Anson Mount's turn on Star Trek: Discovery provokes a bit of a question. Captain Pike had exactly 1.5 appearances in All Star Trek lore (consolidating "The Cage" and "The Menagerie"), prior to his brief appearances in the Abrams-verse.

Yet, Captain Pike seems to have a claim on the imagination of Star Trek fans everywhere. I myself consider him my favorite Starfleet captain perhaps because in his absence I get to fill in the blanks for myself. But he does not objectively deserve that kind of adulation. We've only seen him a few times, and he doesn't have Kirk's, Picard's, Sisko's, or Janeway's visibly earned record.

So I ask two questions:
  • Is his popularity a function of our lack of canonical data about him?
  • Is there another character in comics or films that seems to have this kind of reputation with so little appearance?