And now the question we've all been dying to ask: how much would superheroes make in their day jobs?
Water Cooler Talk
Hey, we all know that fighting supervillains is a tough gig, but imagine if some of your favorite Marvel butt-kickers fought nothing but rush hour traffic and punched the clock instead of punching the bad guys.
Well, the folks at AskGamblers took on this most important task, reviewing the heroes' various career paths, including doctor, lawyer and chief executive, to determine what their salaries might be.
The platform, which reviews online casinos and games, calculated how much bacon the top superheroes in the Marvel Universe would bring home if they had no alter egos to think about.
Money is an important topic in the superhero realm--and beyond. The top six highest-grossing superhero films and eight out of the top ten highest-grossing superhero films have been produced by Disney's (DIS) Marvel Studios.
Stark Reality
Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, is the wealthiest member of the bunch. This is hardly surprising, seeing as the guy is CEO of Stark Industries, which he took over from his father.
In an interview with New York Magazine earlier this month, Mark Fergus, one of four credited screenwriters on 2008’s "Iron Man", said Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk was the main ingredient in creating the Tony Stark character -- along with a bit of pre-presidential Donald Trump and a touch Apple (AAPL) co-founder Steve Jobs.
However, Stark's estimated net worth of $12.4 billion, with an average salary of $920,006, stands in stark contrast to Musk's total wealth, which, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is $295 billion.
The comic book tycoon's net worth is more in line with Charles Schwab, found and chairman of the Charles Schwab Corp. (SCHW), Luo Liguo, chair of Hoshine Silicon, and billionaire heiress and businesswoman Marijke Mars.
AskGamblers
'Doctor, Doctor'
Is there a doctor in the house? Strange you should ask. And Strange is the answer, as in Doctor Strange, master of the mystic arts, who was a neurosurgeon before the magic happened.
Neurosurgeons, who perform surgery on disorders affecting the nervous system, the brain and the spinal cord, earn an average of $642,301, AskGamblers said.
This comes after roughly 16 years of higher education, including four years for a bachelor’s degree, four years for a doctorate, one-year internship in surgery and a seven-year residency.
Currently, there are only 3,500 practicing Board-certified neurosurgeons in the U.S.
If you have doctor, sooner or later you're going to have a lawyer, and third in the paycheck parade is She-Hulk, a green-skinned superhero who currently stars in the Disney+ program "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law."
If You Need A Lawyer
Jennifer Walters, cousin of the original Hulk, Bruce Banner, specializes in superhero law, which is a pretty select field.
The average U.S. lawyer's earnings are $126,930 per year and we really hope this doesn't make Ms. Walters angry.
Coming in fourth is Black Widow herself, Natasha Romanoff, who was a spy before becoming an agent of the counter-terrorism agency S.H.I.E.L.D. The average known salary for this career choice is $103,816.
And speaking of the Hulk, it turns out that Bruce Banner, who was a nuclear scientist before the gamma rays got him, makes less green than his cousin, but please keep that to yourself. He would pull in an average salary of $102,028.
Ant-Man would have been lucky number seven if he had stayed connected to his career as an electrical engineer, where the average salary is $87,174.
Low Wage Workers
This is much more lucrative than $20,389 as an ice cream scooper at Baskin Robbins, which Scott Lang landed after a stint in prison for petty theft.
Other names on the list include Peter Parker, known to the world as Spiderman, who would earn $42,770, or $33,53 per hour as a part-timer, snapping pictures as a freelance photographer.
The lowest earners on the list include Captain America, who was Private Steve Rogers before he got promoted by a shot in the arm; kung fu master Shang-Chi, a former hotel valet, and the Falcon, a US Air Force pararescue airman, who goes on to fill Rogers' shield as Captain America.
These last three picked the least lucrative career paths before their roles as superheroes and thus would be least likely to pick up the check.
