You are the one making the meaningless distinctions. I am saying comics heroes are comics heroes, precisely as stated in the title of this thread. The chicken or egg origin has no bearing on the definition of the term or the current or past cultural impact of a comic or movie character, precisely because in folklore, myths and legends there need to be variant tellings of the story of the character, if the character can be said to have any cultural resonance. Novels, comics, radio, movies, TV and the Internet are the modern media for the telling of these folklore, myths and legend. They all are. And they all are equally valid.

You keep focusing on comics origin without qualifying why, yet you specifically state that sales for comics are down. I don't know what you are basing this on, as "comics" are now all over and distributed (not sold) in many different forms, including CD-Rom, video games, RPG or other table games, comic reprints, (plus reprinted collections in book or microfiche form,) online comics, emails, newspapers and comic magazines. Did you take all of these (and others I may be missing, for example, secondary and tertiary markets,) into account in your claim that they don't sell as well as they used to? Printed media is in a crisis, but it is not limited to the comic format. Sales = popularity = current cultural importance? Hardly. ComiCON is bigger than it ever was, but it need be inclusive of all formats, ComiCON understands what you don't, and is quite successful for it.

If you perceive a meaninglessness in the comments it is precisely because the premise for the discussion (your premise) has no apparent meaning or purpose, other than making a limited 'list of stuff,' or maybe pointing out that we are currently witnessing a significant 'first,' (an actor has played/cameo'd the same role 5 times, big deal: this is not a first nor is it significant.)

"There is a lot of money tied up in this film and people expect to hear a boom when something blows up, so I'll give them a boom."

George Lucas as quoted by Harlan Ellison's WATCHING
Last Edited By: hermanthegerm Jun 28 11 8:25 PM. Edited 9 times.