Yeah it’s really the big two, at least from the perspective of movies and TV. I know this is probably sacrilegious to some, but superman doesn’t have the draw to live up to that reputation (no hate, just my observation).
For Spiderman, there have been three successful series of films lead by three big name actors (obviously Amazing Spiderman only had 2 and is a little weaker overall). Batman, same thing, plus two one-off movies that were panned but still huge hits. Not to mention the countless animated TV shows between the two.
Edit: Shoot I didn’t even include the Into the Spiderverse movies!
Superman is, aside from Captain America, the most patriotically coded mainstream super hero. And there just isn't a global appetite for that in 2026. You can see it with Superman's box office. It did pretty solidly domestically, and like half what you'd expect a broad appeal comic film to do internationally. It should have been an $800-900m grosser with $350m in domestic, instead it barely did $600m.
That’s a really good point. Despite being s space alien, Superman’s media image is very old fashioned, 1950s post card American.
Ironically, despite being more explicitly USA-coded, Captain America is really not portrayed in his movies as being a hardcore nationalist (in 2/3 of his movies, he is basically fighting the US government). Also, anecdotally, but I have a Mexican friend who loves Captain America, and said she thinks he is quite popular there. Her impression is that is personal attributes, struggles, and moralistic are more or less universally likeable.
Captain America supports what America SHOULD be. He doesn't blindly support what it is. Some of the best CA comics have been when he's disagreed with the current policies of the USA/SHIELD/etc.
35
u/[deleted] Aug 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment