A-List Superheroes

[rowyn]

Lut asked me the other day why there's specifically complaints about Wonder Woman not getting a movie, as opposed to any other female superheroes. My theory is that it's because Wonder Woman is the only female superhero with strong brand recognition outside of the fandom. At first I thought that the men heavily outweighed the women on the A-List, and then I realized: no, the A-list is really short. Really, really short.

This is the A-List:

Superman
Batman
Wonder Woman
Spider-man
The Hulk

Aaaand we're done.

Really, that's it. Marvel/Disney is working hard to change that, but Iron Man and Thor are not (yet) A-Listers. Even Wolverine, who's a huge fan favorite, is not an A-List superhero that everybody knows. I bet most Americans can't name three X-Men, and that includes Professor X. Until Guardians of the Galaxy came out, even I didn't know the names of any of its protagonists (though I did recognize Thanos).

There are a few others that might be borderline:

Captain America
Robin
Batgirl
Supergirl
She-Hulk
Catwoman

These are the sorts of characters that people outside the fandom know exist. But they don't care or know much about them. I didn't know Captain America's origin story until I saw the movie. Three of them are "the girl version of an A-lister", which as a reason for mattering is meh. Catwoman is known as a supervillain or at best an antihero.

Other candidates? Fantastic Four? They just don't have the kind of presence in the popular imagination that Superman or even Spider-Man does.

I kinda want to see market research on this, but asking my friends doesn't work as well on this one, because even most of you who never read superhero comics are still peripherally involved with the fandom. :) Still, I'm curious which heroes you think are on the A-List, or if anyone feels like the recent success of various Avengers films has moved any of those characters onto it.

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I'd expect the B-list to include everyone from the old Saturday morning cartoons. Aquaman. Iceman or whatever he was called. Jan and Zana and Gleep. Apache Chief.

Also, I find it kind of odd to think of Wonder Woman as being on your A-list, because I only know about her the same way I know about Jan and Zana. Superman, Batman, Spider Man, yeah, they're big. Is she really, though?

[alltoseek.livejournal.com]

Shazam!

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

My boss showed up at a company meeting showing off her "Wonder Woman" beach wrap on a lark. She's familiar with Wonder Woman, and she's NOT a comic-book geek.

I think "Wonder Woman" is a bit more broadly recognized largely because when DC Comics is involved in licensed merchandise, it's quite often Batman and Superman as the primary polar choices for male superhero icons, and Wonder Woman gets thrown in for a little variety and token gender balance.

I strongly suspect that the typical person who's the least bit aware of pop culture would have a rough familiarity with the origin story of Superman, or that of Batman. I think he or she might have a little more trouble with Wonder Woman, and would probably be at pains to name any of Wonder Woman's arch-enemies. (Superman? Lex Luthor, of course. Batman? Joker. Maybe a few others for bonus points. Wonder Woman? Uhhhhhhh....)

But all the same, I think she has a bit of VISUAL recognition. Alas, it's recognition as a pale, dark-haired beauty running around in a swimsuit. With Batman, you can change his tights and underwear-on-the-outside into a sort of form-fitting suit of armor, and he's still Batman. But Wonder Woman seems to be inevitably tied to showing off an awful lot of skin.

Now, is it enough to sell a movie? Maybe. But I regret that when I saw some posters for the Superman vs. Batman movie that showed WONDER WOMAN ... my first thought was that they'd updated the look of Xena, Warrior Princess. And I wasn't the only one. Oops. They might need to work a little more on that.

[rowyn]

I actually think you could do an iconic, recognizably Wonder Woman costume without showing any skin. You need the tiara, the bracers, the lasso, and the American-flag + golden eagle color scheme, definitely, to trigger a "that's Wonder Woman" reaction from the average non-fan. But I don't think it has to be the bathing suit. You could give her blue-with-stars pants and a zip-front red jacket with the gold eagle over the chest, and as long as she had the assorted accessories, people would know that was supposed to be Wonder Woman. Even just her face, with the tiara and the wavy dark hair, is pretty iconic.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

I have to agree there. We've had Batman and Superman in outfits where it's no longer "underwear on the outside," and we can tell who they are pretty easily. Green Lantern's outfit has gone through a few changes, but as long as he's green, as a partial face mask, and has that big stylized "lantern" logo on the front, anyone who knows Green Lantern is going to get it.

I liked the Jim Lee redesign costume Wonder Woman had for a short while.



Note: I don't think it's the best example of the way to keep the character recognizable, but I still like it.

I got a bit ticked when there would be reactive fan art where artists would "improve" the design (in short: never mind all the iconography; it's really just NO PANTS). If anyone's going to get all particular about "NOOOOO! You cannot cover up the thighs!" then I'd point out that Wonder Woman ORIGINALLY was running around in a dress.



(It's a bit silly-looking, but I have to say that at least partly it's the artist to blame.)

Now, as for the movie version...



I can see some reason for this, because it at least tries a little to get in a little of that Greek myth look ... a little ... but I'm not seeing much red or blue here. Maybe that's sensible, in that an updated Wonder Woman shouldn't necessarily look like she's wearing American flag colors, but if that's the case, we at least need a little more gold and emphasis of the eagle/W elements. This particular image is just too sepia-toned, I think, for those decorative elements (I can see that they are IN the costume...) to stand out properly.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah -- a mild tangent, but have you ever seen the "JL8" comic by Yale Stewart?

(EDIT: Argh! Sample image deleted. None of the examples I found seem to work as embedded images, thanks to some sort of internet voodoo.)

It's a cute, superhero-themed comic ... with a bunch of recognizable DC superheroes and superheroines ... who just happen to be in grade school.

[rowyn]

I have! I started reading it juuuust when it stopped updating, actually. One or two new ones have been added since I started reading it some time ago, but that's it. :/