Daredevil is A-List. The big 5 Marvel books, for me, have always been:
Spider-Man
X-Men
The Avengers
Fantastic Four
Daredevil
That's not a knock against Scott, but it's true. Throughout comic history he was an Iron Man, Fantastic Four, and Avengers supporting character with no title of his own. He was there to help people. Scott's only story was his debut, To Steal an Ant-Man. They created him not to lead, but to keep the Ant-Man name in use due to Hank juggling through so many different names. Remember, he died in the beginning of Disassembled as fodder and it took eight real-world years for him to come back.
In fact, I think his daughter Cassie as Stature had more prominence than him afterwards. Being a Young Avenger, participating in the Civil War, the Secret Invasion, and even having a stint as an Avenger. She probably appeared more prominently throughout the comics in that period than Scott did during his run as Ant-Man. And when she died, it only took two years for her to come back.
The funny thing is, To Steal an Ant-Man was the reason Scott is the main Ant-Man of the MCU. The original director, Edgar Wright, said that TSAM was the first comic he read as a kid and wanted to do a modern adaptation of it, and thus he chose Scott. By the time Wright left, everything was too far in place to change the script, and they had to continue as-is. Thus, Scott is the Ant-Man we follow.
If anyone else had been hired, I'm 95% sure it would've been Hank.
As far as superhero comics goes, and A-List heroes goes, it's always been small.
If you look at DC their A-List historically has been: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern. Some have come and gone from the A-List. Aquaman most notably. While in the case of Flash and Green Lantern they've been successfully replaced with legacies at various times. You could say Shazam was A-List when he was at Fawcett (and went by the old moniker) but in DC he's never been part of the club. Someone, I think it was Mister Mets, said that DC generally doesn't put top writers on their major titles and give them a run on that. So for instance, Alan Moore in the '80s wrote the most influential creative run for Swamp Thing, a Z-List character who thanks to Moore is now among the creamy layer of the Bs.
In the case of Marvel, I'd say their A-List is (based on continuously being in print, frequency of important runs, prestige, general influence):
Top Four:
-- Spider-Man
-- Fantastic Four
-- X-Men
-- The Incredible Hulk
After that
-- Daredevil
-- The Mighty Thor
-- Captain America
-- Iron Man
-- The Punisher
Everyone else is B-List or a "developing character" (in the way we use the term for "developing economy") -- Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Namor, Inhumans, and others.
Top 15 Marvel character. Hes always solid.
Daredevil is my favorite Marvel character, far and away. In fact, I owe Daredevil my job -- seriously.
In case anyone here might be interested, I wrote a 56-page scholarly article called "The Lawyer as Superhero: How Marvel Comics' Daredevil Depicts the American Court System and Legal Practice." It was published in May in the Capital University Law Review, Vol. 47, No. 2 (2019).
I am a librarian who is very interested in the lessons popular culture teaches the public about law, and I teach a class on Superheroes and the Law at the law school where I work. My article was a deep dive into Matt Murdock's portrayal as an attorney in comics written by Frank Miller, Brian Michael Bendis, David Hine, Mark Waid, and Charles Soule, culminating in Soule's "Supreme" story arc.
That article helped me earn tenure, which means it saved my job. If I was denied tenure after submitting all my accomplishments since I was hired, I would have received a "terminal year" to seek other employment, and then fired. So Daredevil really did help save my career, and even my family.
You can download the article for free here:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....act_id=3389544
Also, this is my collection:
Author of the law review article "The Lawyer as Superhero: How Marvel Comics' Daredevil Depicts the American Court System and Legal Practice," Capital University Law Review, Vol. 47, No. 2 (2019).
Download it for free at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....act_id=3389544
That's incredibly awesome. Not just the collection, but that the article you wrote about Daredevil saved your job and got you tenure. And yes, Daredevil is my favorite Marvel superhero that isn't Spider-Man (who, I'll admit, is my all-time favorite superhero, period).
The spider is always on the hunt.
When did he go down to B-list?
We need better comics
To be honest I think people who call Daredevil B-List do so because they think fighting street-crime is B-List. If that attitude were imported to real life, it would amount to saying that first responders are B-List next to astronauts and so on. It's an example of how fandom debates cultivate potentially sociopathic attitudes.
The Ben Affleck Daredevil movie was commercially pretty successful. On a budget of $78mn it made a profit of $179mn, with $100mn domestic (the domestic gross almost always being the determining factor of a movie's true success). So I don't see how that movie made Ben Affleck B-List. I mean the Affleck Daredevil, the theatrical cut, is better than say Spider-Man 3, Batman and Robin, and Superman Quest of Peace. Those movies didn't make Spider-Man, Batman, Superman into B-List.
And I don't think being on Netflix means you aren't A-List. On the contrary. More eyeballs watch TV than movies. And it's likely that people have seen the Netflix Daredevil show more than a few of the MCU movies. Stranger Things for instance is on Netflix, and it's not B-List.
That has nothing to do with it. Batman and Spider-Man also fight street crime and no one would make that argument of them. It seems more due to Daredevil's lack of exposure in non-comics media compared to the likes of Spider-Man, Batman and Superman.
B-list or C-list are terms that have been used to describe characters like Nova (space cop), Legion of Superheroes (intergalactic super team) and even Wonder Woman. It may be misapplied to Daredevil but not because people think street crime is unimportant