What Comic book superheroes are widely known to the general, non-comic-buying public? Say you approached an average man on the street and asked him to list superheroes he was familiar with – I wonder how many he could come up with on his own? Also – if he were shown pictures of Marvel and DC characters, how many could he identify?
Also --Are the X-Men now as widely known as the “Big Three” (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman)?
Please discuss!
Superman
Batman & Robin
Wonder Woman
Spider-Man
Captain America
Hulk
X-Men
I would estimate any that has had a major movie or TV show. That means:
Superman
Wonder Woman
Batman (& Robin)
Spider-Man
Hulk
X-Men (though not necessarily any individual members)
I’d say after that, you’re getting into marginal characters (minor movies, peripheral heroes): Aquaman, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Captain Marvel, Blade
“Shazam” I think is pretty out there in the public consciousness.
I would add the Fantastic Four as well. The movie was a hit despite what people will tell you. Kids know them. They have had multiple cartoon series since the 60s.
ANd I think Captain America shouldn’t be put on the second teir. “Captain America” as a term is in the lexicon for any overly patriotic individual. I think if you should a drawing of him to 10 people 7 0r 8 would guess right without trying to hard.
just my two cents.
I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of my non-comic-book-reading friends here: what superheroes are readily seen in popular culture (billboards, magazine advertisements, Halloween costumes, Underoos, etc.)?
High identification (75 percent of people on the street would name or recognize): Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, *maybe * Wonder Woman.
50 percent identification: The Hulk, Captain America and maybe Wolverine.
I can’t think of any others that would have more than 50 percent recognition. Excepting Wolverine, I don’t think the X-Men movies would help more than 50 percent of the general public identify Professor X, Storm, Rogue, Cyclops, et. al. Despite the Fantastic Four movie, I don’t think recognition of any of its members is above 50 percent.
Iron Man may get a spike in popularity with the new movie in development, but probably not to get him above 50 percent.
I’d put The Hulk higher (though still below Superman, Batman & Robin, and Spider-man) and those other two lower. Between the recent movie, the Lou Ferrigno TV series, and all the other pop-culture references I’ve seen over the years, I think The Hulk’s pretty recognizable. Not so much the other two. Captain America: what’s he been in? I know who he is but would be hard pressed to describe his powers or his personality or where I’d seen him last—it’s been a long time. The X-Men weren’t around when I was a kid, or at least I wasn’t aware of them. Someone from my generation would be more likely to recognize Aquaman or Captain Marvel (the Shazam! guy), or even one of the lesser-known DC heroes like the Flash or Green Lantern. It would make a difference what generation man-on-the-street you asked.
I asked my father who doesn’t read comics and is pretty much an average person and he could name Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel and the Incredible Hulk (although he didn’t actualy say “Incredible Hulk”. He said “that guy who turns green when he’s angry”).
I showed him the cover of a JSA tpb and he doesn’t recognize any of the heroes depicted, although Captain Marvel was on said cover.
No, he doesn’t know who the X-Men are.
Definetly Robin, but I don’t think most people would be able to actually name a Robin. Or know there’s more than one.
What exactly is the definition of Superhero?
If it requires super powers, then Batman doesn’t count. But if you count ordinary humans, who wear costumes and battle evil, then you could also include Zorro and The Lone Ranger as instantly recognizable heroes.
I’m a member of the general public, so here you go:
The X-Men
Superman/Clark Kent/Lois Lane/Lex Luthor
Spiderman
Batman/Robin/The Riddler
Captain America
Wonder Woman
The Incredible Hulk
Those are about the only ones I’d recognize if I saw them. I’ve never read a comic book in my life. Enjoy my anecdotal evidence.
Of course, some of those are sidekicks or villains.
wouldn’t you recognise The Joker?
Oh! I am the target audience here, I’m definitely the great unwashed when it comes to comic books.
I would be able to come up with just about everything mentioned here, with a few exceptions. I would never come up with Captain America or Captain Marvel on my own, but might get Captain America if you prompted me with a picture. I would call Captain Marvel the Shazam Guy if shown a picture.
I wouldn’t think to include the Fantastic Four or the X-Men (in fact, I kind of get them mixed up, they’re all mutants or something, right? Are they in the same club?), unless the question was “name hunky Hugh Jackman roles” and then I would get Wolverine.
I’m the right age for Aquaman, the cartoon was in perpetual rotation on TV when I was a kid (1970s).
Being female, I would probably also throw in Supergirl and Batgirl (one word? two words?) along with Wonder Woman because I was always on the lookout for girl characters on superhero TV shows, and every time my brother got a toy of a superhero, mine was either Supergirl, Batgirl, or Wonder Woman.
The Lone Ranger is an interesting choice, I definitely know who he is, but I don’t associate him with comic books. For me, he would be more in the category of 1950s TV characters, like Davy Crockett.
Both are one word. Bat-Girl is a different - and older - character, who I doubt anyone who’s not a comic book reader is familiar with. (The current version of the character is named Flamebird.) Nor would I expect a non-comic reader to know the current Batgirl (Cassandra Cain, who’s going to be Batgirl again in the Titans East.).
There are multiple Batgirls? Is it like a job title? It boggles the mind.
I forgot The Joker. I do know him. And I do know that some of those are villains and sidekicks.
There’s multiple a LOT of characters in the DC universe. There’ve been multiple Batmen, even! (Although it’s never not Bruce Wayne for very long.)
More than you really needed to know about the Batgirls!
They are:
Bat-Girl - Betty Kane, neice and sidekick of Kathy Kane, the Bat-Woman. Neither this Bat-Girl nor Bat-Woman are currently in continuity, although new versions of both have been introduced.
Batgirl I - Barbara Gordon. The one most non-comics readers know. Introduced first into the TV series, then into the comics. Crippled by the Joker in The Killing Joke, now known as Oracle, who runs the Birds of Prey, which includes:
Batgirl II - Helena Bertinelli, AKA Huntress. Briefly had the Batgirl identity, but soon went back to being Huntress, and the identity was taken over by:
Batgirl III - Cassandra Cain, who would be taken in by Barbara, in sort of the same mentor/ward relationship that Batman had with the first Robin. Currently evil, briefly abandoned the Batgirl identity, leaving it open for:
Batgirl IV - AKA Misfit, civilian identity unknown, as yet. A fan of Barbara’s she has the ability to teleport, and decided to use it to be a superhero. Since the Batgirl name was currently not being used, she claimed it until Barbara convinced her to drop it.
There’ve also been multiple Robins, Wonder Women, Supermen (although it’s back at Clark), Aquamen, and Supergirls. This post is long and potentially confusing enough, so details will be omitted unless asked.
I’d like to hear about these Batmen, Supermen, and Wonder Women.
Alright. This will ignore Earth-2/D/other Pre-Crisis Alternate Earths, since that confuses things needlessly. It also ignores Legends of a Dead Earth, DC 1,000,000 and other similar events - just assume those events involve one or more future versions of the characters.
Also, an unquallified reference to ‘Crisis’ refers to Crisis on Infinite Earths. Infinite Crisis will be spelled out.
Batman’s mostly the same character he’s always been - he’s still Bruce Wayne, millionaire playboy by day, ‘Dark Knight Detective’ by night.
However, in the early 90s, his back was broken, by a villain by the name of Bane, in the rather long story-arc Knightfall.
Obviously, that left Bruce paralysed. So a need was left for a new Batman - Jean-Paul Valley, a rather violent religiously motivated assassin is given the job. Eventually, Jean-Paul is shown to be dangerous, and Bruce (whose back has been healed in the meantime) takes the name back. Valley eventually took on the name Azrael, and became an ally (though not a stable one) of the Batfamily.
Soon, he finds he has other things to attend to and hands the cowl over to Dick Grayson (the first Robin, then (and now) Nightwing) for a time. Eventually Bruce comes back and becomes Batman again.
There’s also at least one alternate future (Titans Tomorrow) wherein Tim Drake (the current Robin) becomes Batman after Bruce’s death.
Superman is a little more complicated than Batman, mostly due to events of Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis.
Around the time of Knightfall (I’m blanking on which came first), DC had another big event with Superman - they killed him (temporarily), and replaced him with 4 new heroes - who came to be known as Steel, the Cyborg Superman, the Eradicator, and Superboy. All but Steel claimed to be THE Superman, in a fashion - the cyborg was his body reanimated by technology, Eradicator was his spirit incarnated, and Superboy, his clone. (Those were the claims. The cyborg was lying, Eradicator was wrong, and Superboy…is just complicated.) Obviously, all 3 used the name Superman, at first. Steel actively denied being Superman, although that didn’t stop people from calling him it.
Even after the real Superman came back to life, all 4 remained active - Steel and Superboy as heroes, Eradicator as an anti-hero, the cyborg as a villain.
In Titans Tomorrow, Superboy is shown to have taken the identity of Superman.
Although Superman is again Kal-El of Krypton/Clark Kent, he’s still a tad complicated.
Most non-comics readers would be familiar with him through the older comics, or the George Reeves TV series, or the movies, or Superfriends. The current version of the character is very different than those. (Although Smallville and the Diniverse animated series are relatively close.) He’s got a smaller power set - although the power levels fluctuate, save for his time in his electric form, and a recent return of his Super-Intellect, his power-set has remained more or less constant, and smaller than the absurd shopping list he used to have, since Crisis - and his origin is…changed.
It’s been changed 3 times in the last 20 years.
The first time, John Byrne’s Man of Steel reboot made Krypton a sterile, frankly rather unpleasant place. Visually, it was based, strongly on the Donner movie, but in feel, it was something new. There was also only one type of kryptonite, initially, the green kind, rather than the rainbow of types that existed before.
The biggest changes were to Superman himself - he was depowered, greatly, and instead of having his powers from the time he was a child, as was the case before, they didn’t develop until adulthood. And he was already established as Superman before he found out about Krypton.
This remained more or less the case (with incrimental, and not entirely consistant) changes until Birthright, which pretty much changed the origin to that shown in Smallville. Krypton is a more pleasant place, and Clark starts developing his powers in his late teens.
And now it’s been changed again. It’s not clear how, just yet - again, his powers developed in his late teens, and he spent some time using them in secret (much like Smallville), before finally going public. Krypton has been altered again, but it’s not clear just how, other than some quick glimpses we’ve gotten in Action and Supergirl. The crystaline technology introduced in the movie and Byrne reboot are still around.
The Wonder Woman identity has been used by 5 separate characters within current continuity. 3 main characters, and 2 one-off uses of the name by other characters. The 3 primary ones are Princess Diana of Themiscara, Queen Hippolyta of Themiscara, who took over when Diana was temporarily dead and turned into a goddess, and Artemis, who essentially stole the identity from Diana, who had reclaimed it after she came back to life.
Afte the events of Infinite Crisis, Diana decided to bugger off and travel, to ‘find herself’. Eventually, Donna Troy (the first Wonder Girl) takes up the mantle of Wonder Woman. Several of Diana’s enemies - Dr Psycho, Cheetah, and Giganta, who have been powered up by Circe - kidnap Donna, and eventually the current Wonder Girl, Cassie Sandsmark to draw Diana out of hiding. This was all a plan of Circe’s part to steal Diana’s powers - and identity - because she believed Diana had squandered it by not focussing on protecting and avenging wronged women. How Diana will reclaim the identity, as the above events are from the most recent issue.
In Titans Tomorrow, Cassie has taken the identity of Wonder Woman.
Like Superman, Wonder Woman suffers from some serious reboot issues.
Unfortunately, I’m not exactly a Wonder Woman expert, so there are probably some important details missing from these rundowns:
Pre-Crisis, when Princess Diana came to Man’s World from Paradise Island/Themiscara, she took the name of a woman named Diana Prince (IIRC, Ms Prince was an army nurse, but I’m not 100% on that). She was romantically involved with Air Force Captain Steve Trevor - with the usual complications of superhero romances. She was a founding member of the JLA.
After Crisis, she came to Man’s World well after most of the other superheroes were established, including the JLA (Black Canary was inserted into her role). She did not take the Diana Prince identity, and although she had connections with Steve Trevor, they weren’t romantically linked. She became something of an Ambassador of Peace from Themiscara. Also, Wonder Woman in the JSA (the world’s first superhero team, from the 40s and 50s), due to the Golden Age Wonder Woman being eliminated was filled by a new character named Fury…until John Byrne decided that Hippolyta’s time as Wonder Woman would include time travel and joining the JSA.
After Infinite Crisis, her history is changed again, and, like Superman’s current history, it’s not clear just how it’s been changed. But we’ve been shown some parts - she came to Man’s World early enough to be a founder of the JLA again, although she still didn’t take the Diana Prince identity. Not immediately, in any case - she took it while she was off ‘finding herself’. She was still an ambassador (until the events leading up to Infinite Crisis). Some people read into the first couple issues of the current series that Steve Trevor is back to being her love interest, but I don’t see that, myself. It hasn’t been addressed in the comics, and the creative and editorial staffs at DC are giving conflicting answers, so it’s not clear what’s going on with Hippolyta’s time as the Wonder Woman of the JSA.
I hope that didn’t thoroughly confuse things. <_<
I haven’t read a comic book in probably 30 years (I’m 40). I can name:
Superman
Spiderman
Batman
Robin
Aquaman
Daredevil (favorite when I was a kid)
Wonderwoman
Batgirl
X men
Hulk
Iron Man
Captain America
Buckey
The Flash
Green Arrow