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Spider-Man Is Fan Favorite Among 'Avengers: Infinity War' Characters

Rankings show Marvel’s Black Panther proves to be politically polarizing
Marvel / Disney
April 26, 2018 at 12:01 am UTC

Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man tops a new nationwide poll gauging the most popular characters in the film “Avengers: Infinity War,” which is out in U.S. theaters Thursday.

Three-quarters view Spider-Man favorably, with the Incredible Hulk (71 percent) coming in second and Captain America and Iron Man tying for third at 69 percent. Marvel Studios LLC villain Loki is the most hated, with a 24 percent unfavorable rating among the 2,122 U.S. adults polled in the April 12-17 survey. The poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

Democrats, overall, tend to have slightly higher favorability of all the Avengers characters listed than Republicans — viewing Spider-Man at 78 percent vs. Republicans’ 71 percent, for example — with one drastic divide in opinion: Two-thirds of Democrats view Black Panther favorably, compared to 43 percent of Republicans.

But it’s not Republican men — who, according to another analysis of this dataset, are as likely to want more black title characters as they are to want more white title characters — who are pulling this figure down. It’s Republican women: 36 percent of them have a favorable view of T'Challa’s alter ego, while 48 percent of GOP men say the same.

Roughly one-third (32 percent) of Republican women offered no opinion of Black Panther, and 16 percent said they have not heard of the character.

Comparatively, 71 percent of Democratic women view Marvel’s first leading black cinematic superhero favorably, making Black Panther the group’s second-most loved character, behind Spider-Man (78 percent).

A headshot photograph of Joanna Piacenza
Joanna Piacenza
Head of Industry Analysis

Joanna Piacenza leads Industry Analysis at Morning Consult. Prior to joining Morning Consult, she was an editor at the Public Religion Research Institute, conducting research at the intersection of religion, culture and public policy. Joanna graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications and holds a master’s degree in religious studies from the University of Colorado Boulder. For speaking opportunities and booking requests, please email [email protected].

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