Do You Think That Any Character Can Support A Solo?

Title says it all. Do you think any character, depending on the writing can support a solo comic?

I'm of the opinion that yes it can happen but the writers have to put a lot of effort into making them independent.

The people also need to be willing to give said character a chance.

The book can have the best writing and plot around, but if people just don't care enough to read it, it's meaningless.

Or if the character has a Never Live It Down moment that people just won't let go of, like Aquaman's Memetic Loser status that just won't leave him alone.

For instance, you'd have a hell of a time selling a villain book about Doctor Light after the whole he's a rapist thing, even if you made it a different version of Doctor Light that never did that.

You mean like Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman...?

Not. I think he means more second stringer and third stringer characters in both DC and Marvel.

Any character can support a solo series if they have good enough writing and artwork. Case in point: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

Squirrel Girl already had some memetic success. I do think that book is a good example of the need for a wide variety of books, though. Part of the reason for its success is that it's a rare family-friendly superhero comic. The book's found a lot of success with parents, especially parents with young daughters, because it's a superhero comic they can share with their kid. So it fills a niche.

But that won't work with all characters. And some characters are damned near impossible sells for solo comics. I don't care who they have as the creative team, Angel would be lucky to last a year. When Journey Into Mystery was a Sif solo, it was amazing, and it lasted 9 issues.

So, I don't know if any character can support a solo.

I meant "support" as in "you can build an entire book around this character," rather than "this book will definitely sell." You can definitely do the first with any character with good writing, but the second is a lot more tricky. Charles Soule's She-Hulk was an awesome series and it only lasted twelve issues.

edited 18th Dec '15 4:51:50 PM by alliterator

Oh, well, then sure. Any character can be developed as a solo character. Cyclops is practically defined by the X-Men, but he still got a solo. (He also got a mini 20 years ago.) It doesn't even actually take all that good a writer, truthfully. Any writer can come up with at least one idea for a story about any character. Whether the story is good or not will be down to the writer's talent, but coming up with a solo story? That's easy.

Mathematician's Answer says yes, but it's far more about execution.