Who would you nominate?

The first one that comes to mind, for me, is Wolverine. Mysterious past, man vs. beast, anti-hero. Known to the non-comic reading public.

Yeah, probably the Punisher or Wolverine.

Unless you count characters like Harry Potter and Neo.

The answer would have been Man-Thing and Swamp Thing. But Punisher and then Wolverine came after them.

There might be room for a "hell guy who turns good" iconic character. Don't know if the pick would be Ghost Rider, Daemon Hellstrom, or Spawn.

For that one, I'd go with Hellboy above those.

Maybe, but if its the same iconic superhero type, it existed before Hellboy, clearly. You might choose Hellboy as the best or most popular, but he wasn't a new iconic character. There was a tradition of "guy from hell who gets powers from the devil turns against he devil."

But it sure as heck didn't exist until the 70's, that's for sure.

Man-thing and Swamp Thing weren't iconic though. The Heap existed decades before them.
The only part of Wolverine that is iconic is the anti-hero. The feral hero of the wild has been done since Mowgli the Jungle Boy. The feral hero in the city was done with Tarzan (even in comics) And the Japanese trained martial artist had been done with Richard Dragon and Shang Chi.

Well, but nobody really knew, because he didn't have "thing" in his name. That's part of it, I've just decided.

I prefer Hellboy, since I'm a huge Mignola guy, but I think Ghost Rider will have the most longterm public awareness thanks to the Marvel media machine.

Is there some way I can inject Sherlock Holmes into this thread?

I do like how Punisher and Ghost Rider fit in. I think they were the first of their kinds.

I'm not sure I know what you mean.

What do you mean by "last?"

Hell, for that matter, what do you mean by "iconic?"

Are we just counting comic book superheroes?

The Powerpuff Girls.

+1

Last, meaning most recent. Iconic meaning a certain combination of originality and public awareness. And, yes, just comic book superheroes.

Yes. Preface your answer with "Just as Sherlock Holmes was the first iconic superhero..."

Yeah, that's better. Because I was going to go with "all supeheroes since Sherlock Holmes are ripoffs of Sherlock Holmes, therefore Sherlock Holmes was the last iconic superhero."

That would have been embarrassing.

From a visual point of view only I would say Hellboy or Madman. Even the new Blue Beetle.

Batman.

I hate him, but Lobo.

You really think Lobo is an icon?

Lobo was meant to be a parody of characters like Wolverine and Punisher. I still say Wolverine. Let's face it, outside of comics, four movies with Hugh Jackman have made him a character people who aren't comics characters recognize by name.

Invincible.