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 Ahtman wrote:
Then name "Captain America" was known but I would argue that the few actually read the comic. Iron Man was known as well, but similarly didn't have broad recognition until the films. The only really worldwide character(s) Marvel could claim before the MCU was Spider-Man, and possibly Wolverine. Batman and Superman were iconic both then and now, and seem a bit more universal. I imagine when this phase of public love of the material fades they will still be the two best known globally.

I would argue Hulk as well

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
Then name "Captain America" was known but I would argue that the few actually read the comic. Iron Man was known as well, but similarly didn't have broad recognition until the films. The only really worldwide character(s) Marvel could claim before the MCU was Spider-Man, and possibly Wolverine. Batman and Superman were iconic both then and now, and seem a bit more universal. I imagine when this phase of public love of the material fades they will still be the two best known globally.

I would argue Hulk as well

Oh yes, good catch! I think a lot of the proliferation of the character had to do with the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferigno show.

Hulk, Spider-Man and Captain America were the three main Marvel heroes that most people would have heard of.

Hulk, due to the TV show, was part of the social zeitgeist.
Spider-Man is Marvel's most famous character.
Captain America is fairly iconic. When he died in Civil War, it made the news everywhere. It was a big deal.

Wolverine later became even bigger thanks to the X-Men movies/Hugh Jackman.

But that's it really. Everyone else is B-team or lower. Same goes for DC. People know Batman (and by extension Robin), Superman, Wonder Woman and a lot of people The Flash, but that's as far as it goes.

I would possibly add the green goblin in as well

Being known is easy, but being a cultural phenomena is hard.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Looks like we're off to Asgard again!

This is fairly big, actually. Thor 2 spoilers.

Dunno how they're going to do it really.

The only thing I can think of is a flashback.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Hulk, Spider-Man and Captain America were the three main Marvel heroes that most people would have heard of.

Hulk, due to the TV show, was part of the social zeitgeist.
Spider-Man is Marvel's most famous character.
Captain America is fairly iconic. When he died in Civil War, it made the news everywhere. It was a big deal.

Wolverine later became even bigger thanks to the X-Men movies/Hugh Jackman.

But that's it really. Everyone else is B-team or lower. Same goes for DC. People know Batman (and by extension Robin), Superman, Wonder Woman and a lot of people The Flash, but that's as far as it goes.

To honest the only thing I kow about the Flash and several other DC characters is from Big Bang

This all quite interesting.

It seems to indicate that soon, all the 'Next Generation' will know about comics is what they see on TV and at the Movies...

You know Alph, perhaps that's the idea! What if the comic book publishing houses have seen the writing on the wall, and know the death of their medium is coming? Perhaps they're planning to shift the comic books to some sort of subscription online webcomic service, existing in support of the film universe. I can see people forking out micro purchase money to view the story that bridges two of their favorite films more than buying into a serial story with monthly installments.

Particularly if they provide a much wider understanding of minor characters from the films.

 Alpharius wrote:
This all quite interesting.

It seems to indicate that soon, all the 'Next Generation' will know about comics is what they see on TV and at the Movies...

See, I would totally buy more Comics if they weren't seven pages each.

I can buy a book with 300+ Pages for $10, settling for a twelve page comic for the same price isn't going to happen.

 Alpharius wrote:
This all quite interesting.

It seems to indicate that soon, all the 'Next Generation' will know about comics is what they see on TV and at the Movies...

I don't think that isn't really different than what the "current generation" knows about the characters.

The average person's knowledge of Superman comes from the Christopher Reeve movies (probably more so than any of the contemporary Superman films). Depending on their age, most people's exposure to Batman is from Adam West show (which I watched a small child), the Tim Burton movies from the late 80s/early 90s (along with the spectacular animated series of the mid 90s), or the Nolan movies of the 2000s.

The Hulk had his popular TV show in the 80s (which was my first exposure to him), Spider-Man from his cartoons and movies, and the X-men because of cartoon from the 90s and the film series from the early 2000s.

It just goes along with what we've been talking about; these characters are known to the average media consumer, but it's usually pretty superficial at best. Most people could tell you that Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered (most likely by the Joker... thanks, Tim Burton!) but they aren't going to know much about the character's depth outside of that, let alone all the various story arcs from the comics. The same goes with Spider-Man; the average person could probably tell you he's a young guy from New York that was bitten by a radioactive spider, but most people have no clue the history behind any of the supporting characters in Spider-Man's world.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
You know Alph, perhaps that's the idea! What if the comic book publishing houses have seen the writing on the wall, and know the death of their medium is coming?

People have been saying that since the comic crash in the 90's. Comic companies are in a much better position today than they were back then. For example, Marvel isn't bankrupt anymore.

And remember how web comics were the death knell of the printed comic in the early 2000's?

People have been proclaiming that the comic industry is on the verge of collapse for almost 20 years.

 Alpharius wrote:
This all quite interesting.

It seems to indicate that soon, all the 'Next Generation' will know about comics is what they see on TV and at the Movies...

Maybe but I am past 40 if that makes a difference and I knew virtually nothing about Cap A or Tony Stark before the films - I also far prefer the film versiosn from the bits and pieces of comics stuff I have read about them - I think prior to the films I had only really seen Cap in an old Xmen comic set when he and Wolverine rescued a child by the name of Natasha Romanov...............

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
You know Alph, perhaps that's the idea! What if the comic book publishing houses have seen the writing on the wall, and know the death of their medium is coming?

People have been saying that since the comic crash in the 90's. Comic companies are in a much better position today than they were back then. For example, Marvel isn't bankrupt anymore.

And remember how web comics were the death knell of the printed comic in the early 2000's?

People have been proclaiming that the comic industry is on the verge of collapse for almost 20 years.

Yeah, I think some people here have it entirely backwards.

Comics are relatively niche things that will keep selling to their niche audience. Big-budget feature films need general, non-geek audiences to be interested in order to make money. And I think it's reasonable to question how much desire there'll be for superhero films after Marvel and WB bombard us for the next 5-6 years.

Again, Marvel's significant risk here is whether audiences will even be interested in Bucky Cap, Scarlet Witch, etc. after all the current actors have left. WB, on the other hand, will be content to reboot or mothball and move onto the next thing. Like I've been saying for while now, some people (Marvel fanboys especially) seem to want to turn this a Marvel vs. DC thing. But the two studios are in very different positions taking different strategies for their different businesses.

 gorgon wrote:
. And I think it's reasonable to question how much desire there'll be for superhero films after Marvel and WB bombard us for the next 5-6 years.

Again, Marvel's significant risk here is whether audiences will even be interested in Bucky Cap, Scarlet Witch, etc. after all the current actors have left. WB, on the other hand, will be content to reboot or mothball and move onto the next thing. Like I've been saying for while now, some people (Marvel fanboys especially) seem to want to turn this a Marvel vs. DC thing. But the two studios are in very different positions taking different strategies for their different businesses.

No real risk, I don't think. The analogy I like to use is whenever someone goes on about 'too many comic book movies' is that they are, in terms of target demographic, popularity and repeat production, to the 00s and 10s, what war movies and westerns were to the 60s and 70s. Dozens made, some great, some crap, but ultimately the model endures for a good long while. The only risk will be if one of the films directly part of the 'main' universes for Marvel and DC is a complete flop. What I mean by that is that if, for argument's sake, Ant-man flops, it's not really a big deal as he can easily be written out/made a tertiary character in future Avengers films. If, on the other hand, Age of Ultron or Dawn if Justice flop, that could be a death knell, as those are the movies the rest will springboard out from. Even then, both studios can rebuild, and both know the risk enough to make sure it never happens.

Incidentally, I have faith that Marvel Disney and WB will easily be able to keep these franchises going long past their announced movies up to 2020.

I think a lot of people in the general populace know about Uncle Ben and the "great power comes great responsibility" line too. - I seem to remember some jokes about "the worlds most famous dead uncle" in something.

Of course, going to ultra geeky, he is quoted when you use the sudo command in Unix.

One of the sorta mean jokes I played on my 60 year old parents last Christmas was. "I've got a film about a person who came to Earth from the heavens as a baby to save mankind."

It was about 35 minutes into the film (Crashed scout ship) when my mother asked me. "Wait... Are you making us watch Batman?"

With a completely straight face I replied, "no, of course not."

I think most heroes are known from their TV shows/films from earlier decades. So, Batman, Hulk (I think my mother had a thing for Lou Ferrigno), Wonder Woman, and Superman. Spiderman seems to be the only one really that people knew enough entirely through comics. And general merchandising too, probably moreso. - that's probably the biggest thing overseas

I'm pretty sure Captain America and iron man wasn't much of a thing at all growing up in Scotland in the 80s. Wolverine grew in popularity with the Xmen cartoon though.

 Compel wrote:
I'm pretty sure Captain America and iron man wasn't much of a thing at all growing up in Scotland in the 80s. Wolverine grew in popularity with the Xmen cartoon though.

The 90's Iron Man cartoon was pretty popular, too. And that one regularly featured Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye. Also Julia Carpenter Spider-Woman.

Thor's kind of a tough one to gauge as far as comic book characters; being based on an actual deity and all. You can say he's a B list character, but people have been talking about Thor for a couple millennia longer than Superman.

 Bromsy wrote:
You can say he's a B list character, but people have been talking about Thor for a couple millennia longer than Superman.

The comic book character is not the same person, nor do they have the same place in history or culture.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Bromsy wrote:
You can say he's a B list character, but people have been talking about Thor for a couple millennia longer than Superman.

The comic book character is not the same person, nor do they have the same place in history or culture.

There's at least some bleedover. If someone familiar with prechristianised Norse beliefs wandered into a comic book store with no knowledge of Marvel's Thor they'd at least be able to pick up on some stuff.

 Bromsy wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 Bromsy wrote:
You can say he's a B list character, but people have been talking about Thor for a couple millennia longer than Superman.

The comic book character is not the same person, nor do they have the same place in history or culture.

There's at least some bleedover. If someone familiar with prechristianised Norse beliefs wandered into a comic book store with no knowledge of Marvel's Thor they'd at least be able to pick up on some stuff.

Oh I agree, and I think that is part of the issue facing that character. It was created in a time and place where they either didn't think anyone gave the diety much thought or they just didn't care. Nowadays it would be tougher to reappropriate a character in such a way.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Bromsy wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 Bromsy wrote:
You can say he's a B list character, but people have been talking about Thor for a couple millennia longer than Superman.

The comic book character is not the same person, nor do they have the same place in history or culture.

There's at least some bleedover. If someone familiar with prechristianised Norse beliefs wandered into a comic book store with no knowledge of Marvel's Thor they'd at least be able to pick up on some stuff.

Oh I agree, and I think that is part of the issue facing that character. It was created in a time and place where they either didn't think anyone gave the diety much thought or they just didn't care. Nowadays it would be tougher to reappropriate a character in such a way.

True. Although I think it's still safe for a couple of decades to beg borrow or steal from European paganism. Give it fifty years or so and I think Neo Druidism or something along those lines is going to make great inroads.

 Slarg232 wrote:
Yeah, I remember my dad trying to tell me about the avengers before the first Iron Man came out, and I was sitting there telling him that they all sounded incredibly lame.

A robot dude who doesn't use guns?!?
A Girly Man who throws a hammer whenever he tantrums?
A Dude who uses a Shield as his major weapon?

Heck, the only one I liked was the Hulk.

Strangely, I still like you described them. A good sniper Greater Than all of them but Iron Man...

 Frazzled wrote:
A good sniper Greater Than all of them but Iron Man...

Maybe Cap or Tony wihtout the armor on, but how would a sniper be better than the other two? He/she can't even kill them or even wound them. It is established in the comics and films that if you shoot Banner he just turns into the Hulk and the Hulk is immune to puny weapons, and Thor would be invulnerable to them as well.

Edit: Forgot to mention they have a sniper already: Hawkeye. Black Widow is a pretty good shot as well.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
A good sniper Greater Than all of them but Iron Man...

Maybe Cap or Tony wihtout the armor on, but how would a sniper be better than the other two? He/she can't even kill them or even wound them. It is established in the comics and films that if you shoot Banner he just turns into the Hulk and the Hulk is immune to puny weapons, and Thor would be invulnerable to them as well.

Edit: Forgot to mention they have a sniper already: Hawkeye. Black Widow is a pretty good shot as well.

Archer boy's just a humie
Red haired chick is just a gal thats really easy on the eyes.

Can Banner survive a brain shot when he's not Hulk?
Has Thor ever taken a brain shot ? What if his GF is brain splatted - is he going to keep coming back?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alpharius wrote:
This all quite interesting.

It seems to indicate that soon, all the 'Next Generation' will know about comics is what they see on TV and at the Movies...

You say it like its a bad thing.

Actually GC and her crew are fans of several internet comics. But those are well and truly weird including some freaky as gak horror comic manga.

 Frazzled wrote:

Can Banner survive a brain shot when he's not Hulk?

Banner tried to blow his own brains out per the movie, but turned into the Hulk and spit the bullet out.

Now, I guess it could be argued that Banner/Hulk knew that the bullet was coming since he is the one that pulled the trigger. But I think the comics have established that any mortal injury results in him becoming the Hulk.

What movie was that?

 Frazzled wrote:
What movie was that?

Avengers: