Who is the most popular character to come out of the eighties?

If Wolverine is arguably the most popular character from the seventies and Deadpool is the most antagonistic character of the nineties, and the first decade in the millennia being too close to gage a lasting character, who can lay claim to being the most popular hero or villain of the eighties?

Rogue appeared in Avengers Annual #10. Her humble beginnings in the Brother Hood of Evil Mutants, under the tutelage of Mystique was short lived when she was welcomed into the X-Men's fold with Uncanny X-Men issue #171. The promise of control over her ability by Professor Xavier swayed her from the "dark" side, a great "What If?" tale would be if she stayed with Mystique.

Venom pulled his weight by being the first Spider-Man villain that could easily best Peter Parker's spidey sense. The popularity of Todd Mcfarlane's second most popular character helped define the artist as a force to be reckoned with. Venom became the epitome of the anti hero that the Seventies Punisher was once known as. Now, decades later and no longer forged with Eddie Brock, the symbiotic alien from the Beyonder's battle world merged with Spider-Man's biggest fan Flash Thompson to create a one man wet works team.

Walter Simonson also wrote one of the best Thor comic books without the titled character. An alien from a distant galaxy, Beta Ray Bill, was the first to be able to wield Mjonir surprising Odin himself when he called on Thor to help the golden realm and a strange creature stood before him rather than his son. Eventually Beta Ray Bill was given his own hammer and scoured the cosmos to help those in need, but he was never utilized as greatly as when he emerged onto the pages of The Mighty Thor 337.

Of course the early eighties showed a skew of characters created by the great X-Men scribe Chris Claremont, after ending the seventies with the creation of Alpha Flight and Proteus, he ushered in great heroes and villains alike with Kitty Pryde, Emma Frost, Alison Blaire, the Hellfire Club, and three Hellfire Guards that would be torn up so badly by Wolverine they vowed vengeance some ninety issues later as Reavers. Could the Dark Phoenix, a character that only was around for a few issues, but had the X-Men fight off Gladiator and the royal guard with ramifications that would make the Marvel Universe shudder, if she survived what would the Marvel universe of today be like?

But Chris Claremont didn't stop there; he expanded the X-Men's works with Bob McLeod in a standalone story confined in Marvel Graphic Novel #4 with the New Mutants. The popularity of these five teenagers had them in their own series which lasted 100 issues, 7 annuals, a special edition, and 1 Summer special having their biggest worry being if they could finish their homework in time to watch Magnum P.I. Cannonball and Sunspot went on to be Avengers, Psyche changed to Mirage and is now a Defender, while the little lass is among the ranks of X-Factor, and finally the last of the original five is part of another X group or other.

A bit closer to the real world Frank Miller created a solid foundation for Matt Murdock and took two characters from Spider-Man's world using Wilson Fisk and Frank Castle as adversaries and reluctant compatriots, but it wasn't until issue #168 when he introduced possibly Daredevil's most lethal for in the guise of Elektra, an ex girlfriend. Her first death occurred not even two years later by possibly Daredevil's most lethal foe, Bullseye.

Jumping companies from Marvel to DC came two characters I purchased statues of. Dream and Death became personified. Not since Piers Anthony's "On a Pale Horse" did I find Death so likable, possibly more so than her older sibling Dream. It almost seemed like Neil Gaiman purposely thought up the two personalities of Death and Dream together having the latter be upbeat, happy, and hopeful while having the former be pessimistic, problematic, and full of pompous ambiguity...then switched them. His 75 issue maxi-series is quite arguably one of the best there is even until today.

Before independent companies became big, when competing against the big two was suicide. a small press called Mirage Studios competed against them with Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The best part about this black and white hope to sell title was with an initial print run of about three thousand copies and a secondary print run doubling the first the comic book was actually being...gasp...read. Eclipse comics tried to follow the winning success with Radioactive BlackBelt Hamsters, now who would want to see the two of them fight it out?

What's your opinion? Who is your greatest eighties character? Who did I miss that should be worthy. I would love to hear your opinion.

Thanks for Reading

Tnerb

From my water jug experiment to a table full of colored paper, how quickly it was spent?

To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.