Superheroes are big business nowadays. Some of the highest-grossing movies of the last twenty years are superhero movies and the MCU is a pop-culture juggernaut that shows no signs of slowing down. For the vast majority of Americans, comics are not where they go for superheroes anymore because they don't have to. They're everywhere now.
While superheroes are in a golden age not seen since, well, the Golden Age, the media outside comics still has a paucity of superheroes compared to the comics. There are lots of characters who are only popular in the books, calmly waiting for their own close-up.
10 Spawn Had His Chance At Multimedia Stardom In The '90s
Spawn is the champion of '90s indie comics and one of the last standing. His book today is going through a resurgence and joining the ranks of those indies that challenge the Big Two for the first time in years. In the '90s, Spawn was everywhere but things have cooled down immensely since then.
While the character still is a household name that many older fans recognize, he's just not as popular with general audiences as he used to be. His movie never got a sequel, his HBO show never got a second season, and his sales fell down to Earth. While he's poised again to take the world by storm as soon as creator Todd McFarlane can find someone he trusts to do the movie, for now, he's only popular in comics.
9 The Legion Of Superheroes Is Literally The Biggest Team In Comics
The Legion of Superheroes has had a rough go of it in its lifetime. The team was once one of DC's most popular teams but years of reboots and continuity alterations have left it a shell. The team still has its fans but those fans are strictly comic book fans; outside of one animated adaptation that lasted a season, the Legion never caught on with general audiences.
Part of it could be the daunting nature of the team: the Legion is massive, full of all kinds of characters with kind of lame names. The Legion is very hard to get into for general audiences because it's kind of the ultimate superhero team but not in a "cool" way - bright colors, simplistic names, and soap opera dynamics combined with sci-fi.
8 Kate Pryde Never Caught On With Movie Audiences
Kate Pryde has matured immensely in comics in recent years, coming into her own and embracing all of the best parts of herself, including her bisexuality. The character has had a chance on the big screen, played with aplomb by Elliot Page, but was also showcased in the least loved of the first three X-Men movies, X3: The Last Stand.
While Page played the character in the much better received X-Men: Days Of Future Past, Kitty just never really caught on with general audiences like she has with comic audiences and she remains a hero who is only popular in comics.
7 Squirrel Girl Could Be Massive But She Hasn't Got Her Chance To Shine
Squirrel Girl feels tailor-made for general audiences. She's such a chipper, fun character and could basically be Deadpool but wholesome if done right. Comic fans, a normally taciturn lot, love her—even accepting the fact that the girl with squirrel powers can beat the most powerful villains ever flawlessly.
Marvel Studios has started to scrape the sides of the C and D list barrel with Shang-Chi, Eternals, and Moon Knight but for some reason ignored Squirrel Girl. She's perfect for the MCU and would quickly gain a legion of fans if she was given a chance to shine on the big screen or Disney+.
6 Detective Chimp Does Not Get Credit For How Great He Is
On the surface, Detective Chimp is a silly character. A refugee from the much simpler Silver Age, he's a super-intelligent talking chimp who smokes and drinks. That said, there's something wonderful about the character; he's a world-weary detective in a chimp's body and his specialization in the occult has made him one of the linchpins of DC's magical universe.
Detective Chimp is a character that is perfect for the DCEU, especially if it embraces more of the Birds of Prey/The Suicide Squad aesthetic of dark yet funny and entertaining superhero films. Comic fans have warmed up to him considerably since his return and it would be easy to make him a star.
5 Damian Wayne Hasn't Gotten His Chance At Stardom Yet
Damian Wayne is one of the biggest characters to debut in the 2000s, but beyond a few DCAU movies, he hasn't gotten his chance to shine on a larger stage yet. This is a shame because Damian, despite, and sometimes because of, his serious and often violent demeanor, is a lot of fun. Damian Wayne is yet another character that would fit well in the new DCEU.
It took time for comic fans to warm up to him but now that they have, he's many people's favorite Robins. Damian is the kind of character who with the right spotlight could easily take the world by storm, much like he did the comics world.
4 Beta Ray Bill Is Cooler Than Thor Most Of The Time
General audiences have embraced the Odinson and with the upcoming Thor: Love And Thunder, Jane Foster as Thor is about to take the world by storm. A Thor-related character that hasn't gotten the love is his alien friend and fellow worthy of wielding Mjolnir fellow, Beta Ray Bill. Bill was introduced as a rival to Thor but they became friends and he's been a fan favorite ever since.
Beta Ray Bill's race was teased in Thor: Ragnarok but he himself never made an appearance, which is a tragedy. Bill is a great character, one who is often actually better than Thor a lot of the time. Maybe one day, general audiences will get a chance to love him too.
3 Zatanna Is One Of DC's Biggest Unsung Heroes
Zatanna has proven to be one of the best magic-using heroes in comics. Readers love her blend of earnest heroism and hard-edged magical warrior woman attitude and she's long been a fan favorite, since her early days as the Justice League's resident magic-user. Strangely enough for a character of her popularity level, she's rarely gotten a starring adaptation.
Zatanna has been in a lot of DC animated shows and movies but never really caught on the way she did in comics. It's very weird because everything about her, from her look to her powers to her personality, is well suited for adaptations.
2 Animal Man Is Huge In Comics And Nowhere Else
Animal Man was once a hokey Silver Age character, someone who seemed destined for the background of group shots in DC event books. Then, something extraordinary happened: DC gave the character to Scottish writer Grant Morrison. Morrison produced one of the greatest of all time comic runs with the character and the rest is history.
Animal Man has a lot working against him for general audience stardom, starting with his name, but comic fans love him. His stories have proven to be the perfect blend of superheroes, family dynamics, and out-and-out weirdness that comic fans love.
1 Wolverine Could Be Bigger If She Was Given The Chance
Laura made a big splash in Logan, played to perfection by Dafne Keene but she never got a chance to take advantage of that stardom. The entire X-Men side of the Marvel Universe is under lock and key at Marvel Studios, so it will be a long time before general audiences get to learn something comic fans have known for years - Wolverine is awesome.
The irony is that when Laura Kinney was introduced, it was in the X-Men: Evolution cartoon, one of the lesser-known X-Men cartoons. She would find her way in the comics, though, gaining legions of fans with her turn as Wolverine and while she's been in a movie, she's still much more popular in comics than anywhere else.
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