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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Well, then do a good movie so the public knows that.
Years or comic history is meaningless before non comic reading fans first impression of a character as a loser. Our boy Aquaman gets this.
I mean, the first time, they had to be saved by Peter Quill, so them thinking they might need to fix their basic methods makes sense to me. The fact that the next time they got completely wrecked would only reinforce that.
One Strip! One Strip!Hal also has to compete with the popularity of Guy, John, Kyle, Jessica...and I guess Simon Baz. Not sure if he's popular, but he still might get more love than Hal.
Hal has his fans, but a lot of people seem to love shitting on him as well. Him being played up as the greatest GL doesn't help either.
That may have changed though. I don't know what the opinion is lately. I mostly get that from Scans Daily, and they can be a ruthless bunch.
One Strip! One Strip!There is the idea that the others could make for a better story (and Kyle would explore the possibilities of an Imagination-Based Superpower to their fullest).
Edited by Blueace on Jul 12th 2019 at 2:33:29 PM
Wake me up at your own risk.John is only popular because he was great in the Justice League cartoon. If Kyle or Guy got a big awesome mainstream appearance, they could easily replace John as the fan-favorite.
Remember how Wally was everyone's favorite Flash because he was in Justice League, but then the Flash live-action show came out and now everyone only cares about Barry?
Doublepost, but to swing it back around to the MCU, the same thing applies with Ant-Man and Wasp. Before the Ant-Man movie, Hank and Janet were the go-to Ant-Man and Wasp in all media while Scott and Hope were almost unheard-of levels of obscure. Now, Scott and Hope are far more well-known characters than Hank and Janet.
Piggybacking on that, Hope's not even from the 616 comic universe!
Hank's daughter in the main comics timeline is Nadia Pym. She was born to the Hungarian Maria Trovaya, Hank's first wife. Trovaya was stuffed in a fridge for being a love interest in a superhero story and Nadia was taken by the Soviet Union. She was trained to be a deadly assassin in the Red Room by Bucky "Winter Motherf*cking Soldier" Barnes.
She eventually escaped the Red Room after reverse-engineering a black market sample of Pym Particles and made her way to the United States to find her father. But since Hank was taking a turn on the death carousel at the time, she hooked up with Janet and became the new Wasp.
Hope Pym, in the comics, exists only in the MC2 continuity. MC2 is a popular line that spun out of a What If? issue. It features Peter and MJ's daughter Mayday Parker as its main character, Spider-Girl.
In this continuity, Hope is the supervillain Red Queen. She formed an evil super-team called the Revengers and tried to murder Scott's daughter Cassie, 'cause she reveres her dad and thinks the Avengers are a blight on his legacy or some shit.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 12th 2019 at 2:31:25 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.It's pretty clear that Nadia is an Expy of movie Hope.
But yeah, proper exposure can help make a character more popular (or again in the case of Aquaman, fight against bad exposure).
John is the Lantern who has that (Kyle, Guy and Hal kinda need it). Scott has it now due to the Antman movies (which have actually helped Hank as well by removing the one thing people seem to remember about him and letting us focus on other parts, even if he's a bit more of an asshole in the MCU).
In theory, damn near any character can be saved by a single good portrayal.
...except Star Fox.
He's never getting fixed.
Adaptations generally influence a wider group of people especially since comic books aren't as far reaching in a sense.
Which is good for Hank since he'll be remembered as a crotchity old man than as someone who slapped his wife that one time while under extreme emotional/mental duress.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."It's true. One good blockbuster film can do wonders for a character's reception.
Did you know there was a time when Aquaman WASN'T a memetic sex god who makes a billion dollars at the box office by having awesome sea adventures with eldritch horrors?
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 12th 2019 at 2:43:39 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.It is interesting that the John and Scott examples show pretty conclusively how bullshit the "no-one actually cares about legacy characters, the original character always will be the most popular version that everyone will come back to" argument is. People are 100% willing to accept a legacy character as the best version of that character, even if it's established right off the bat that character is a legacy character.
Besides, if people were really such sticklers for the original characters, than Barry Alan and Hal Jordan still wouldn't be the "default" Flash and Green Lantern, it'd be Jay Garrick and Alan Scott.

It would work better since we all know Doom's ego is a coping mechanism. Who wouldn't have a coping mechanism when not-Satan was involved in your childhood?