Why are Marvel's Superheroines Less Popular overall than Dc's?

[Michael Watkins]

And that's probably going to change with the Aquaman movie.

I doubt it. it's not like Meera action figures are going to fly off the shelves. she's not joining the Justice League. so she doesn't really count; just as I doubt that Black Panther is going to elevate Shuri's brand.

[Frontier]

I doubt it. it's not like Meera action figures are going to fly off the shelves. she's not joining the Justice League. so she doesn't really count; just as I doubt that Black Panther is going to elevate Shuri's brand.

I'd bet otherwise, so long as both movies are as good a showcase for those characters as the comics have been .

[Desean101101]

I doubt it. it's not like Meera action figures are going to fly off the shelves. she's not joining the Justice League. so she doesn't really count; just as I doubt that Black Panther is going to elevate Shuri's brand.

Man You don't know DC. They love making Figures of there Women in various outfits and then making series out them. They will Have Movie Aquaman and Mera Figures easily.

[ed2962]

Man You don't know DC. They love making Figures of there Women in various outfits and then making series out them. They will Have Movie Aquaman and Mera Figures easily.

But will they be for comics fans and collectors or will they be toys that the civilians buy at Walmart?

[RLAAMJR.]

Not completely reliable when a lot of those appearances/issues on ComicVine are simply reprints in another language

That the points. If the comics are available to more places, then more people could have seen it. More reprints, more sales. Carol Danvers was an unknown superhero when she was ms marvel. But when she became captain marvel and started to show up on teambooks, she became more known.

[mace11]

I wouldn't necessarily fully agree with the premise, if we're putting this in the scope of media adaptations, basically anything that's not a comic, like the Netflix series with Elektra, Colleen Wing, Jessica Jones, Misty Knight and the Night Nurse, the primetime television audience with Agents of Shield with Melinda May, Mockingbird and Quake, the Animated side with White Tiger and She-Hulk.

Keeping that in mind, Marvels prominent cinematic universe is on the big screen. They set the stage for the Avengers with Ironman, Thor and Captain America and gave them love interests to act as a grounded counterbalance. Thors ethereal and full of himself, Jane is a determined theoretical physicist. Tony is Livewire, Pepper is that responsibile executive telling him no and struggling with the chaos that is Tony Stark. Cap is optimistic, Peggy is worldweary.

There is hellcat and slingshot in the mcu too.
Slingshot has webseries by the way.

[Michael Watkins]

I'd bet otherwise, so long as both movies are as good a showcase for those characters as the comics have been .

that hasn't been my experience with the non comic book reading public. I wore an Ant-Man costume for Halloween last year. only one guy knew who I was and he was wearing a Winter Soldier costume. most people guessed Spider-Man. and I got at least one guess of "someone from Halo." now Ant-Man was the main character of his movie. you really think that Meera is going to be part of the social consciousness? people are hesitant to embrace female heroes, as is. Wonder Woman's success is an outlier (and a byproduct of her being an original creation like superman). I'd love it for all of these characters to be embraced as A-List. I don't see it happening.

[Frontier]

that hasn't been my experience with the non comic book reading public. I wore an Ant-Man costume for Halloween last year. only one guy knew who I was and he was wearing a Winter Soldier costume. most people guessed Spider-Man. and I got at least one guess of "someone from Halo." now Ant-Man was the main character of his movie. you really think that Meera is going to be part of the social consciousness? people are hesitant to embrace female heroes, as is. Wonder Woman's success is an outlier (and a byproduct of her being an original creation like superman). I'd love it for all of these characters to be embraced as A-List. I don't see it happening.

If she's portrayed well and is as major a part of the narrative as she is in the comics? Totally .

[The_Greatest_Username]

Marvel doesn't invest the time and energy in their existing female characters. Some fans will say that characters like Batgirl and Supergirl are only popular because of their male counterparts, but if that was the case, what's stopping Spider-Woman and She-Hulk from being more popular? I think Marvel never invested enough time in creating a solid foundation for the heroines. Most of DC's popular female characters date back to the Silver Age or earlier while Marvel's prominent female characters were either recently created or have no history of being important until now. Marvel's best female characters (in terms of history) are the X-Women and the Invisible Woman but they can't be promoted anymore.

[CrimsonEchidna]

I suspect part of it might be the specific characters who become popular. DC's biggest female characters are Wonder Woman, with 75 years of history, Supergirl, with a very long history connecting her to one of DC's biggest characters, and then Batgirl, Harley, Ivy, and Catwoman, who are all connected to Batman, DC's other biggest character. Marvel has no female characters who are really in quite the same positions. Spider-Woman was only created in the '70s, with no connection to Spider-Man. She-Hulk debuted in 1980, and didn't really interact with the Hulk for a long time. And I don't think any of Marvel's characters are really on the same level as Batman, in terms of popularity.

There is also the fact that DC's been better at using those characters in other media. Harley even debuted in other media, before her popularity led to her being imported into the comics.

Closest person in that regard is Mary Jane Watson.

I'd say a big thing is that for the longest, Marvel was slow to make Television and Film Adaptations. Characters like Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Catwoman, Harley Quinn all became household names because you had the Adam West Show, the Lynda Carter Show, Super Friends, Batman TAS, Justice League, etc.


Compare that to Marvel, who really dragged their feet getting their female heroes out there. Storm and Rogue got really popular thanks to the X-Men cartoon, but that was released over 25 years ago. Now and days, Black Widow is pretty popular.

[Michael Watkins]

Marvel doesn't invest the time and energy in their existing female characters. Some fans will say that characters like Batgirl and Supergirl are only popular because of their male counterparts, but if that was the case, what's stopping Spider-Woman and She-Hulk from being more popular?

currently or historically? She-Hulk is quite popular. she's been referenced in pop culture several times. she's had numerous solos. there was, at least, one failed attempt at a live-action movie. she has a cult following. there are actresses interested in portraying her within the MCU. but, normally, it's the artwork or direction of her solo title that holds her up. Spider-woman (I'm assuming that we are talking about Jessica Drew) simply has too much competition. they have, alternately, focused on Julia Carpenter, Mattie Franklin, Arana, Ultimate Spider-woman, and Gwen Stacy.

[The_Greatest_Username]

currently or historically? She-Hulk is quite popular. she's been referenced in pop culture several times. she's had numerous solos. there was, at least, one failed attempt at a live-action movie. she has a cult following. there are actresses interested in portraying her within the MCU. but, normally, it's the artwork or direction of her solo title that holds her up. Spider-woman (I'm assuming that we are talking about Jessica Drew) simply has too much competition. they have, alternately, focused on Julia Carpenter, Mattie Franklin, Arana, Ultimate Spider-woman, and Gwen Stacy.

Is She-Hulk that popular anymore? There was a time that she could've been Marvel's Wonder Woman but her window has passed because she's pretty much left out of the Avengers scene where she saw most of her rise to prominence in the past. Having alternate Spider-Women wouldn't be a problem if Marvel took the time to pick a Spider-lady and focus on her to develop her following. Instead, we have different Spider-Women being "the" Spider-Woman for about a decade and then getting replaced by another one. DC doesn't typically do that to their female characters save for maybe Batgirl.

[Michael Watkins]

Is She-Hulk that popular anymore? There was a time that she could've been Marvel's Wonder Woman but her window has passed because she's pretty much left out of the Avengers scene where she saw most of her rise to prominence in the past. Having alternate Spider-Women wouldn't be a problem if Marvel took the time to pick a Spider-lady and focus on her to develop her following. Instead, we have different Spider-Women being "the" Spider-Woman for about a decade and then getting replaced by another one. DC doesn't typically do that to their female characters save for maybe Batgirl.

That's my point. the characters have been popular and have every bit of potential to be popular. but that can change due to forces out of their control. and She-Hulk, in particular, wasn't dependent on the Avengers. from what I've seen, most of her fans associate her with the Fantastic Four. she's almost purposefully being placed on the back burner (by making her jarringly different from her status quo), in the current series. I don't think that she even hulked out in the first few issues. I think they are doing it so that she doesn't draw too much attention away from their primary Hulk; Amadeus. it's probably also why they had one of Banner's last acts be to go around and de-gamma a lot of his legacy characters.

[The_Greatest_Username]

That's my point. the characters have been popular and have every bit of potential to be popular. but that can change due to forces out of their control. and She-Hulk, in particular, wasn't dependent on the Avengers. from what I've seen, most of her fans associate her with the Fantastic Four. she's almost purposefully being placed on the back burner (by making her jarringly different from her status quo), in the current series. I don't think that she even hulked out in the first few issues. I think they are doing it so that she doesn't draw too much attention away from their primary Hulk; Amadeus. it's probably also why they had one of Banner's last acts be to go around and de-gamma a lot of his legacy characters.

Well, yeah. The thread asks why Marvel's women aren't as popular as DC's. The reason is because Marvel unintentionally or otherwise sabotages their own women.

[RLAAMJR.]

You should check the number of appearances instead of solo numbers.

Marvel: https://comicvine.gamespot.com/marve...31/characters/

DC: https://comicvine.gamespot.com/dc-co...10/characters/

Marvel wins with Storm at number 1.

I know others will be interested to see the numbers. I might make a list for number of appearances in video games too later.

Top 25 (as of the moment) female character from Marvel and Dc with most number of appearances according to Comic Vine ( links above_

1. Storm - 7,778 appearances ( First appearance, May 1975 )
2. Jean Grey - 5,992 appearances ( First appearance, September 1963 )
3. Wonder Woman - 5,914 appearances ( First appearance, 1941 )
4. Rogue - 5,255 appearances ( First appearance, 1981 )
5. Invisible Woman - 5,105 appearances ( First appearance, 1961 )
6. Kitty Pryde - 4,932 appearances ( First appearance, January, 1980 )
7. Emma Frost - 4,841 appearances ( First appearance, January, 1980 )
8. Lois Lane - 4,515 appearances ( First appearance, June , 1938 )
9. Psylocke - 3,588 appearances ( First appearance, December, 1976 )
10. Scarlet Witch - 3,549 appearances ( First appearance, March, 1964)
11. Carol Danvers - 3,183 appearances ( First appearance, March, 1968)
12. Wasp - 2,973 appearances ( First appearance, June , 1963 )
13. Black Widow - 2,954 appearances ( First appearance, April, 1964 )
14. Mary Jane Watson - 2,910 appearances ( First appearance, June , 1965 )
15. Barbara Gordon - 2,523 appearances ( First appearance, January, 1967 )
16.She-Hulk - 2,424 appearances ( First appearance, February, 1980 )
17. Black Canary - 2,365 appearances ( First appearance, August, 1947 )
18. Supergirl - 2,336 appearances ( First appearance, May, 1959 )
19. Mystique - 2,295 appearances ( First appearance, April )
20. Magik - 2,254 appearances ( First appearance, May 1975 )
21. Aunt May - 2,245 appearances ( First appearance, August , 1962 )
22. Jubilee - 2,201 appearances ( First appearance, May, 1989 )
23. Catwoman - 2,039 appearances ( First appearance, April, 1940 )
24. Hawkgirl - 1,424 appearances ( First appearance, January, 1940 )
25. Starfire - 1,403 appearances ( First appearance, October, 1980 )


Ororo Munroe aka Storm takes the top spot by a large margin even if there are a lot of female characters who first appeared in comics before her.

Only 8 ladies from DC (in blue font) are in the top 25.