Black Panther might be riding high at the cinema but it’s not yet enough to make him the most popular Marvel superhero.

The Black Panther movie opened on Tuesday and has been a smash hit already, pulling in £2.67 million on its opening day, Disney said, and delivering the highest-grossing single day at the UK box office this year so far.

The film has received a rapturous reception from both critics and cinema-goers, enjoying a 98 per cent fresh rating on reviews website Rotten Tomatoes.

But in terms of who the most popular Marvel hero is, that crown still belongs to Deadpool, according to online marketplace eBay.co.uk

While Black Panther has pounced to second in the site’s Marvel heroes ranking, with six searches for the hero every hour in the last week, the king of Wakanda is slightly outdone by fellow antihero Deadpool who had eight searches per hour.

This is eBay.co.uk’s Marvel ranking for how many searches for superhero merch have been made:

1. Deadpool

2. Black Panther

3. Captain America

4. Iron Man

5. Thor

6. Doctor Strange

7. Black Widow

8. Incredible Hulk

9. Hawkeye

10. Spider-Man

Despite only coming 10th in searches, boy wonder Peter Parker is top of the Marvel Universe for the most items sold – there were more than 4,000 Spider-Man items snapped up by fans on eBay.co.uk in the last week - that’s 24 every hour.