To be honest I am staring this blog to fill one of my "Quests" but, I have always wondered about reviewers of comics who refer to superhero characters in their review as C-List and D-List heroes. This only means that they are not Superman or Batman and the reviewer does not like them very much. The farther the letter is in the alphabet the less they like the particular character they are writing about. I have seen a couple reviews that actually explained a couple superheroes as a Z-list heroes.

This annoyed me and made me think what is a real A-List, B-List or C-list hero. I figured it would be better served to "list" a hero based on name recognition only. This would be better than an author's arbitrary opinion. To be fair I came up with a formula to determine A-List status. I figure the charter must be recognized by name alone. People from three to ninety years of age know who Superman is. So DC Comics can make comics, movies and television shows simply called “Superman” and everyone knows who that is. This is name recognition. Any hero who can have a major motion picture (not made for TV movies or direct to DVD movie) simply named the heroes name has name recognition. The same can be said for television series (or radio series for golden aged heroes) and long comic book runs. I figure if a superhero has a self titled comic run lasting a decade (120) issues, had a movie and had a television/radio show all simply called the heroes name then they would be an A-List Hero. If they two of these they would be a B-List hero. If the hero has only one of these they would be a C-List hero. If they had none of these accomplishment than they are D-List heroes. There are no other letters.

Now understand this is purely a name recognition thing. If the hero can't be sold easily people won't spend the money to make a movie ect. Also productions that use adjectives to describe their hero in the title don't count. For example Incredible Hulk, Superman in Action, Fury of Firestorm don't count. Also productions with a sub title don't count like Batman: the Dark Knight, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Flash: the fastest man alive and so on.

Also understand that a team that has all three like the X-Men have met all three criteria making them an A-List team only. None of the heroes are A-list heroes unless they have met all three criteria on their own name recognition.

Now I'm sure not everyone will like my idea but I think it is pretty cool. My hope would be that people would actually use this criteria in labeling the heroes giving a much better description of their popularity. I'm sure I'll also get negative comments from others. Thanks for reading.