It’s Monday, which means a new look at comic book fans on Facebook. This week we check out fans of Superman! With Man of Steel opening this week, it only seems appropriate for us to look at the fans of truth, justice and the American way.
Previous studies of characters have included Iron Man and Batman. Like those two, we looked at terms specific for the character, movies, games and comic titles. We didn’t include other characters that appear in the series, so in this case, no Lois Lane or Lex Luthor but yes to Action Comics or Superman II.
We’ll also compare this to general comic fandom as well as fans of DC Comics. This will vary a bit, because both of those were on an international scale, while this study is focused on the United States.
Facebook Superman Fan Population: Over 4,000,000 in the United States
The lack of a movie in the age of social media probably hurt the Last Son of Krypton, but once we reached the 4 million mark, no matter the terms we included from there, the amount didn’t rise at all, only if we included more countries. So, that’s a solid number. Superman lags behind both Iron Man and Batman by millions of fans, but has more fans just in the United States than DC Comics does globally.
Spanish speakers account for 220,000, 5.50%. That’s the highest amount in these types of studies for the United States.
Gender and Age
Superman has the best ratio of men compared to women. Men make up an even 60% of the population, while women 37.5%, that’s a more even split than Batman, Iron Man or DC Comics.
In the Iron Man report, it was interesting in that female fans became a majority after a bit.
Iron Man Fans
Batman fans breaks down a bit differently.
Batman Fans
Superman fans though is more similar to Iron Man fans in the age breakdown.
Here’s the full raw numbers as far as age and gender.
Relationship Status
When it comes to relationships, Superman fans are more like Iron Man fans than DC Comic or Batman fans. Their percentages for each category is about the same. I wonder if it’s a metal thing?
And for those that like pie charts.
Education
The education level for Superman fans is a bit closer to that of Batman fans than anything else, though folks in college and high school is lower. We’ll see over the summer how much the school year affects this stats through other studies.
Gender Interest
While there’s more same gender interest in Superman fans than Batman or Iron Man, there’s less than the overall DC Comics population.
And that wraps up this report! Join us next week when we look at fans of zombies! Just in time for the opening of World War Z.
