Marvel Co-President: Our Characters Are Flawed

In an interview with MTV News, Marvel Studios Co-President Louis D'Esposito told the site that the appeal to Marvel's superheroes--and what makes them so much more relatable and popular than their competition at DC and other publishers. "Our characters are flawed," D'Esposito said. "They're not perfect characters. They're very relatable. They're interesting without their superpowers. People, when they walk into the movie theater, they come from all walks of life. They can have that relatability. You put yourself in their shoes. You live vicariously through them." That is, of course, what Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and their friends and co-workers hung their hat on back in the 1960s, when Marvel broke through the noise barrier of being a mid-sized publisher to become one of the two biggest publishers in the U.S. He also said that it's likely more than that bringing The Avengers to such monumentally popular this year. "That's the thing that's so elusive that you're always chasing," he said. "What's going to resonate with the audience? It had a lot of heart and soul. It had a lot of humor. It was about a group of disparate people coming together and creating a team. I think all of that. Also, too, it was for all ages, from young to old. Put all of those great assets together and you have one hell of a film."

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