Superheroes are thriving in movies and on TV — but comic books lag behind

There is no hotter commodity in pop culture than Marvel Comics superheroes. They’re the powerhouse behind four hit films this year (including the top two in global box office, Disney’s $3.6 billion tandem of “Black Panther” and “Avengers: Infinity War”) and on television they’re featured in 10 live-action series spread across ABC, Fox, Netflix, FX, Hulu and Freeform as well as five more animated franchises.

Don’t expect a break during the commercials, either, where Marvel creations are the costumed pitchmen for Ford, Geico, Infiniti and Rocket Mortgage.

There is one sector, however, where Marvel heroes are not soaring to new heights, one in which they struggle to find new fans — and in a wry twist, it’s in their original medium, in the pages of Marvel Comics.