The heroes that no one demanded have taken over the multiplex.
A lot has been made about how Marvel took a B-list property like Iron Man and turned it into one of the preeminent international blockbuster franchises of the 21st century. And while that was certainly a bold move, let's not overplay the obscurity of Iron Man--which had been continuously published by Marvel Comics since 1963--as a character or a concept. Guardians of the Galaxy, meanwhile, is a genuinely obscure property--the concept was created in 1969, around a group of time-traveling heroes from the 30th Century--they didn't appear in their own title until a short, five-year run in the early '90s.