Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman are all firmly embedded in our minds as beloved superheroes created by DC Comics.

But, out of the thousands of characters produced by the publishers in the past 80 years, almost none is as obscure as the Canterbury Cricket.

The bug-like vigilante, who made his debut in 2011, had a brief spell in the Flashpoint series of comics but has not appeared since.

Now, he has been included in Geek.com’s list of the top 10 most obscure DC Comics superheroes.

Created by Mike Carlin and Rags Morales, the character starts off as an arrogant University of Kent student called Jeramey Chriqui.

But when invaders named the Amazons of Themyscira attack the Canterbury campus, the student is disfigured and runs for shelter in Canterbury Cathedral, which is depicted as very nearby.

After running into the building for cover, the Cathedral is then bombed by invisible jets.

Jeramey - the only survivor of the explosion - arises from the wreckage as a human-sized insect with a new outlook on the world. He becomes a patriotic defender of the people of England and fights to save the country from invaders.

The little-known character’s debut appearance did not go down well with reviewer Chad Nevett from leading comic book site CBR.com.

He wrote: “If I weren’t reviewing Flashpoint: The Canterbury Cricket #1, I wouldn’t have finished reading it.

“I would have tossed it aside after five or six pages, moaning.

“And, having read the entire comic, I can assure you that I wouldn’t have been wrong.

“This is a bad, pointless comic and proves right everyone who looked at the overabundance of Flashpoint tie-ins and blasted DC for flooding the shelves with so many that the quality and meaningfulness will suffer in some.

“There have been some good ‘Flashpoint’ tie-ins, of course, but this isn’t one of them and, if you were thinking about picking it up, you shouldn’t.

The Canterbury Cricket character came into comic book existence after history was rewritten by The Flash - creating a radically different version of the universe.

Mr Nevett added: “The Cricket’s origin suffers from being brief and not at all interesting.

“Formerly a supposed conman - though we don’t see any of that - Jeramey got caught up in an Amazon attack, used a girl he liked as a human shield, and was crushed in a church.

“But, somehow he got connected to some cricket that was inside the church and is now a human-sized cricket - how or why is not even broached.”

Had you heard of or bought the Canterbury Cricket comic book? What do you think of it? Let us know by emailing kentishgazette@thekmgroup.co.uk.