Even though I've already stopped playing the MMO, I've been following the Marvel Heroes Online forums just to see if there are updates that would convince me to pick it up again. One of the regular types of posts there are requests for new characters, and along with the fanpages for existing ones, I noticed that there are characters who have surprisingly huge (or at least vocal) fanbase.

Deadpool is sort of an exception. Not a fan of the fourth wall breaking and I've always considered him as nothing but a Rob Liefield creation (really, his character design screams liefield - guns, swords, full mask, martial arts, tendency to do ridiculous poses mid-air) but I do know that he's popular through various mediums (videogames, comics, cartoons, even the Ryan Reynolds version has fans.)

However, there are characters that I really don't understand why people feel strongly about:

Squirrel Girl - she's a joke character. She's a mutant who controls squirrels and her storylines involve her beating Doctor Doom or Thanos, or even Galactus. I'm not sure if the fans are just fake-liking the character because liking joke characters is cool and shows that you don't take the medium seriously.

Jubilee - I'm not updated, and I'm only familiar with the one from the 90s cartoons. But apparently, she's a vampire now and people like her. I thought people hate things that jump on the Twilight bandwagon?

Doop - really. Another joke character, this time a nigh-omnipotent creature that looks like an uglier version of slimer, whose stories consist of gross visuals and reality being altered significantly and then changed back to status quo (and the heroes forgetting what happened.)

Spider Gwen Stacy's costume - note that it's not even the character. Just her costume. Having a hood seems really unnecessary considering that she already has a mask on. Plus I don't think the hood helps make her aerodynamic when swinging. Also, she's wearing sneakers.

I want to create a character that flies. But his costume is a parachute.

Ch'p, the squirrel Green Lantern.

Ice -Mark Waid c.1994

Yeah, that's a weird one. Standard powers, dull predictable costume, sweet girl who everyone likes.

Goodwin/Simonson Manhunter. Seven back-stories in Detective Comics, in the mid-70s, leading to his death. But as the collected work notes, it won 6 awards off 7 issues. Massive following amongst fanboys. Kurt Busiek (remember him?) decided to revive the character in a round about way for that failed team book The Power Company in 2001. He said he has a JSA/Manhunter story he would like to publish. Personally I think the reason the character is iconic is because his death was indeed final.

G'Nort!
When Dale Eaglesham was the artist on the previous volume of Green Lantern,he would sneak G'Nort or references to G'Nort every few issues
as a treat for G'Nort's fans.

I've heard Luke Cage has a HUGE fanbase. Massive.

Haven't read the new solo series (it's in my Marvel Unlimited queue) but none of that happens in X-Statix and he's cool there, and the Doop/Wolverine mini, which is more like a detective story.

That's a lot of it. A lot of it is also how different it was--and looked-- from anything DC or even Marvel was doing at the time. But for his costume (which was also atypical) and the Batman guest shot it was less a superhero story and more a Ludlemesque spy drama.

This thread is going to turn into your next Cracked article, isn't it?
"Six mind-blowingly obscure comic book characters with shockingly loyal fan bases"?

"Six Enormous Fanbases You Won't Believe!"



The preface to the 1980s collected editions quotes Goodwin on the costume design. Basically, he wanted it different to Batman's, because they were cohabitating the same book (Detective Comics). Even the gun was deliberately different to Batman. Personally, I like the katars, which otherwise I don't think I've seen in comics.

Good supporting characters too: the ninja assassin, Christine St Clair, the Kenyan arms dealer. You're right - it is Ludlum -esque save for the costume. And the clones. And the cryogenic freeze. And the telepathic death ray. Hmm.

While this is true, its actually also because he was created as a parody of Deathstroke (hence Slade Wilson/Wade Wilson).

Nah, we mostly rip off Reddit.

You lie. We all know it's tumblr

I love the Goodwin/Simonson MANHUNTER series, and collected one-shot. I've re-read the serialized DETECTIVE issues, and the 1984 collected edition both many times. I actually prefer the colors in the original edition, plus insights by Goodwin in the letter pages.

I also like the late 1970's SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER VILLAINS series, where they had one of the Paul Kirk clones survive the "Gotterdammerung" conclusion, and join the Super Villains. Not as high brow, but still fun, and nice to see Paul Kirk again, but through a mirror darkly, and in a way that remained independent of the Goodwin/Simonson run.

I also love The Creeper as created by Steve Ditko, in SHOWCASE 73, and his own series BEWARE THE CREEPER 1-6. And also by Neal Adams in BRAVE & THE BOLD 80, and O'Neil/Novick/Giordano in DETECTIVE 418, DETECTIVE 444-448, THE JOKER 3, and Dematteis/Maguire in JUSTICE LEAGUE 6 and 7, among other appearances.

I'm at a loss to explain exactly why the character resonates for me, but he does. And apparently does for many other fans as well.

Some other favorites for me are Zatanna, the Royal Flush Gang and Queen Bee (both villains from early Fox/Sekowsky JLA issues), Kirby's THE DEMON, Swamp Thing, Phantom Stranger, and O.M.A.C.

I did read somewhere that The Creeper is what Ditko wanted Spider-man to be.

I read some early 80s Creeper stories. One where he is fighting a robot ball called BB8, um, Rollo? The idea of a hero exhibiting the behaviour of the deeply disturbed was a little weird as a kid. As an adult, I quite like it (not sure what it says about me).

I did too like the character's short-lived role in Dematteis' JL.

Ditko quit DC mid-run in both THE CREEPER and HAWK AND THE DOVE, because he felt writers Skeates and O'Neil, and editor Giordano, had (like Stan Lee on Spider-Man) hijacked these books in a direction other than how he had envisioned the two series to move in. (i.e., a politically liberal/Left direction, and he felt out-voted by three liberals on the direction of the series that he himself created.)

Not unlike Kirby, who felt dicked over at both Marvel and DC, and then dicked over again in the late 70's when he returned to Marvel, and finally left the field for a while to do animation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel_Girl




I had to see what Squirrel girl looks like.

Created by Ditko!

I don't know if SWAMP THING is still being published. But at one time (if you can believe it) Greenpeace was negotiating with DC to make him a spokescharacter for their organization and the environment.

I always found him a much more interesting character than Marvel's competing MAN-THING. Man-Thing has no personality or dialogue, so it's very difficult to script him in a consistently interesting way. He's more interesting as a background character that plays off other more versatile characters. I'm amazed he can sustain a series, or have a fan following.

Alan Moore turned Swamp Thing from a horror story where a man was turned into a pile of goo and vegetable matter, into something more mystical and even pro-environmental: the spirit of green life. I never got into it although I understand the writing was good.

(Alan Moore retired from comics very recently, if you didn't know: http://worldcomicbookreview.com/index.ph...eview/#more-907 )

Squirrel Girl now has her own title, and two enormously large buck teeth.

I never got my head around why people like Nightwing so much. Kill the bugger off, I say. (Having said that, I did really like "Grayson", the title where the character becomes a spy.)

Thanks for letting me know about Alan Moore retiring.

I frankly feel like Moore stopped doing good work almost 30 years ago.
Hit and miss at best on his 90's-forward work.

Robin, in all his incarnations, ceased to be an interesting character decades ago. In BATMAN 217, Dick Grayson graduated high school and left for college. It should have ended there.

Although the 4-part 1989 "A Death In The Family" story by Starlin and Aparo, where they killed off Jason Todd, was a wild story with some interesting twists. Teaming up the Joker with the Ayatollah of Iran!

Two of my favorites...

JUSTICE LEAGUE ANNUAL 4:




JUSTICE LEAGUE 51:

More specifically, he is retiring from comics. He announced this at the launch of his novel. See http://worldcomicbookreview.com/index.ph...eview/#more-907

Some funny closing comments about being tired of writing Batman. The article (which I wrote) details some of the bad blood between Moore and DC including the infamous racoon dumpster diving comment. I didn't mention in the article that the trigger for the dissolution of the relationship was that idiot Zack Snyder saying that Moore had given his blessing to the Watchmen movie. Moore denied it (he was from memory already on the record as saying he regarded it as all a bit repulsive) demanded that Snyder withdraw the comment and DC refused. So he stopped writing for DC: LOEG shifted to an indy publisher and that was that.