Counting the numbers of different media where the character may have appeared, and the number of individual actors that may have portrayed him/her, and the span of time where the same character has been in popular culture, is there anybody even close to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation?
Who are at least some candidates to consider?
Santa.
Dracula and Frankenstein.
If you count amateur productions and fan fiction, I’d have to go with God.
Well, I mean are we just talking about the Western world? If not, Sun Wukong has to be in the running.
Jesus. Harry Potter. Maybe even Batman.
Jesus is a pretty good candidate, but I bet the Wise Man has been played by at least three times as many actors.
Tarzan
James Bond
Captain Nemo
Nero Wolfe
Superman
Ebeneezer Scrooge.
Mickey Mouse.
Not Wong Fei-Hung? That seems to be the name in every Chinese kung fu movie set in the past.
Really good point - sometimes we don’t recognize the stock characters of other cultures. FWIW, Son Goku of Dragonball more or less is Sun Wukong, or at least significantly based on him to the extent where you can call him a SF interpretation of him.
Other characters to consider:
King Arthur, and/or other well-known characters of the Arthurian tales such as Sir Lancelot and Guinevere <3.
Romeo and Juliet
To consider on top of all the rest:
Robin Hood.
Amaterasu.
Heracles.
Odysseus
Hamlet.
It’s beginning to look like we need us a poll!
Orpheus
The “Devil”
Beowulf
Zorro
Perseus
Theseus
No.
Aside from cartoon images like Mickey Mouse (and maybe Santa Claus), I wonder how many fictional characters would be instantly recognized in silhouette form. When I was teaching English in Moscow (the topic on this day was “Modals of Deduction”), I drew an outline of Holmes’s profile on the whiteboard, and the Russians knew who it was before I had finished.
Someone already mentioned Batman.