19951994 1996 1998199719851984 1986 19881987 20052004 2006 20082007 20152014 2016 2018201720001999 2001 2003200219901989 1991 19931992 20102009 2011 20132012 20191960 1961 19631962 19701969 1971 19731972 19801979 1981 1983198219651964 1966 19681967 19751974 1976 19781977

Firstappearance:Tales toAstonish(v.1959)#13

Firstmodern"Marvel"appearance:IncredibleHulk Annual(v.1968) #5

Firstrecentappearance:SensationalSpider-man#-1 (Flashback)

Beginningof recentrun ofpopularity:Spider-manTeam-upSpecial

NickFury'sHowlingCommandoes(v.2005)

Guardians of the Galaxy(v.2013)

Marvel Universe Guardians ofthe Galaxy (v.2015b)

Guardians of the Galaxy(v.2008)

Guardians of theGalaxy (v.2015)

RocketRaccoon(v.2014)

RocketRaccoonand Groot(v.2015)

Guardiansof theGalaxy(v.2019)

All-newGuardiansof theGalaxy(v.2017)

GuardiansofInfinity

Groot

Guardiansof the GalaxyInfinite Comic

Deadpool:Too Soon?InfiniteComic

All-newX-men(v.2012)

I AmGroot

InfinityCountdown

Annihilation: Conquest:Star-lord

Annihilation:Conquest

Annihilators

Annihilators:Earthfall

Angela:Asgard'sAssassin

MarvelUniverseGuardiansof theGalaxy(v.2015a)

GuardiansTeam-up

Thors

Guardiansof theGalaxy(v.2017)

Guardiansof the

Galaxymovie

Guardiansof the

Galaxy,Vol. 2movie

AvengersAssemble

LegendaryStar-lord

Guardians3000

Infinity Gauntlet(v.2015)

HowardtheDuck(v.2015)

Marvel:AvengersAlliance

CivilWar II

Guardiansof the GalaxyAwesome MixInfiniteComic

MightyCaptainMarvel(v.2017)

MonstersUnleashed!(v.2017)

InfinityWar(v.2018)

ThanosImperative

Star-lord(v.2015)

Guardiansof theGalaxyAdaptation

TwelveGuardians-relatedone-shots

FiveGuardians-relatedone-shots

19951994 1996 1998199719851984 1986 19881987 20052004 2006 20082007 20152014 2016 2018201720001999 2001 2003200219901989 1991 19931992 20102009 2011 20132012 20191960 1961 19631962 19701969 1971 19731972 19801979 1981 1983198219651964 1966 19681967 19751974 1976 19781977

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The Pendulum of Popularity as Seen in Twelve Sporadically-Appearing

Comic Characters:A Series of Charts

GrootCharacter 3 out of 12

First appearance: 1960Total appearances: 3

How These Charts Were DevelopedAll the characters for this series of charts were selected because there is a sporadic pattern to their comic-book appearances, whether due to deaths and resurrections, nostalgic revivals, or tie-ins to outside media, etc.

I focused on characters with less than a thousand appearances, for the ease of processing.

"Appearances" here only include actual, original comic book appearances. They do not include reprints, handbooks, or promotional comics. I did include some edge-case issues like the infamous Marvel Swimsuit comics that are not stories, but are in a sense new material.

I got the information almost entirely from the website Comic Vine, although I used other sites when necessary. Since Comic Vine is a wiki, its information is only as accurate as its wiki-writers, but generally speaking I find it to be very reliable when it comes to this sort of factual information. Any mistakes are more likely to be my own, since I transcribed all the data by hand and "hand-designed" the chart.

The list of appearances accurately reflect the content of the wiki as of October 29, 2019.

All dates are cover dates, not in-store dates.

KeyIf the characters were in any major movies or TV shows, I listed them in blue above the appropriate dates, so that any correlation with an increase (or lack thereof) in the number of their comic appearances around that time can be seen.

In the bottom chart to the right, each black square represents one comic appearance by the character in a given month. The more black squares per month, the more appearances by that character for that month. There are nine possible spaces for each month; nine was chosen because that was the most appearances any character in this project had in a single month.

In the top chart, I collapsed the months and aggregated a whole year's appearances into one set of concentrated boxes, so it looks more like a bar chart.Therefore, the bottom chart shows a more fine-grained picture of exactly when the character appeared, and the top chart provides a better visualization of how their total appearances ebbed and flowed.

The red lines and text underneath the top chart indicate some of the main comics that the character appeared in. The red lines show the years the character appeared in those series. These featured red comics are a subjectively-chosen selection of all the comics the characters were in; they are intended to show the main drivers of the character's appearances at any given time, not to provide a complete list. If anyone does want a complete list, contact me and I can send it to you. Generally speaking, I included a series if the character appeared in it three or more times, if they were a recurring team-member in the series, or if the series was named after the character.

If the character was in a comic where more than one volume had the same (or a very similar) title, then I listed the year the volume started after the name of the volume.

Chris Wildrick, 2019