The first-ever issue of Daredevil featured a pretty blatant case of this trope, where a quarter of the cover page was dedicated to the likes of Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, Marvel's most popular characters at the time... who didn't appear in the story at all. The use of those characters was meant to set Daredevil up as a Marvel hero worthy of being compared to them, although it doesn't make the trope's usage any less shameless.
Iron Man got this starting from 2008 onward, thanks to his explosion of popularity after his movie, a trend which continues even past the completion of "The Infinity Saga" of the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
He's an immensely popular candidate for team-ups and even had an entire month of Iron Man variant covers (where nearly every book Marvel published had an Iron Man-themed cover, even if he had nothing to do with the series) devoted to him.
Although it hit new levels with the movie, Iron Man's wide publicity in the comics began a bit earlier with Civil War. Tony was the face of superhero registration, and as such he appeared in almost every Civil War tie-in, often seeming to be everywhere at once — and serving whatever political purpose each writer wanted.
Like Wolverine, Iron Man has been featured multiple times in the 6" Marvel Legends series, receiving at least 8 figures under ToyBiz and (as of 2023) at least 30 figures under Hasbro. These also include instances of Iron Man figures being included in waves produced for movies that he doesn't actually appear in, like Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. And that's not even counting the figures produced in the other scales or sub-series that comprise the overall Marvel Legends brand. In probably the perfect example of this trope, when Hasbro later did an MCU 10th Anniversary line, Iron Man received five figures (Tony Stark and the Mark I armor from Iron Man, the Mark VII armor from The Avengers, the Mark XXII armor from Iron Man 3 and the Hulkbuster armor from Avengers: Age of Ultron). For comparison, every other character in the anniversary line only got one figure each, and quite a few characters didn't even appear at all.
In the Silver Age of the Marvel Universe, virtually any character who was supposed to get their own title would either appear in Spider-Man first, or have Spider-Man appear in their title's first issue — in fact, there's a phrase to refer to most of Marvel's Silver Age that basically amounted to "Spider-Man is in the third issue". Trades soliciting comics to shop owners would often carry a picture of the title's third issue's cover. Thus, Spider-Man wound up on a huge number of these, encouraging owners to feel that at least up to that issue the title would be a sure seller. In the nineties, replace Spidey with Wolvie, and it still works.
This even happened with the Marvel The Transformers (Marvel) series which had the alien suit Spidey appear before being retconned away later.
The "Spider-Man appears in the third issue" bit was even homaged and lampshaded◊ in The Sensational She-Hulk, where she mentions that since it's her third issue, it's time for an obligatory guest appearance by Spider-Man.
In the 70s, there was a title called Marvel Team-Up, each issue of which featured a crossover between two or more Marvel heroes. Of the 150 issues of the series, 140 featured Spider-Man.
What If? #8 features an humorously awkward example. While Spidey at least has a role in the issue's inciting incident, the core plot is entirely about Daredevil. So the cover features a massive battle between Daredevil and the Owl... and a sticker of Spidey's face with a caption mentioning that he's in it too.
This trend continued even into the 1990s, with Spider-Man appearing in the second and third issues of Darkhawk and the fifth and sixth issues of Sleepwalker. Wolverine didn't appear (and thank God for that), but Darkhawk and Sleepwalker would later team up with Spidey again when they tangled with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
Linkara reviewed NFL SuperPro #1, guest-starring Spider-Man. He didn't wait a second after seeing the cover to point out he was there simply to boost sales. Things got worse as the story progresses, as Spider-Man and SuperPro had little to no interaction, and had a solo scene where he broke into a mob boss's house and gave up searching for evidence after scanning only one room. Simply put, Spider-Man didn't add anything to the plot whatsoever, which is worse than not appearing at all.
Linkara: So this scene was: COMPLETELY POINTLESS.
Spider-Man was featured in the second issue of Marvel's The Awesome Slapstick limited series (albeit not on the cover). Noteworthy only because Spidey was all but useless in the issue, with many jokes made at his expense.
This extends to the current age, where C-lister Gravity finds Spider-Man watching him fight his nemesis, and he doesn't lift a single finger to help .
The variant cover for Invincible Iron Man issue #527 consists of portraits of every major character from Matt Fraction's run... and Spider-Man, who is prominently featured swinging from a web behind Tony, even though his role was restricted to a brief team-up in an earlier arc. Spider-Man makes no appearance in the issue whatsoever.
Lampshaded in the first appearance of Yellowjacket in The Avengers (who was actually Henry Pym with a double-personality crisis). After introducing the characters, we have two pages with J.J. Jameson praising the new hero and Spider-Man making fun remarks from the window. Then, the caption text reminds us that it was an Avengers comic book, and continued with them. Spider-Man's influence in the actual plot? Zero.
Panini Comics is an Italian company that publishes comics (including ones from Marvel) in various countries. In France, they once published a trade paperback of Silver Surfer: Requiem, a 4 issues-long mini-series written by J. Michael Straczynski. The cover for the second issue was used as the cover for the trade and prominently features Spider-Man alongside the Silver Surfer. The second issue is also the only one in the entire mini-series where Spidey makes an appearance.
During the Bronze Age, Ghost Rider was a cameo in some Marvel property about once a month.
In 1991, Marvel parodied their own tendency to do this with a three part Fantastic Four story headlined "The World's Most Commercial Comics Magazine" which starred Wolverine and Spider-Man, as well as the then-hot Ghost Rider and Gray Hulk, as a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits brought together as "The New Fantastic Four". The issue also had another unnecessary cameo by The Punisher in the last page (lampshaded on the cover blurb— "World's Most Exploitative Cameo"), coming over pursuing a giant flying monster returning to Monster Island where the last part of the story takes place. When he sees the FF and the aforementioned "new FF" coming out of the island together, he went ah forget it and breaks off his pursuit.
In a similar vein, a few years later, an issue of She-Hulk was "starring on this issue"◊ Wolverine, the Punisher and Spider-Man. She-Hulk helpfully informs us they are not starring (nor even technically appearing) in this issue, however.
The villain Venom from the Spider-Man comic was so popular that he was turned into a '90s Anti-Hero, then given endless cameos and mini-series. To give you an idea of this, he's advertised on the cover of one of the Quasar tie-ins to Acts of Vengeance as though he's a prominent part of the story. He shows up at the very beginning of the issue, is defeated within two pages, and then never appears again. When he began to feel over-exposed, the writers created the new character Carnage (a Darker and Edgier version of Venom— think about it, darker and edgier than a brain-eating fanged Body Horror, they had to make Carnage totally Ax-Crazy and covered in blood) and repeated the process all over again.
Emma Frost has been appearing in a great deal of comics, often just so that she can be there. The worst example is the time when she showed up on one page◊ of an issue of White Tiger's miniseries to tell her that white wasn't her color (after several thugs had mistaken her for Emma... because a dark-haired Hispanic woman and a blonde Caucasian woman are so alike).
Similar to the Wolverine variant covers, Deadpool was for one month featured on numerous variant covers, though the series were mainly in the Marvel Universe. The covers ranged from slight alterations of the original covers to parodies of classic covers (One Amazing Spider-Man cover parodied Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21, and featured Deadpool smoozing up Mary-Jane and pushing Spidey out of the way) to at least one completely original cover.
He's prominently displayed on most of the artwork for Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and shown opposite Dante in the intro. His eventual burst of popularity is lampshaded by She-Hulk in the game, who annoyedly points out to Deadpool that in the 80s and early 90s she was very popular and even shared his signature fourth-wall-breaking powers.
He's also given a prominent position on the promo◊ for the LEGO Marvel Super Heroes game, right up there with the cast of The Avengers movie, Spider-Man, and you guessed it, Wolverine.
In this interview, the writer of the 2010 Ant-Man and the Wasp miniseries felt the need to specify that neither Wolverine nor Deadpool appears in it.
DEADPOOL DEADPOOL DEADPOOL DEADPOOL DEADPOOL! WE HEARD THAT DEADPOOL RAISES SALES SO WE'RE DOING THIS EARLY ON. JUST KIDDING. ALL ABOUT THE ART. YOU’RE GOING TO PAY FOR THIS, RIGHT?
Deadpool shows up in thisX-Men: Apocalypse trailer, despite not being in the movie, to promote his own film.
When part of the 90s Secret Defenders series (which briefly featured Deadpool as a member) was finally collected as a trade paperback in 2017, it was titled Deadpool and the Secret Defenders, even though he only appears in 3 issuesnote Marvel also made sure to use a cover that prominently featured Doctor Strange and Luke Cage (then recently the stars of a hit movie and a hit Netflix series, respectively) as well, even though they too are only present in several issues each.
To promote Deadpool 2, Walmart and 20th Century Fox teamed up to sell blu-rays with variant slip-on covers featuring Deadpool, ranging from the other movies in the X-Men universe to The Terminator and Revenge of the Nerds. The idea primarily seemed to be about making a memorably absurd store display that would promote the forthcoming movie, but collectors would probably buy the old movies for the new covers too.
Deadpool has appeared multiple times in the Marvel Legends toy line, sometimes getting two figures in a single wave. Even the 2020 Venom wave, which was ostensibly released to cash in on the Venom movie sequel, had Venompool (the symbiote-infused Deadpool from the Marvel: Contest of Champions game) as the Build-a-Figure. Additionally, Deadpool 2 was the most heavily featured film in the aforementioned series of X-Men movie Legends, with Deadpool, Cable, Domino and Negasonic Teenage Warhead all getting figures. By comparison, a number of major characters from the earlier films like Cyclops, Jean Grey and Storm were excluded entirely.
Marvel released a collection of Thanos' earliest appearances after he made a surprise cameo in The Stinger of The Avengers. Even though the collection only contained two issues of The Avengers and more heavily featured other series like Captain Marvel, Adam Warlock and Daredevil, it was still titled The Avengers vs. Thanos to capitalize on the success of the movie.
The collected edition of the short-lived Force Works team book from the 90s is called Avengers/Iron Man: Force Works, with those two logos being displayed far more prominently than the series' actual title.
To cash in on the Captain Marvel movie, Marvel collected a mishmash of various stories featuring Kree characters like Ronan the Accuser and Dr. Minerva under the title Captain Marvel: Starforce. This is despite the fact that none of the stories in the collection actually feature Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel, as they were all published decades before she started using that name. In fact, because Danvers is now best known to the mainstream public as Captain Marvel because of the MCU, even some of her old Ms. Marvel stories have been republished under that name. For instance, Brian Reed's 2006-2010 Ms. Marvel run was collected as Captain Marvel: The Ms. Marvel Years.
To cash in on Beast's major role in the then-upcoming X-Men: First Class movie, Marvel reprinted some issues of Steve Englehart's Avengers run under the title Avengers: The Coming of the Beast. Beast even had the cover all to himself, something that would seem quite ludicrous after the way the Avengers exploded in mainstream popularity following the release of their own movie just a year later.
The 2021 collections of the original Thunderbolts series are titled Hawkeye & The Thunderbolts to cash in on the Disney+Hawkeye live-action series from that same year.
Doctor Doom was involved in Marvel lampshading of this in Strange Tales 122, at the time a Human Torch series. Doom's face (or rather, mask) appears in the bottom-left corner of the cover, above the caption "Doctor Doom does not appear in this story! We just felt like drawing his face!"
The first few issues of the Warren Ellis revamp of Marvel's Thunderbolts have Norman Osborn dressed in his Green Goblin suit displayed prominently in all the covers, despite the fact that he does not wear it until much later in the series.
For a brief time in the '90s, the popularity of Death's Head II led to him appearing in nearly every Marvel UK comic, either as a cameo or a guest appearance.
The Fantastic Four were pretty much this for most of The '60s and The '70s; Strange Tales (which introduced a Human Torch solo feature in Issue #101, which was later retooled — unofficially in Issue #123, and officially in Issue #124 — into a series with the Thing as his costar) and Marvel Two-in-One (the Thing's Team-Up Series) were just two ways Marvel Comics tried to turn the Fantastic Four into a Cash-Cow Franchise. The Fantastic Four even show up in The Amazing Spider-Man #1, back before the Web-head could start making his rounds (coincidentally, the Fantastic Four's own book featured the Hulk that same month in an attempt to boost sales for the Hulk's then-fledgling magazine, which was soon cancelled anyway).
Parodied in Thunderbolts #27, which was released when the X-Men craze of The '90s hadn't yet cooled. Archangel is featured on the cover, with a blurb asking if he'll join the Thunderbolts as their newest member, only for a second blurb at the bottom to state "Nah, he's only a guest star... But doesn't he look cool on this cover?"
Similarly, when the X-Men were red hot back in The '80s, the cover to The Avengers #267 prominently featured Storm and Colossus rushing into battle alongside the Avengers against Kang the Conqueror, implying a team-up of some kind. In the actual comic, alternate universe versions of Storm and Colossus briefly show up as members of the Avengers on Earth-267, but are killed off alongside their teammates within four pages. The actual canon versions of those characters never appear or interact with the Avengers.
With the growing popularity of the comic, Marvel has started making a habit of inserting Rocket Raccoon into media, including his own mini-series being included with the first volume of The Annihilators to help boost sales, his surprising appearance in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, his confirmed playable appearance in Marvel Heroes Online, and the raccoon even holds a prominent position in the promotional image for Marvel's upcoming Marvel NOW! series, standing in the front next to Wolverine himself. Marvel has also included him as one of the four heroes on the banner of their News preview images on the Marvel website (alongside Iron Man, Thor and Nova).
When the Guardians were first set to appear in an episode of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, almost all of the commercials and previews focused on Rocket, despite his relatively small role in the episode compared to the rest of the team.
The Falcon got a boost in popularity in the wake of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. This was spoofed in a solicitation for an issue of Ant-Man: The solicit excitedly pointed out that Sam Wilson was showing up in the comics to team up with Ant-Man just like he did in the movie, but then reluctantly noted the number of ways both he and Ant-Man differed from their movie counterparts. It ended with a desperate plea for moviegoers to buy the comic anyway.
Some of the marketing for Ant-Man basically consists of Marvel shouting "Hey, remember the Avengers?" One of the TV spots shows recycled footage of the Avengers from their various movies, while a trio of posters for the movie have Ant-Man standing on Cap's shield, Thor's hammer, and Iron Man's armor, respectively.
The same year the Avengers movie came out, Thunderbolts was retitled Dark Avengers, seemingly to cash in on the prominence of the brand.
One of the variant covers for the 2015 Secret Wars series focuses almost entirely on characters who either have had or are getting their own movies, MCU or otherwise. The only exceptions are Miles Morales, Jane Foster as Thor (both of whom got a bunch of publicity in their own rights) and Namor.
A bizarre example was Models, Inc. The mini-series starred several old Golden Age girls' comics characters like Millie the Model and Patsy Walker, but the cover of the collected edition omitted all of them in favor of the alternate cover of the first issue, an image of Iron Man and Tim Gunn from Project Runway. While Gunn does appear in the series, it's only in that issue in a comedic backup story. Likewise, Iron Man doesn't appear at all, even though his armor does show up in the aforementioned short story. The actual main characters were regulated to the back cover. Another case is how Mary Jane Watson is the cover of issue 3, where she appears very briefly in the start.
Marvel began pushing the character very heavily after his movie unexpectedly became a monstrous hit at the box office. The cover for the collected edition of the Spider-Man mini-series Spidey: School's Out features a large image of Black Panther, even though he only plays a supporting role. A Black Panther vs. Deadpool limited series was also commissioned, seemingly for no other reason than them both being popular characters who had movies in theaters that year.
Black Panther's presence in animation, particularly Avengers Assemble, is really telling about how this trope works for MCU characters, with all other media following the films at all costs. Not slated for film appearances? The popular recurring character from The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes is nowhere to be seen in Assemble and related series. Oh, he’s going to be in Civil War and they’re working on a solo film? He suddenly pops up in season three, appearing quite a few times. That solo film is a huge runaway success, the highest grossing solo superhero movie of all time? Suddenly Avengers: Black Panther’s Quest is basically a Panther solo series occasionally guest-starring Captain America. (To be fair, the subtitle of the show has changed every season for a while now. But there’s no exaggerating about it being his show entirely now, taking place in Wakanda and only occasionally featuring other Avengers than him. The most common is Cap, likely due to Panther’s MCU debut being in Captain America: Civil War).
Related, but the cast of 2018 Avengers relaunch by Jason Aaron and Ed McGuinness was also very obviously influenced by the popularity of the MCU, with Black Panther even being elected as the team chairman for the first time in his published history (so admittedly, it was a long time coming). Black Panther's various supporting characters like Shuri and Okoye have also taken on more important roles within the Marvel Universe, and are now seeing way more use in just a year or two than they did in the years before he got his movie. This even extends to Wakandan characters in general, such as in the 2018 West Coast Avengers series, where it was revealed late in the series that the characters Fuse and Ramone were the children of an exiled Dora Milaje member who had moved to the United States, the use of the Wakandan mutant Gentle in X-Men: Red, and Gail Simone's Domino: Hotshots mini-series, which featured a new Wakandan heroine named Atlas Bear as part of Domino's team.
Similar to the examples mentioned in the Avengers section, the fourth volume in the Fantastic Four Epic Collection is called The Mystery of the Black Panther, and prominently features T'Challa on the cover.
After the massive success of Spider-Gwen (Gwen Stacy of Earth-65), who was created for the Spider-Verse event, Marvel released variant covers of her as various Marvel heroes. One of them, Gwenpool (based on Deadpool) proved so popular that she got her own spin-off series.
Much like the Wolverine month and Joker month already mentioned, in January 2021, the first month that Marvel could legally make Alien comics, they released several variant covers featuring superheroes fighting xenomorphs. A Marvel vs. Predator was set for May, only to be delayed along with a related Predator comic (possibly caused by the writers of the first movie suing Disney to recapture the Predator rights).
◊ in The Sensational She-Hulk, where she mentions that since it's her third issue, it's time for an obligatory guest appearance by Spider-Man.
