The Avengers (SPOILERS BEWARE0

[Felon]

I have to disagree that this is the case. While there are classic pairings of villains to hero groups, Marvel has by no means been siloed. Pick a major villain - he or she has probably fought every major hero group in the Marvel universe.

Indeed, the shared nature of the universe was one of Marvel's major innovations.

Heck, note that Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, and Thing have all been Avengers. Luke Cage, Crystal, and She-Hulk have been on both teams.

Of course, classic superheroes weren't very proactive. Enemies usually came to them. There's a distinct reason why Dr. Doom fights the FF and Ultron fights the Avengers and Magneto fights the X-Men.

As for Spidey--the very central concept of the character is that he's not a joiner or A-lister. He's an underdog and an odd-man-out. People used to get that. Of course, this has been pooped on in recent years, with him being pimped out to two teams of Avengers at once as well as the new FF. And even that doesn't hold a candle to Wolverine being in his own books, two Avengers teams, and a half-dozen X-teams all at the same time.

 

[Felon]

So yeah... even though their histories have been mingling right now they are being fully integrated.

With the X-Men, I think there's a legitimate basis for saying they've been self-contained. Of course, a large chunk of Marvel's books are X-centric, so it's a pretty large container. For the last last couple of decades, they haven't really done much except try to weather one genocidal assault after another. Do-gooding and superheroics have fallen to the wayside in favor of survival.

The writer who made the biggest effort to address this in recent years has been--guess who?

 

[Spatula]

Spider-Man himself certainly hasn't been cut off from the rest of the MU, but aside from the whole Norman Osborn thing you could say that most of his rogues gallery is in the "street level" silo (which Spider-Man shares with Daredevil, the Punisher, the old Power Man & Iron Fist, etc.). Which I think was the original complaint - the foes don't get spread around enough, not that the heroes don't (and Felon makes a good point that there's a reason for that, in that the super-villains are usually going after the heroes to get revenge, not the other way around). But that is exactly why the various super-teams haven't fought a lot of Spider-Man's villains - the Avengers are concerned with bigger threats than with who controls the NYC crime rackets.

 

[Felon]

Sure, Marvel's super-teams have definite hooks that govern the types of foes they face.

Avengers: Alien and high-power threats
Fantastic Four: Exploration of the universe with incidental do-gooding
X-Men: Mutant threats
Defenders: Mystical threats

There's room for overlap, and that's why there is overlap. But if Dr. Doom was threatening the globe, I might just decide to let the FF be the primary response team.

 

[Morrus]

I wouldn't call either Buffy nor Angel commercial failures since they lasted 7 and 5 seasons, respectively. I would even say Buffy, at least, was sufficiently mainstream to be the #2 show on a fledgeling network and showed broad youth appeal.

Buffy got 5M viewers. Which is good for a genre show in America. But that doesn't make it mainstream.

As a comparison, Doctor Who gets 7-10M viewers in the UK. That's mainstream (in a country with a fifth the population of the US, so pro-rata it's 35-50M viewers).

 

[billd91]

Buffy got 5M viewers. Which is good for a genre show in America. But that doesn't make it mainstream.

As a comparison, Doctor Who gets 7-10M viewers in the UK. That's mainstream (in a country with a fifth the population of the US, so pro-rata it's 35-50M viewers).

That's 5 million viewers on a minor network. If prorating matters, you should probably at least double, maybe triple, that to get an estimate of its viewership on one of the big broadcast networks. Its ratings were enough to equal or exceed every nearly every other offering the WB network had including the clearly mainstream ones like Dawson's Creek. So I really don't see how it gets relegated to cult status but Dawson's Creek or 7th Heaven don't other than by content.

A "cult" show that is competitive with mainstream shows has to have broken out of cult status.

 

[Morrus]

That's 5 million viewers on a minor network. If prorating matters, you should probably at least double, maybe triple, that to get an estimate of its viewership on one of the big broadcast networks. Its ratings were enough to equal or exceed every nearly every other offering the WB network had including the clearly mainstream ones like Dawson's Creek. So I really don't see how it gets relegated to cult status but Dawson's Creek or 7th Heaven don't other than by content.
.

There may be a million reasons why it's not mainstream - being on a minor network perhaps being a major one of them - but those reasons don't make it mainstream. They just explain why it's not.

I've no idea about the other shows you mentioned. But a mainstream show in the US gets more than 5M viewers.

You don't pro rata to other networks. You pro rata to population. That's the only context the word "mainstream" makes sense. As a percentage of the population in question.

10M viewers in the UK is mainstream. 5M viewers in the US is not mainstream.

 

[EricNoah]

Enjoyed it, worth the money and time. Not sure I need to see it again. Too many characters I didn't care about (some heroes I didn't know at all, some I knew but don't find that interesting). Did a decent job of juggling all of the different characters though.

 

[Umbran]

That's the only context the word "mainstream" makes sense. As a percentage of the population in question.

I disagree. In the US, the word is also used to distinguish content type, not just viewership. Mainstream, as opposed to sci-fi/fantasy genre. Mainstream as opposed to sub-culture. Star Trek Next Gen was a genre show, still associated with geek subculture, not the main culture of the US, while Cheers and LA Law (a sitcom and law drama, respectively) were mainstream, even though they all these shows got around 20 million viewers.

"Dawson's Creek" was basically a prime-time soap opera, aimed at a younger audience. It got ratings and viewership similar to Buffy's. It was definitely a mainstream show, while Buffy was not.

 

[Morrus]

I disagree. In the US, the word is also used to distinguish content type, not just viewership. Mainstream, as opposed to sci-fi/fantasy genre. Star Trek is a genre show, while Cheers and LA Law (a sitcom and law drama, respectively) were mainstream , even though they all got around 20 million viewers.

"Dawson's Creek" was basically a prime-time soap opera, aimed at a younger audience. It got ratings and viewership similar to Buffy's.

Well, OK, but Buffy doesn't meet those criteria either. Whether you use the word to describe viewing percentages or subject matter, it was never mainstream.

As an aside - not that it's relevant - Star Trek TNG never got anywhere near 20M viewers in the US. It peaked at about 10M, and sunk to 4M. I dunno about the original series, though; I was under the impression that got cancelled due to low figures, got renewed with a fan campaign, then got cancelled again. Certainly not in the same level if viewership as Cheers and the like.

http://www.trektoday.com/articles/ratings_history.shtml