What Made Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman so Popular?

[CliffHanger2]

I guess a lot of money and constant pushes. I think Shazam was more popular than Superman at one time. Until DC sued or something. Not sure how popular Batman was until Robin came along.

[Jim Kelly]

Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz were not the nicest guys and were probably doing some illegal things, but they happened to own the best publisher for the market. Liebowitz was the distributor--owned Independent News (again probably up to a lot of crimes) which managed to muscle out most of the other distributiors.

The success of Superman took them by surprise, but that gave them a leg up on the competition. However, they didn't just sit on their laurels and knew enough to diversify the company--getting into other genres when those became popular.

They also developed an in-house comics code, long before the Comics Code Authority came into effect. That still didn't stop Fredric Wertham from targetting Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman in SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT. But unlike Entertaining Comics, National Comics was able to influence the ground rules for the Comics Code which favoured their publications.

I think it's entirely arbitrary that Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman happened to survive. In his book THE SECRET HISTORY OF AA COMICS, Bob Rozakis constructs an alternate universe where it wasn't Superman and Batman (and the Detective Comics line) but Green Lantern and Flash (and the All-American line) that survived--with Max Gaines rather than Harry Donenfeld being in charge.

The fickle finger of fate allowed that Supes, Bats and Wondy--each for different reasons--managed to hang on through the 1950s--sometimes with the help of JIMMY WAKELY, BOB HOPE, THE FOX & THE CROW, HOPALONG CASSIDY, MARTIN & LEWIS, BINKY, SECRET HEARTS and OUR ARMY AT WAR. The publisher weathered the storm, while others were going out of business.

Self-serving plug: A couple years ago, I did a month by month, year by year analysis of "The Fall and Rise of the Supers" for the 1950s; it's on the Comics Should Be Good forum. Check it out, if you dare.

[CaptCleghorn]

I was talking comics-wise. He did share GL's title.

I maintain much of Green Arrow's fame is due to or inspired by the O'Neil/Adams run. Without those few issues, Ollie loses an awful lot in so many ways.

[Buried Alien]

Was there a time that Superman and Batman didn't sell the most comics for DC (though not necessarily the top title)?

I don't think so. It was usually one or the other, though I wonder if NEW TEEN TITANS was moving the most books for DC during the 1980s.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[NathanS]

I guess a lot of money and constant pushes. I think Shazam was more popular than Superman at one time. Until DC sued or something. Not sure how popular Batman was until Robin came along.

Captain Marvel was more popular and stayed more popular as law suites between his publishers, Fawcett Comics, and DC went back and forth until it become too much trouble for Fawcett and they sold him to DC. Who promptly put him in a vault to gather dust and hired his writers to re-write Superman to be Captain Marvel 2.0. DC did a LOT of "is that series doing well? buy them up and bury them underground so they can't threaten us" thing.

That's really the main reason to be honest.

[The Darknight Detective]

Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz were not the nicest guys and were probably doing some illegal things, but they happened to own the best publisher for the market. Liebowitz was the distributor--owned Independent News (again probably up to a lot of crimes) which managed to muscle out most of the other distributiors.

The success of Superman took them by surprise, but that gave them a leg up on the competition. However, they didn't just sit on their laurels and knew enough to diversify the company--getting into other genres when those became popular.

They also developed an in-house comics code, long before the Comics Code Authority came into effect. That still didn't stop Fredric Wertham from targetting Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman in SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT. But unlike Entertaining Comics, National Comics was able to influence the ground rules for the Comics Code which favoured their publications.

I think it's entirely arbitrary that Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman happened to survive. In his book THE SECRET HISTORY OF AA COMICS, Bob Rozakis constructs an alternate universe where it wasn't Superman and Batman (and the Detective Comics line) but Green Lantern and Flash (and the All-American line) that survived--with Max Gaines rather than Harry Donenfeld being in charge.

The fickle finger of fate allowed that Supes, Bats and Wondy--each for different reasons--managed to hang on through the 1950s--sometimes with the help of JIMMY WAKELY, BOB HOPE, THE FOX & THE CROW, HOPALONG CASSIDY, MARTIN & LEWIS, BINKY, SECRET HEARTS and OUR ARMY AT WAR. The publisher weathered the storm, while others were going out of business.

Self-serving plug: A couple years ago, I did a month by month, year by year analysis of "The Fall and Rise of the Supers" for the 1950s; it's on the Comics Should Be Good forum. Check it out, if you dare.

There was some arbitrariness as to who slayed around (Johnny Quick over Flash is the most obvious example), but it would have been nuts to have stopped publishing Clark and Bruce.

[CliffHanger2]

Captain Marvel was more popular and stayed more popular as law suites between his publishers, Fawcett Comics, and DC went back and forth until it become too much trouble for Fawcett and they sold him to DC. Who promptly put him in a vault to gather dust and hired his writers to re-write Superman to be Captain Marvel 2.0. DC did a LOT of "is that series doing well? buy them up and bury them underground so they can't threaten us" thing.

That's really the main reason to be honest.

Yeah there are definitely some dirty deeds behind why these guys stayed on top.

[The Darknight Detective]

I don't think so. It was usually one or the other, though I wonder if NEW TEEN TITANS was moving the most book for DC during the 1980s.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

It's possible right after COIE during the transitional stage for New Earth.

[Jim Kelly]

There was some arbitrariness as to who slayed around (Johnny Quick over Flash is the most obvious example), but it would have been nuts to have stopped publishing Clark and Bruce.

Yes, but imagine that history worked out differently. Siegel and Shuster sued over Superman, what if they won? What if things got hairy with Bob Kane? What if the Marston family said they were taking their Wonder Woman home?

I think Wonder Woman was the main property that Donenfeld wanted from All-American. Jack Liebowitz owned half of A.A. and Gaines sold his half to Donenfeld, to start up E.C. And National didn't care much about the rest of the A.A. properties--they let them wither on the vine. Even so, it was slim pickings for the D.C. line, as the comics had less and less pages; Johnny Quick was one of the last left in ADVENTURE COMICS, but he still got the axe in the end when that comic got even thinner.

The publishers were able to work with what they had and probably could have built up other characters to be the Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman of the line if they no longer had the rights to those characters.

I don't think Batman ever sold near the number of comics as Superman, until 1966. Other titles like THE FOX & THE CROW and HOPALONG CASSIDY (which they acquired from Fawcett) were probably doing numbers equal to BATMAN or better in the mid-1950s.

In 1966 and 1967, Batman sales took off and those were the the biggest selling comics National Periodicals had by far. But the bottom fell out of the Batman bonanza in 1968. Thus all the changes that happened in the 1970s, as they desperately tried to revive Batman's popularity and sales.

Superman seems to have been the steady winner--although even his sales fell in the 1970s and 1980s. However, that came as the market shifted to specialty shops and the number of mass market points of purchase shrank. In the mass market, Superman continued to be their best seller. I think that SUPERMAN FAMILY was a solid seller in drugstores.

And in 1987 they test marketed the "SUPERMAN COMICS" bullet on select issues, as a possible replacement for the "DC" bullet in some markets--this was used on variant JUSTICE LEAGUE 3 and FURY OF FIRESTORM 61 issues. So the Superman name must still have had some cachet for them in selling their titles.



Moreso now than ever--when Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman hardly resemble the characters they used to be--I don't believe it's the characters themselves that sell the product. The publisher makes over whatever they have in stock for the interest of the current market.

[9th.]

Constant usage, the best writers and artist constantly reimagining and shaping them. Media content for generations of adults to grow up on doesn't hurt either.

Also their logos

[bat39]

Mostly its because they managed to survive the Golden Age, for whatever reasons, as others have described with far more depth on this thread than I ever would.

I think it also helps that, by and large, they've stayed the same consistent characters for over 80 years - in terms of their basic appearance, backstory and mythology. Bruce is still the rich guy in the bat-costume with no powers but detective skills, fighting skills and tech. Clark is still an infant rocketed to earth from Krypton who uses his powers to help people while working as a bespectacled reporter in civilian life. Diana is still the Princess of the Amazons who comes to Man's World to use her powers and her lasso of truth to fight injustice. A lot of details have been added or changed, there have been superficial cosmetic changes, but at their core, these are the same characters who debuted in the late 30's/early 40's.

Contrast this with Green Arrow and Aquaman, both of whom got new origin stories in the Silver Age and were heavily retooled later into the versions we're more familiar with. Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman and Atom were totally reinvented from the ground-up.

When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, it always seemed that there was a Big 5 in DC Comics - Superman (due to the films), Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman.

I'd argue it's still more or less the same, except maybe Aquaman has displaced Green Lantern.

Actually in the 70's and 80's you could maybe argue it was the Trinity and Aquaman and Robin who were the Big 5. Robin as a distinct character has also seen a significant decline over the last several decades - the current Robin is more famous for being Damian Wayne than for being Robin arguably.

[The Darknight Detective]

Mostly its because they managed to survive the Golden Age, for whatever reasons, as others have described with far more depth on this thread than I ever would.

I think it also helps that, by and large, they've stayed the same consistent characters for over 80 years - in terms of their basic appearance, backstory and mythology. Bruce is still the rich guy in the bat-costume with no powers but detective skills, fighting skills and tech. Clark is still an infant rocketed to earth from Krypton who uses his powers to help people while working as a bespectacled reporter in civilian life. Diana is still the Princess of the Amazons who comes to Man's World to use her powers and her lasso of truth to fight injustice. A lot of details have been added or changed, there have been superficial cosmetic changes, but at their core, these are the same characters who debuted in the late 30's/early 40's.

Contrast this with Green Arrow and Aquaman, both of whom got new origin stories in the Silver Age and were heavily retooled later into the versions we're more familiar with. Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman and Atom were totally reinvented from the ground-up.



I'd argue it's still more or less the same, except maybe Aquaman has displaced Green Lantern.

Actually in the 70's and 80's you could maybe argue it was the Trinity and Aquaman and Robin who were the Big 5. Robin as a distinct character has also seen a significant decline over the last several decades - the current Robin is more famous for being Damian Wayne than for being Robin arguably.

Until I started reading Batman comics by the mid-'70s, I almost felt Bruce and Dick were joined at the hip. Damian still has a way to go to become that popular and iconic.

[The Darknight Detective]

Constant usage, the best writers and artist constantly reimagining and shaping them. Medis content for generations of adults to grow up on doesn't hurt either.

Also their logos

But does that really explain why they were so much more popular than the other DC characters during the Golden Age? Other than being the first to come out of the box, did they really have any more of an advantage otherwise?

[bat39]

Until I started reading Batman comics by the mid-'70s, I almost felt Bruce and Dick were joined at the hip. Damian still has a way to go to become that popular and iconic.

Yeah, Robin was an inextricable part of the Batman franchise from 1940 up till Dick went off to college in 1969 and the focus started to shift towards a solo Batman. But even so, he remained a crucial part of the franchise up until Burton's Batman movie, which really cemented our modern idea of Batman working mostly solo with the Bat-family occasionally present.

By rights, Robin should be part of the 'Big Four' alongside Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. He's been around longer that WW, technically, was adapted earlier, and is a pillar of DC's history. But unlike the other three, Robin did not stay evergreen in his original concept and identity - Dick Grayson became Nightwing and 'Robin' became a mantle which other characters took up. And that's been the case now for four decades.

But does that really explain why they were so much more popular than the other DC characters during the Golden Age? Other than being the first to come out of the box, did they really have any more of an advantage otherwise?

Well, they all had their own titles. Even Flash Comics wasn't a solo title for the Flash but had other characters, notably Hawkman.

I suppose in some ways they were the first and definitive takes on certain superhero archetypes. Superman as the original all-powerful superhero character. Batman who embodied the skilled, human vigilante superhero archetype. And Wonder Woman who was the standard bearer for female superheroes. You can throw in Robin as the original teenage superhero sidekick as well.

[The Darknight Detective]

Well, they all had their own titles. Even Flash Comics wasn't a solo title for the Flash but had other characters, notably Hawkman.

Flash had All-Flash during the '40s, while GL had Green Lantern.