DC vs. Marvel

I would have bet that the Fantastic Four wasn't going to touch Batman Begins, even though it seemed like they were dropping a lot more marketing dollars on it:  lately I have the feeling that "I can't get away from" Fantastic Four, but I never really felt that way about Batman during its marketing push.

My reasoning was simply Google numbers.  A couple years ago I googled the various superheroes to see who had the big mindshare - Superman was the clear winner, followed by Batman, followed by Spider-Man, and then the various other Marvel guys were fighting over scraps.  The Fantastic Four was down at the bottom of the pile.

Now, Batman is at an insane 11M Google hits and FF has just edged out Spider-Man at 4M.  Meanwhile...Superman himself is still hanging out at 3.7M...man, he used to be a contender...

So it looks like marketing overpowers mindshare.  Or maybe the Google metric just isn't that useful.  Or maybe there's something I'm not thinking of?

Comments

[Apar]

What if the same page is being counted twice? Also what about the same website has multiple pages and each of those are being referenced as individual entities? I would have never thought of using google for this purpose!

[alex]

On a somewhat relevant tangent, this reminds me of www.googlefight.com

There are some pretty hilarious fights there, like 'clothed vs. naked' as well as the controversial 'my girlfriend vs. pamela anderson'.

Also, did you add up possible alternate spellings, like Fantastic 4, or SpiderMan/Spider Man. I doubt it will change things much, but it's worth a shot.

[Mr. Falcon]

Re: Apar's comment - these problems would influence the hit count returned by google, there's no reason to believe that they would affect one hero's count more than another's. It should even out, especially with sample sizes being in the millions.

[Tom Kidd]

Batman has been in good movies in the past. Sure the 1989 movie is kinda hokey now but at the time it was bigger than the Beatles.

Superman has also been in good movies in the past.

Both of these DC Franchises have been marred by a bad third and fourth movie and are being resurrected. But the fact that there were good movies is the reason they're popular online

Spider-Man is of course popular since it's had two really good movies lately.
As for Google results, remember the movie version is Spider-Man whereas the comic book version is Spiderman.

As for Fantastic Four, I've read recently that they're the "most popular" of the Stan Lee creations, and his first/favorite. Plus Stan Lee properties have had a decent track record with movies lately (X-Men movies, Spider-Man, not Hulk, etc.) and Marvel properties in general (Blade and Elektra notwithstanding).

Plus it's not like you can take the kids to Elektra. They'll eat up F4 though.

[Jamie Fristrom]

Actually it's Spider-Man in the comics, too. As for Google results, a lot of websites do incorrectly leave out the hyphen...and yet some pages appear on both searches, so you can't just add the two results together for your answer.

[markus]

try something like this: Fantastic Four +comic -DVD -movie -film -trailer -game -movies -script -soundtrack and Batman and Spiderman win again.
That said, on the central question I don't think the marketing/mindshare dichotomy is useful. OTOH marketing effort is spent on successful products and OTOH sometimes it takes a little marketing to make people aware of stuff they really like but might not have noticed but that doesn't make their enthusiasm less genuine.
As to the comparison at hand, I think you're giving insufficient credit to the fact that FF appears far more accessible and that by internet standards it's been ages since batman begins opened. All those reviews and trailers and stuff are about FF now and will be gone or in the archives a few weeks from now. So it's just a terrible time to do this particular comparison using this particular method, much like you don't figure out the general attitude to religion by polling people around Dec 25th. Finally, accessing mindshare through mentions in online conversations might not get you exactly what you want, depending on your understanding of mindshare. Controversial heroes who frequently cause debates will have an edge, whereas untold millions silently dreaming of being X won't register. Then again, debates are a sign that something occupies the mind of someone, even to the extent of compelling them to act (write) so there's a lot to be said for including it in "mindshare". Just then, it's no longer equivalent to "popularity".

p.s. On second thought: using google is flawed in that the number of hits is subject to a self-reinforcing feedback loop (cf. information cascades), in other words, what gets talked about appears relevant and so gets talked about even more despite the fact that is may not be the most interesting on average to all concerned. Just as when trying to figure out what sort of icecream people really like you have to avoid having them hear the other answers before giving theirs (otherwise they'll just copy a previous answer), you would have to poll people individually to see who's truly more popular. Or just look at the sales data ;-)

[george didk]

in issue 54 of superman, superman meet up with thor and had the most intense battle ever during the end of the fight superman was losing so he decided to use his speed against thor. for a moment it was working the thor brought upon superman his mystic lightning and hit superman with the biggest lightning bolt and knocked superman oout for the count

[Bart]

this could be supprising go to this website and go to the bottom of the page, were you will find the DC vs Marvel section. Your gonna be suprised.

http://www.maddamac.freeservers.com/photo.html

[tim]

the DC vs Marvel game did look real. but thanks for pointing out it a fake