tommy I completely disagree with you regarding the TMNT. These characters are Iconic and have nearly reached the point of universal recognition.
while you may not be a fan of any of them does not take away from the fact that their impact on pop culture was immediate. It didn't take 20 years for them to blow up.
the first Turtles film was the biggest release of the year it came out. In fact they have had 5 feature films, with John Woo doing the most recent one.
They have consistenly in animation since roughly 2 years after their release. There are massive amounts of Toy lines dedicated to them and there have been 4 generations of fans.
So what if they were not created by Marvel or DC. They are not the only game in town.
Trying to compare any modern character to Superman or shazam or Batman for that matter should be a lesson in futility. Those characters were the first of their kind. They have over 70 years of history.Everyone knows them. But recognition is not what you should be looking at as far as what makes them Iconic.
Staying power and the ability to be reinvented to reflect the changing culture is what makes them Iconic.
defient mentioned the dacing baby. NOT Iconic as he stated. That was simply a blip on the pop culture radar because they were cute. Just like the California raisens.
Spawn was on the way to Iconic status because the design and the overall Idea of the character were original. Literally different from any other character before it.
That is why the appeal was there.
The reason it is no longer so has less to do with Todd or the times I think, and more to do with the fact that as Todds life got more complex, Spawn started to take a back seat and fell out of the public consciousness.
Wolverine has reached Iconic status. He is recognized by multiple generations of fans and has lost nothing in his popularity over time.
If anything he has become more popular.
Show a sihlouette of his character with the claws extended, in or out of costume, and I bet you would have more people correctly guessing who he is than those who couldn't.
I wouldn't even go as far as to consider Walking Dead to be Iconic. But I would say that from the standpoint of narrative and Storytelling, It is the best use of the Zombie Genre that has ever been done. Honestly you would be hard pressed to find someone to disagree with that that is familiar with the book and zombies in general.
Now the X-MEN characters that I mentioned may not be Iconic, but once a couple of generations of fans have had their way with them, they have acheived a status of recognizability that they will remain within the public conciousness.
Iron Man is already at a point of Saturation that he will not fade from public recognition. the movies have had to much of an impact for it.
Not to mention that he stars in 5 different comics.
BTW, I also do not feel that the ability to appear in multiple titles means you are strong enough to be considered an Icon. It just means that the publishers are milking the character for all they can get.
Once a character reaches a point where it is recognized by the common man and they can answer at least basic questions about said character, it has acheived Icon status.
Really, an Icon is just a logo if you want to get technical about it.
The coke or Pepsi logo. Mickey Mouses ears. Spidey's eyes. The Superman or Batman symbols. Caps shield. The X-MEN's -X- symbol. The Green Lantern symbol. These things on their own bring about recognition of a character or product.