48. J. Jonah Jameson – 130 (2)
49 (tie). Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) – 128
49 (tie). Bucky/Winter Soldier (James Buchanan Barnes) – 128

In my opinion, the handoff from A-list to B-list occurs somewhere between #15 and #25 on this list.

 

[KevTravels]

Thanks for the post

 

[KevTravels]

I'm amazed Daredevil or Doctor Doom were ranked over Wolverine

I recall the Iron Man series as a kid. But I def knew more of X-Men (due to the series) and same with Spiderman though I was mostly a Batman kid.

 

[chamber-music]

Only a handful of characters are super popular. Other characters have a decent sized following that keeps them afloat. Other characters popularity waxes and wanes.

For the general public exposure to comic heroes through other media mediums like adverts, movies, tv shows, cartoons, video games and so on tends to be how they know characters if they never read comics.

Awareness and popularity are two different things. Successful films would presumably help with both but that isn't always the case.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

When I say Iron Man was a B-Lister prior to the films, I mean that he was a big deal in the Marvel Universe and well-known among comic book fans, but not very well known or popular among the general audience. The true A-Listers are those that EVERYONE knows, even if they never read a comic book in their lives, like Batman or Spider-Man. Iron Man is in that group now, but he wasn't in 2006. No MCU character was, other than maybe Hulk (not counting Spider-Man who joined the MCU much later).

 

[NealKenneth]

I definitely agree, Spider-Man and Hulk were the only two who were truly on the level of Superman and Batman pre-MCU. I wasn't referring to anyone here when I criticized the "B-lister" comments I've seen, that annoyance is directed at articles and videos online made by organizations pretending to be into comics.

 

[Shikamaru]

Iron Man became the most hated superhero in all of comics after Civil War. Quesada even came out and said the only thing that saved his popularity was the movie. Downey and Favreau in a way turned the character in a 180 direction.

 

[Darepool]

If that poll were titles/franchises instead of individual characters, the X-Men come in at number 2....possibly #1. I know that's not the question, but just a slightly different context with which to look at it.

 

[DACrowe]

and their popularity post their introduction in the MCU


like how popular were the likes of Iron Man or Ant Man/Doctor Strange/War Machine/Falcon and how drastically did their popularity change after their films or appearances in several films of the MCU?

They were all at best B-listers. Hulk had some popularity from his TV show in the '80s, but it had clearly evaporated by 2003 and 2008 when his solo movies did so-so business, even though the latter at least was relatively well received. Captain America is a cultural icon, but prior to his movies that didn't make him cool or popular, he was a known commodity.

Very few people other than comic book fans knew who Iron Man was before 2008, and fewer still I'd wager knew Thor was a Marvel superhero in addition to being in Norse mythology.

I think characters like Ant-Man, Doctor, Strange, War Machine, and Guardians of the Galaxy are about as obscure as you can get. Unless you watched the Spider-Man cartoon in the' 90s, you wouldn't know who Strange or War Machine was lest you were a hardcore comic book fan. I did watch that show, but since Ant-Man and the Guardians never showed up, I had no idea who they were until I got deep into comics a few years later... actually I take that back. I did not know who the Guardians were until they had a movie announced.

I would say in the '90s and 2000s, the most popular heroes were probably Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Wolverine, and Wonder Woman in that order. Now I would put Iron Man over all of them, save maybe Batman. zit is hard to say which of those two has more fans now--or if Iron Man will stay popular after Downey retires from the role. I would also put modern Cap and Hulk above Wolverine too in terms of popularity.

 

[daddydivine]

I think Marvels triumvirate were Spidey, Wolverine, and Hulk. They were in everything back in the day and that was before the X-men movie. I don't know the numbers but the number of comic crossovers with those characters was ridiculous. Before the Deadpool resurgence...

Its a little weird watching my kids talk about Ironman and Cap like they're Superman and Batman from the late 90's.

I also think that true staying power will come from re imagining the characters after the established actors hang up there tights. Batman and Spiderman seem the only characters that are auto-gangbusters.

 

[NealKenneth]

Interesting point, but I think it would be really hard to bring Iron Man Cap and Thor back down out of the A-list now.

 

[chamber-music]

I read Iron Man & War Machine comics but I also knew Iron Man and War Machine from the nineties cartoon series. I also knew Ant-Man & Wasp (the Hank & Janet versions) from the Avengers cartoon from the late nineties.

Guardians of the Galaxy were super obscure. The original Guardians had a comic run in the nineties when Marvel was flooding the market with books of all kinds of random characters. The cosmic event books of the mid 2000's in which Abnett & Lanning revived the name and made a new team with a bunch of obscure space based characters boosted profile a little but they were still unknown unless you read Marvel's cosmic books.

Doctor Strange got a failed tv pilot in the late seventies.

 

[metaphysician]

I think its best to focus on recognizability out-of-comics. A character's importance in the comics has basically no bearing on this whatsoever.

So, Iron Man pre-MCU was B-list, not because he was a long term Avenger. He was B-list because he'd been around for decades, has his own comic for most of that time, and had a couple of cartoon appearances. Thus, he had a decent amount of pop culture awareness, enough that the average person stood a decent chance of recognizing a picture of him.

 

[InCali]

I definitely agree, Spider-Man and Hulk were the only two who were truly on the level of Superman and Batman pre-MCU. I wasn't referring to anyone here when I criticized the "B-lister" comments I've seen, that annoyance is directed at articles and videos online made by organizations pretending to be into comics.

Spiderman only. Yeah, Hulk had a series and I'm sure part of the reason is that he was fairly well known, but I think a lot of it is that he's a good character. He has very limited control over turning into an enormous, green rage monster. He's unpredictable, highly destructive, etc.; a very cool character.

He wasn't, however, in the same ballpark as Supes, Batman, Spidey, or even WW.

With the popularity of MCU over the last 10 years, a lot of CB heroes have been elevated. That's a good thing for all of us.

 

[Spiderine]

I always considered Spidey Hulk and even Captain America being synonymous with Main stream America. The Xmen of course exploded in the 90's but I considered them more of a super hero group as opposed to anyone being individually popular on their own. Wolverine didn't really start to stand out until Jackman.

 

[InCali]

I always considered Spidey Hulk and even Captain America being synonymous with Main stream America. The Xmen of course exploded in the 90's but I considered them more of a super hero group as opposed to anyone being individually popular on their own. Wolverine didn't really start to stand out until Jackman.

Even Spidey didn't have the same level of awareness in the general population as did Supes and Batman. They are the clear 1 and 2 (order debatable). I'd say WW and Spidey next (IMO a lean towards WW). The DC characters just had so much (not to mention a long) history in Americana.

The last 10 years has seen a shift. Not a complete shift, but a leveling of the playing field.

Hey, maybe it was just the neighborhood I grew up in....it wasn't that "friendly".

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

For the general public? A lot of the characters became drastically more popular.

Amongst Marvel comic fans? Not as big of a change. It really annoys me, for example, when people refer to Iron Man as former B-lister at Marvel. He was definitely A-list at Marvel, hence why, when it was time to shock every one with a Civil War, it was Iron Man vs Captain America. They were A-listers already.

Here's the results of a popularity poll that CBR did in 2006 (Iron Man came out in 2008.)

01. Spiderman 2164 (103)
02. Captain America 1616 (43)
03. Daredevil (Matt Murdock) – 1006 (22)
04. Dr. Doom – 872 (15)
05. The Thing (Ben Grimm) - 850 (12)
06. Hulk – 730 (15 for Joe Fixit, 9 for “Professor Hulk”) (13)
07. Wolverine – 728 (10)
08. Hawkeye – 676 (17)
09. Thor – 605 (12)
10. Cyclops – 604 (13)
11. Iron Man (Tony Stark) – 603 (11)
12. Nightcrawler – 497 (12)
13. Magneto – 465 (7)
14. Dr. Strange – 464 (12 )
15. Silver Surfer – 461 (8)
16. Beast - 456 (8)
17. Deadpool - 443 (13)
18. Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) - 427 (9)
19. The Multiple Man (Jamie Madrox) - 399 (11)
20. Jean Grey (Marvel Girl/Phoenix) - 374 (13)
21. The Punisher – 360 (8)
22. The White Queen (Emma Frost) – 332 (1)
23. Iron Fist – 325
24. Thanos – 287 (5)
25. She-Hulk – 283 (9)
26. Ultimate Spider-Man – 261 (12)
27 (tie). Sub-Mariner (Namor McKenzie) – 222 (2)
27 (tie). Nova – 222 (6)
29. Nick Fury – 221 (2)
30. Storm – 209 (3)
31 (tie). Colossus – 208 (2)
31 (tie). Galactus – 191 (4)
33. Power Man (Luke Cage) – 190 (1)
34. Adam Warlock – 186 (3)
35. Ms. Marvel – 185
36. Rogue – 183 (2)
37. Invisible Woman (Sue Storm/Richards) – 170 (1)
38. Princess Powerful/Bruiser (Molly Hayes) – 167 (1)
39. Human Torch (Johnny Storm) – 163
40. Ultimate Captain America – 161 (1)
41. Gambit – 147 (5)
42. The Vision – 146
43. Mary Jane Watson – 144
44. Black Panther – 137 (4)
45. Jessica Jones – 134 (3)
46. Iceman – 132 (5)
47. Howard the Duck – 131 (1)
48. J. Jonah Jameson – 130 (2)
49 (tie). Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) – 128
49 (tie). Bucky/Winter Soldier (James Buchanan Barnes) – 128

In my opinion, the handoff from A-list to B-list occurs somewhere between #15 and #25 on this list.

Cool list! This is why I said throughout the production of Fant4stic: "Make a Doom that looks and acts like Doom and make a Thing that looks and acts like The Thing, and they can get away with a lot of other wrong things."

But they couldn't even get those two details right.

 

[InCali]

Cool list! This is why I said throughout the production of Fant4stic: "Make a Doom that looks and acts like Doom and make a Thing that looks and acts like The Thing, and they can get away with a lot of other wrong things."

But they couldn't even get those two details right.

I only saw the first 2 FF movies and didn't really think they were that bad. In my defense, it was early in the game and there wasn't a lot to compare it to (though I'll admit, it didn't stack up very well to what WAS out there at the time....XMen, Spidey, BB, etc.). I was going to see the last (Trank) one, but chickened out because I thought I might get too depressed. I didn't even watch it on HBO or whatever premium station it was on.

I rather liked Chris Evan's Johnny and didn't think they did a horrible job with Michael; though the humorous side on Ben didn't come through at all.

Anyway, I better shut up before Willie flames me. t:

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Spiderman only. Yeah, Hulk had a series and I'm sure part of the reason is that he was fairly well known, but I think a lot of it is that he's a good character. He has very limited control over turning into an enormous, green rage monster. He's unpredictable, highly destructive, etc.; a very cool character.

He wasn't, however, in the same ballpark as Supes, Batman, Spidey, or even WW.

I would put pre-MCU Hulk and pre-DCEU Wonder Woman in roughly the same spot. They were both kind-of-borderline A-Listers that were hard to place. Clearly a step below the likes of Batman and Superman, but above the likes of Captain America or Green Lantern. Hulk had a popular live action series, multiple cartoons, games, commercials, a marquee ride at Universal Studios, and had a lot of hype for the 2003 film which actually had a pretty good opening weekend at the box office for the time before word of mouth killed it and it plummeted like BvS. He was known. He was popular. Just not anywhere near the top guys. Pretty much the same deal with Wonder Woman.

That's basically why I said "maybe." I think the argument can be made either way.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Cool list! This is why I said throughout the production of Fant4stic: "Make a Doom that looks and acts like Doom and make a Thing that looks and acts like The Thing, and they can get away with a lot of other wrong things."

But they couldn't even get those two details right.

While I don't think that poll is that accurate in some spots, I do think this is accurate. The Thing was/is BY FAR the most popular and recognizable member of the Fantastic Four, with only the villainous Doom up there with him.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

I only saw the first 2 FF movies and didn't really think they were that bad. In my defense, it was early in the game and there wasn't a lot to compare it to (though I'll admit, it didn't stack up very well to what WAS out there at the time....XMen, Spidey, BB, etc.). I was going to see the last (Trank) one, but chickened out because I thought I might get too depressed. I didn't even watch it on HBO or whatever premium station it was on.

I rather liked Chris Evan's Johnny and didn't think they did a horrible job with Michael; though the humorous side on Ben didn't come through at all.

Anyway, I better shut up before Willie flames me. t:

I think Johnny and the Torch visuals were a definite highlight. And that scene from the 2nd film with the Torch chasing the Silver Surfer was flat-out a great scene.

But The Thing and Doom fell WAY short IMO. The Rubbery suit never looked hard and rocky, and Chiklis couldn't move in the suit. We didn't get the kind of lunging, charging powerful Thing Dynamics that Kirby drew so well. Chiklis did some cool things, but I felt like he was too much of a patsy/straight-man to Evan's Johnny and it just felt like the whole character resembled the Thing in some superficial ways, but it wasn't the comic-character come to life.

As for Doom, when all we had was this image:

I thought we really might have something.

But then with each new bit we got, he seemed less and less like Doom to the point some of the final scenes were painful to watch.

 

[Spiderine]

I think Johnny and the Torch visuals were a definite highlight. And that scene from the 2nd film with the Torch chasing the Silver Surfer was flat-out a great scene.

But The Thing and Doom fell WAY short IMO. The Rubbery suit never looked hard and rocky, and Chiklis couldn't move in the suit. We didn't get the kind of lunging, charging powerful Thing Dynamics that Kirby drew so well. Chiklis did some cool things, but I felt like he was too much of a patsy/straight-man to Evan's Johnny and it just felt like the whole character resembled the Thing in some superficial ways, but it wasn't the comic-character come to life.

As for Doom, when all we had was this image:

I thought we really might have something.

But then with each new bit we got, he seemed less and less like Doom to the point some of the final scenes were painful to watch.

It was Norman Osborn in a Doom mask.

 

[KevTravels]

And in the past 9 years since his film debut, how popular is Iron Man in rankings of Marvel characters? Like for sure SpiderMan is still no 1 but is IM 2nd or is it Wolverine still?

I'm curious how much of an effect the films have had on a character's popularity in the comics and/or the wider mainstream public. Like do they really sell more copies or simply just for a time being as non-comic book fans interest drop off?

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

And in the past 9 years since his film debut, how popular is Iron Man in rankings of Marvel characters? Like for sure SpiderMan is still no 1 but is IM 2nd or is it Wolverine still?

I'm curious how much of an effect the films have had on a character's popularity in the comics and/or the wider mainstream public. Like do they really sell more copies or simply just for a time being as non-comic book fans interest drop off?

2nd at worst. Arguably #1. The last four films starring Iron Man all did over a billion. Spider-Man still sells the most merchandise, but Iron Man puts the most butts in the seats. So basically it is a pick 'em.

I'd have Captain America at #3 these days. Wolverine has fallen off a bit (although not as far as the rest of the main X-Men team), even after a successful last film. I'd probably put Deadpool above him.

As for who has fallen the most from a decade ago: I'd say the Fantastic Four, several of the X-Men (probably most notably Gambit), and Venom are nowhere near as popular as they once were.