Fan Favourites

I'm interested in the characters who made a transition from "fan favourite" to actual favourite, like Wolverine.

Also the characters who have been solid journeymen for ages and never actually been fan-favourites. Banshee was a good example - plodded along for ages, never more than a couple of years between appearances, but it still didn't feel like an event when they finally offed him.

I associate fan favourites with small but mental fan followings too, i.e. Nightwing.

Also (urrgh): Lobo.

In 2000AD the most notorious fan-favourite is surely Slaine: a character very far past his sell-by and regularly bottom of most readers polls but there's apparently a significant proportion of fans who only buy the thing because Slaine's in it and would stop if they ever axed (ho ho) him.

So 'pressure for continued appearances regardless of quality' is part of it I think.

Green Arrow!

And then there's also the unfan-unfavourite, like Superman and Batman, who is quite often at his most interesting within the context of a team

Then there are characters which we are led to believe are fan favourites but actualy only appear so much because a particular writer likes them a lot (ie Spider woman and half the New Avengers)

Nightwing is a good example of DC milking the Batcow semi-dry. Does Dick Grayson really work as a character outside of Batman and/or the Teen Titans, whatever team book he is in this week. In Batman he is the ray of light, in team books he is the ray of darkness (Batman's representative on Earth). But we already have a Robin doing all those things. Fan favourite character = something we aren not sure what to do with.

Squirrel Girl of course is probably in the throes of this process at the moment.

- Chamber
- Airboy
- Usagi Yojimbo
- Howard The Duck
- Blue Beetle
- Bleu (from Blue Monday)
- Beta Ray Bill
- Wolverine (in a movie context)
- Dawn
- Colossus
- Slam Bradley

"fan favourite character" gives us

- Angela
- Lady Jane (from Swamp Thing)
- Killer Moth (!!!)
- Raven

I often think fan favourite, as alluded to above, means writer favourite - emphasising the problem with so many creators being fan first.

Fan neutral characters: it would appear The Thing has made it to that level these days!

(applies either to Raven news or Joey Da Queue)

by Marv Wolfman

(But then I like Firestorm too, so what do I know)

All puns intended.

They need to bring back her comedy chubster sidekick, and have every issue feature WW being tied up and/or flogged. That would do it.

I liked WW in Earth2... it was like she had the kind of majestic quality that I had never formally associated with her, but which a central universe character like that ought to have.

It has to be said that not being able to hold down a solo book is not a mark of rubbishness. Many great charactes only work in teams.

Hope nu-Wonder Woman finds a way of bringing him back.

I was thinking about this concept again today, for is not Madame Xanadu a fan favorite?

not, I think

I think they just like the Kaluta cover and don't give a rat's ass about the character.

DC-

The Question
Manhunter (any permutation)
Doctor Fate
New Gods/Forever People/Mister Miracle

DC tried all of these titles and they never seemed to catch on. They were able to get the 80s Dr. Fate to run for 41 issues, but they are like 0-5 on trying to get the title to catch back on since. None of the 4th World titles ever seemed to run more than a couple of years.

I'm not sure that Nightwing would count. DC was able to keep his series running for over 150 issues, which is a pretty good run, albeit not a big seller.

The Question wasn't published because the character was a fan favorite, it was because the OG was Ditko and thus the book itself had stans and b) DC were trying to justify the purchase of the OP

OG Manhunter again stanned due to creative team, OP reactivation with different characters means character can't be claimed to be f.f.

Doctor Fate - maybe? but did they claim they were launching all those series bcz he was a fan favorite? might have been amongst the Roy Thomas-aged All Star Neckbeards, fair enough, but otherwise was pretty much only ever published due to Giffen's fannery: top of my head, 1987 4-issue mini by Giffen & DeMatteis, 1989 ongoing by DeMatteis and Macmanus, 1997ish tattoo-eyed revival by Giffen?