Great question! I think about this often actually and what it has come down to for me are characters who:
A) have small fan bases due to lack of content and not because they are largely disliked
B) people may largely know of but don’t really read
C) people think they know but have not been portrayed in character for years so the general public just knows a fanon interpretation of the character
1 Like
For me an obscure character has to fit two criteria. The first is that they have a very short publishing history. While Tomahawk may not be well known today, he really doesn’t qualify as an obscure character because he appeared in DC Comics for literally decades. The second is that not many people know about them. Of course, here I have to point out that what is an obscure character to a non-comics fan is probably going to be different from what is an obscure character to a comics fan. I doubt many non-comics fans had heard of the Suicide Squad before the movie, but I think most comics fans had heard of them!
1 Like