In X-Men, Emma Frost certainly qualifies for this. She went from villain in the '80s to mentor in a satellite book in the '90s to indispensable member of the main team in 2001 and has never wavered from that since.
I think it has a lot to do with the failed business model of the 90s. Spawn used to be very popular but hasn't aged well. Valiant had good writing but went out of business. Milestone had some beloved characters but went out of business. Even in the Big 2, much better business models were adopted in the 00s and thus much better remembered.
As far as new characters go, my family really loves Kid Loki and X-23. Kaine's revival has made him a huge hit with us as well; my girl likes him more than the actual Spider-Man.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Most characters past the 80s are either spin-offs or legacy characters.
And characters that shouldn't be legacy (like The Question) still end up becoming legacy.
It's true. I think part of the problem is that legitimately original new characters just aren't as marketable as the classics, and the other part of it is that those that are, just aren't getting marketed as much as the classics.
Look at the Runaways. The Runaways are great. A lot of people love the Runaways. But when was the last time you heard about a Runaways movie or a Runaways Saturday Morning Cartoon being optioned?
The big money is going to characters who've already proven themselves to be a financial jackpot, making it really hard to break into the adaptations and merchandising, which is where characters really need to get to if they want the kind of widespread familiarity needed to hit the A-List.
It's so much easier to just slip Wolverine into the team for easy money.
edited 7th Nov '12 11:21:37 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Avengers Academy created 5 new characters (6, actually, with the addition of the new White Tiger), and all of them were interesting, unique, and for the most part, really cool. Mettle, Hazmat, Finesse, Veil, and Striker. Great characters. I hope they get used more. Especially Finesse.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.Yeah, well, Academy is an exception that breaks several rules.
Awesome series, though.
Although, most of those names are still recycled from older characters. They're not exactly "Legacy" characters, but their names aren't original. Particularly Veil and Striker.
edited 7th Nov '12 11:53:31 AM by KingZeal
Toxin needs more love but alas he and his symbiote got killed both after suffering a five year Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.
"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des UrsinsVenom is well past my terms of popularity. He's carried his own mini-series, had other characters spun off of him(in far too literal a fashion), appeared outside of comics in mainstream things like movies and videogames as well as in books without his primary foil. Someone like that from the 2000s would be great.
As for what breakout means, it's completely subjective. Someone who makes you say, "I would totally read a <This Person> solo book!"
Avengers Academy sounds really promising, just the sort of thing I was looking for.
Kid Loki I don't know, but I have encountered X-23. Is she a legacy character? For Venom it's easy to say no, given his start as an evil opposite type, but opposite sex clone, teen version, eh... The only thing that stops her from being a total legacy is that Wolverine is still running around. I suppose it might depend on how independent she is from Wolverine. If she turns up and Wolvie is sure to follow, then probably not independent enough, I think.
Creed of the Happy Pessimist:Always expect the worst. Then, when it happens, it was only what you expected. All else is a happy surprise.She had her own ongoing for a while; Wolverine drifted in and out of it, but wasn't a major part of the story. It was mostly her and surrogate-father-figure Gambit against the world (which, incidentally, was a new and surprisingly interesting angle for Gambit).
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.It's a good thing for Gambit that Wolverine is very grim because with X-23 being his surrogate sister/cousin/daughter (wow that sounds Alabama no wonder the southern character gets along with X-23) he might take to calling Gambit "pappy" or something.
"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins![]()
There actually was an amusing moment between Logan and Gambit when Logan was being a surrogate father to Jubilee, where the two characters took the time to discuss their respective parenting challenges before, in a moment of self-awareness, one of them asked, "...want to go start a bar fight?"
edited 8th Nov '12 12:09:07 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Deadpool was created in '93 (and his ongoing started in '97) but it seemed to me that he started picking up in popularity in the mid-to-latter part of the last decade. Up until then, he was mostly an obscure X-Men spinoff.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about why I don't read much superhero comics anymore, and one of the things that came up was the lack of intriguing new characters in the last decade or so. I couldn't think of any characters created in that time that I would want to follow, but my limited exposure means I probably don't know the characters that I might find compelling.
But even then, a lot of the characters I liked originated in the sixties, seventies and eighties, and it seemed like very few characters from the nineties caught on past the Dark Age. Are non-legacy, non-revival characters with staying power still being made?
So, I ask, what characters have been created since 2000 or so that you might find interesting, worthy of their own books, and storylines? Personally I always favoured the less popular characters, The Novas and Quasars, the Jade and Obsidians, Nomad and Blue Devil(pre-demonfication), Infinity Inc and The Guardians of The Galaxy(Valentino) though some popular ones like Gambit have slipped in.
Creed of the Happy Pessimist:Always expect the worst. Then, when it happens, it was only what you expected. All else is a happy surprise.