If American comics had consistently created new characters, would they have had far more popularity?

[Silver7]

New anime is ever being made with new characters always being introduced to the anime world and anime fans, that is definitely one of the things that give people a refreshed feeling about anime.

So instead of just always recycling the same old DC characters, if DC and Marvel had been coming up with new characters and awesome storylines to fit them, then American comics would probably have seen more success right?

[ThunderChicken]

I think you’d be hard pressed to call DC and Marvel comics unsuccessful. They are probably the most successful lines of comics on the planet - successful almost to the point of being annoying. Superman, X-Men, Spider-man, the Avengers, Batman - these are all household names, recognized by just about anyone on Earth. A single Marvel Universe movie probably rakes in more money than several years worth of anime films. Even people who aren’t comic nerds know who these characters are. American newspaper comics are also extremely successful over the world. Everybody has heard of Garfield the cat, Charlie Brown, and Calvin and Hobbes.

[Shanny8]

Also- manga may create new characters, but they all tend to fall into the same tropes/categories...it's like me looking at anime(most of which were created from a manga of some sort) and seeing that same dark/black haired type lead in almost every show.

In no way am I defending American comics, but manga doesnt just churn out "everything new" all day.

[BoomerZ]

New characters is a least of marvels/DC's problems. Yes, manga comes out with more characters, and most disappear with no one caring about them. People on the manga is better side of the fence always point to the successes but ignore the failures. Manga is a powerhouse now with a couple of their titles, but the majority are small.

Marvel and DC have brand recognition that manga would kill for. If you are not into manga/anime you might know Akira, Speed Racer, Dragonball, and that is about it. Their isn't a person on the planet that doesn't know who Batman is. What you do with that advantage is where Marvel/dc fall flat on their asses. They don't like giving the fans what they want, they give what the writer wants to write. The American industry is full of writers with ideas for a story that have no way of getting published. So they tack it onto a superhero movie as their version of the character. (the movie Joker did this. It's a normal "psycho" movie that no one would have cared about, so they called it Joker) This is how you get Zack's version of superman and Batman killing people. This is how every marvel character in the MCU is only the character in name only. MCU Thor is nothing like the comic Thor. Tony Stark was completely different than RDJ in the MCU. Here's the problem with that strategy. When the kid that like Thor now wants to read about Thor in a comic, he can't. During the height of Thor's MCU popularity, he was dead in the comics. Same with Tony Stark. They didn't match the product they were selling on the big screen. The marketing team and writers should all be fired as they had no vision.

The biggest problem is it's too late now. The American comic industry is run by amateurs and failed Netflix writers that dislike the medium and finds the characters silly. No writer in Japan or Korea would mock the character they are working on. They would be out of a job and most likely would never work again. But that happens all the time in America. There are writers of characters that have never read an issue of the character before they got the job to write them. Imagine a person that wanted to do a DragonballZ spin-off and they admit they never read the manga before. That happens all the time in America.

As you see, it's not just the new characters not being created (Marvel/DC do write new characters), it's the industry is run by people that don't want to be there.

[Silver7]

No I already know they are successful, I just mean they would be even more successful if new characters were coming along more and more

[NickRowler]

Manga artists are usually building their own stories. While current day Marvel/DC is more just building up lore for their universe or brand.

If you want more unique stories from American/Western creators, there are tons of them out there, heck there are a lot on Tapas. Marvel/DC isn't the only place the makes comics.

[thepenmonster]

New anime is ever being made with new characters

New characters, you say?

Let's be clear: 98% of all entertainment is derivative garbage. Cape comics and princess comics alike.

The medium is fresh to you because it's fresh TO YOU. New fans are still in the honeymoon period of having a new anime series delivered to their phones and have yet to grow past the tits and explosions to pick up on just what thin gruel most all of it is.

Having been watching this shit since the mid 80s, let me be clear: Weebs are in no place to look down on fanboys for the quality of their medium.

While I'm at it... manga is not anime. Anime will always bring in more money than comics. If you can start separating the two this topic of discussion might be worth having.

[Silver7]

But look how many anime characters there are compared to American superheroes, anime does come with endless amount of characters

[thepenmonster]

look how many anime characters there are compared to American superheroes

One kilogram of tofu or 300 grams of tofu is still tofu.

[Rai_Muffin]

Marvel and DC comics create new characters all the time.
The problem is nobody really cares unless they have name-brand recognition.
Usually, they show up in an event as part of an attempt to build interest, sometimes as a backup story on one of the mainstream heroes, and if they're lucky they might get a solo series that gets cancelled after 25 issues due to low readership.

Most of the time "new" heroes will piggyback on that brand recognition (Ms Marvel taking Carol's old code name, Miles Morales becoming Spider-man etc), but even then those don't always take off.
Jaime Reyes was the third Blue Beetle, but his first solo series didn't make it to 50 issues. He didn't get popular until later though apparently he had a die-hard cult fanbase.

I think the issue is that Superheroes rarely retire, or don't for long. Even then they are just replaced by someone else with the same codename.
Manga on the other hand have endings (unless you're One piece) so new series come out to fill the void.
Dragonball ends, in comes Naruto. My Hero Academia has been one of the recognisable brands of Shonen Jump for a decade, but that series will soon end and be replaced by whatever fills it's slot.
Even then I doubt you can recognise a lot of the series that didn't take off.
But for example, Batman is never going to end. And so there will never be a void to fill by an up-and-coming hero.

New characters might get a cult following, and maybe sometimes even break through usually off the popularity of a movie or TV appearance, but the battlefield of event comics are littered with the corpses of heroes that nobody cared about.
No seriously, sometimes they get killed off in an event as a sacrificial lamb so they don't have to kill off the heroes people know.

And yes, as someone who exclusively reads Spider-Man, I am part of the problem.

[Shanny8]

I just mean they would be even more successful if new characters were coming along more and more

New characters ARE created- it's just that fandom tends to latch onto the classic characters they grew up with...add corporate shareholders that see that they can make money off said IP, and there you go- you can now make money off Spider-Man and all of his reiterations for decades. The last "new" characters for Marvel that went over really big- Venom and Deadpool, both created in the late 80s...DC's at least will push that envelope a little more with Sojourner "Jo" Mullein(Green Lantern), Damien Wayne(Robin), and Jonathan Kent(Superman)- all created in the last decade(still revisions of classic characters that they formerly created, but became popular enough that they were accepted)..

[BoomerZ]

I think the issue is that Superheroes rarely retire, or don't for long. Even then they are just replaced by someone else with the same codename.

This is the funny part, that was the original plan for the X-men. Chris Claremont had a vision where the x-men would grow old and retire, replaced by new x-men. It would have been like a soup opera. But once it got super popular (they were the powerhouse of marvel, not the Avengers which was a back-up team at best) the higher ups knew they couldn't follow that plan and make money. I think that idea would have been fantastic.