SPECULATION: Hot Toys X-Men Wolverine (New Version)

karamazov80 · Jan 13, 2012

The Mike said:
I don't know about that. Given that 20-40 demo puts the older age born in 1971. The Amazing Spider-Man show premiered in the Fall of 1977 and fully kicked off in 1978, that same older end of the demo would have been 7-8 when Spider-Man was swinging around on the small screen. Then you had a Spidey cartoon hitting in the early 80s, and of course Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends until 83, the younger end of the spectrum of that demo born in 1991 would have been young smack in the middle of the Spider-Man animated series on Fox, only to have four more cartoons hitting in their youth until 2009 with Spectacular Spider-Man. Let's not forget the Raimi films from 2002 on and you've got a solid argument that would be enamored with the wallcrawler. That's not even taking into account the slew of Spidey titles throughout the late 80s throughout the 90s to the early part of the century. Not to mention that Empire magazine's fifth-greatest comic book character is the wall-crawler himself.

Wolverine didn't really get fully used until Fox's 1992 making only cameos in stuff before it which wouldn't hit majorly on the majority of the demo even with the 2000's Singer film.

I'm not even sure if I'd say that Wolverine is number two at Marvel but definitely the 1st Mutant over all and that what you'll find is that people who like Wolverine tend to get really emersed within the character whereas people who like Spidey generally are open within many of the aspects of all Marvel characters.

Really, there are too many variables out there to examine every element of popularity piece by piece to truly know the answer here (particularly concerning public opinion and sales of merchandise), and I might weight the tv/movie appearances a bit less than you (considering the only modest success of many of those for Spidey), so it's gonna come down to somewhat subjective impressions. But I would say that Spidey's popularity has been pretty consistently high from his earliest days, but Wolvie's popularity in the late 80s and 90s skyrocketed past Spidey (After all, Wolvie guest appeared in Spidey comics in the early 90s to help boost sales), and helped to at least put him on the same playing field today (after it has leveled off a bit).

I'm early 30s, and Wolvie became my favorite in the mid-80 despite being young, so I'm guessing those geeks 10 years older or so were really getting into him by then. No cartoons apart from a cameo on Spidey and His Amazing Friends, but he was clearly the star of the X-Men, and if you were into comic shops at the time (I was), he was clearly the man. Second in overall comic popularity there only to Batman.

Of course, Wolvie-mania has tapered off a bit, but like I said, I think his overall popularity is roughly Spidey-level nowadays. Spidey being 1 is definitely debatable, but I really don't see how anyone else can be 2 apart from Wolvie if that's the case (I guess you mean Hulk?).

And btw, I found that Empire article, and Wolvie is number 4 :lol

But then, John Constantine is number 3, so I'm not sure how much weight I would give to that ranking.

jedijim3002 · Jan 27, 2012

I think spidey's popularity is to wolverine as superman's popularity is to batman.

People love both characters for different reasons and that's why they are all such great characters. Anyone can identify with them.

Spiderman is like the big flashy hero who tries to always do the right thing to save the day and get no credit with a crappy paying job. Sound like superman? Yes.

Wolverine is the dark anti-hero who kicks ass, takes names, and does what's necessary to get the job done regardless of how people feel about him. Sounds a lot like the Dark Knight if you ask me.

There are great reasons to love all these characters and they wouldn't be who they are if they were any different from what we have known them to be. You always know how spidey or superman will react to a situation because that's their nature.

Likewise if you put wolverine or bats in a similar situation you know what they are capable of doing. That's what makes them great. Their ability to never to change in a constantly evolving world.

It all depends on what mood I'm in as to who I will look up to at that particular moment.

webhead · Jan 27, 2012

I'm praying for another release since I missed out on him the first time (wasn't into 1/6 back then).

jedijim3002 · Jan 27, 2012

webhead said:
I'm praying for another release since I missed out on him the first time (wasn't into 1/6 back then).

Exactly. Yes. I thought the fig was awesome but wasn't collecting them at the time. Regret! Here's to hoping we get this one re-released or a new one that blows it away.