What about Scott Pilgrim? He first appeared in 2004 and has gotten a major motion picture made about him. Granted, the movie didn't do very well, but it was still relatively high profile.
I think the OP specified Superhero comics, so I'm not sure Scott Pilgrim counts.
Buuut, if we are expanding past superhero comics: The Walking Dead is now a hit TV series, and Fables was almost adapted twice before the deal fell through and the project morphed into something else.
I wouldn't count Venom or Batwoman as clone characters. Their personalities are extremely different from Spiderman and the Old Batwoman. Their fan love them for their personalities, not because they're evil Spiderman or re-vamped Batwoman. It's a bit like how Kyle Rainer should count as different from Hal Jordan.
I can't think of many non-legacy characters with any staying power. I'm just completely blanking. There have been some interesting additions to the X-Men but none of them would be popular enough for me to consider break-outs.
Part of it's just the current state of the market. Any new character has an uphill battle to gain readers, but looking at the examples available, the legacy heroes tend to fair better than the non-legacy newbies.
Hellboy, although it's debatable whether or not he's a superhero.
Hellboy would be close enough, but alas, he's from the 90's.
The Walking Dead is a series I read, slowly. Less than halfway to current.
Scott Pilgrim, eh, doesn't quite fit my definition of a super hero.
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.The Deadpool article claims that The Hood is doing pretty well for himself, but I'm no expert so I don't know how true that is. I can say that I personally haven't heard much about him outside nerdy circles.
If you want to get iffy about it, you could make the argument that he has elements of a Dormammu off-shoot.
edited 14th Nov '12 2:08:34 AM by Alucard
If by "doing pretty well for himself" you mean "rotting in prison", then yes, he is.
Last I saw him was when he made a bid for the Infinity Gems.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Respect the Red Right Hand
![]()
![]()
I think this is outdated. The Hood had his moment for a while, but have since been pretty much forgotten, as far I can tell.

Batwoman probably has to be considered a revival character.
In looking into The Runaways(which would fit my criteria pretty well), I note that there (is/was/will be) a Runaways movie in the works, currently tentatively planned for a 2014 release.
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.