Oddities: who are the greatest heroes that no one talks about?

[lemonpeace]

very very simple premise: who are some of the most criminally underappreciated characters that general audiences and fandom rarely talk about? I want the obscure of the obscure, none of the "underrated" heroes that everyone knows about (looking at you Zatanna and Booster Gold); i want some really "...wait, who?!" characters.

bonus nerd cred if they pulled off some incredible feat that went largely ignored by fans and the general public.

[Frontier]

Kimiyo Hoshi/Dr. Light.

Kate Spencer Manhunter.

Nightshade.

Crimson Fox.

[jb681131]

- The Question
- Manhunter
And a lot more collected in these collections:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_publications

[K7P5V]

Definitely, my choice would be...

Young Heroes in Love

[Johnny Thunders!]

Andrew Bennett, I Vampire!

[I'm a Fish]

Rose and Thorn.

[Johnny]

I don't really consider him one of the "greatest" heroes, but a character like Firestorm is really underappreciated imo.

And this isn't DC but it just has to be said: Nova. It pains me that a character like Peacemaker can be a major character in a big-budget movie and get his own spin-off TV show afterwards, while Richard Rider is yet to make his live-action debut 25 MCU films later. They even gave his love interest to Star-Lord. WTF Marvel.

[LifeIsILL]

Green Arrow

Hawkman

Shazam

Yes, they have their own TV shows and their own movies or whatever.....but even with those movies....I feel people don't really know those characters and the crazy stuff they've done in the comics.

[Dr. Skeleton]

Fire & Ice, Animal Man, the Power Company.

[John Venus]

A big one would be the Crimson Avenger, the original had a really good final story. I wish they had tied in Jill Carlyle's origin with the original instead of having two unconnected characters who share the same code name.

Dr Mid nite/Pieter Cross is another one, he had a couple of good stories in JSA: Classified notably one where he tracks down a group stealing organs from meta humans. I'm surprised he's not in Young Justice, he would be a good fit on there and I would definitely watch a movie about him than Hourman.

Those are the ones who haven't been mentioned in this thread thus far. After that I have to echo the posters who chose:


Kimiyo Hoshi

Vixen

Nightshade/Eve Eden

Fire & Ice

I don't consider Shazam, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Animal Man and a couple of others to be oddities no one talks about.

[BatmanJones]

Hawkman

I think Hawkman wins the thread. Yes, he had a great but short-lived series fairly recently, but otherwise he's been relegated to obscurity. We see random male Thanagarians more than we see Katar/Carter lately.

And I freaking hate that they made Katar and Carter the same guy. I mean, why not make Alan Scott and Hal Jordan the same guy while they're at it? It's nonsense. The Egyptian archaeologist is an excuse to use reincarnation but not a good reason to essentially erase a character that used to be a B+ list hero.

Combining the two was meant to simplify unnecessarily complicated backstories, that needed absolutely no simplification, and wound up complicating things further and erasing Katar and Shayera except when they wanted to confuse readers further in Snyder's JLA by bringing modern Kendra Hawkgirl to Thanagar to interact with Shayera Hawkwoman, who are not the same person.

You can't have a JL comic anymore without Hawkgirl (Kendra). She's baked into the cake now. Time was, Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman appeared sporadically as a supporting character to the real draw, Hawkman.

I have a drinking glass with the classic JLA on it. It includes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, GL (Hal), Green Arrow, and Hawkman. Green Arrow was an indispensable member of the team in the 70s and so was Hawkman and their political/ideological clashes made up about 95% of the characterization amongst the team.

Now Green Arrow's finally back, thanks new DC! But where is Hawkman? And where is his connection to the rest of the DCU? And why on earth was he disappeared as he was?

[Vakanai]

The Haunted Tank. Feat - it's a freaking haunted tank! How is that not great?
Detective Chimp. Feat - a talking chimp! And he's dressed like Sherlock Holmes!

If I were WB I'd make huge franchises out of the both of them pronto.

[lemonpeace]

Green Arrow, Hawkman, Vixen, Shazam are all not oddities.

[Vakanai]

Crap, can't believe I forgot this one after just finishing season one of HBO Max's Doom Patrol - Danny the Street! They're a gender-queer teleporting street! And just a pretty swell street too.

[Lightning63]

Guy Gardiner. When a new green lantern project is talked of its always is it Hal or John (or Kyle) but Guy's never mentioned. I couldn't care less about a Hal or John Green Lantern movie. I'd rather see a Guy and Kilowog buddy cop Green Lantern Corps movie instead of just focusing on one lantern.