That's not what iconic means.
For another comics example, the big dumb stupid "gets angrier as they get madder" Hulk is THE ICONIC HULK even though you could point to a bunch of comics and probably make a strong case that "dumb Hulk" actually appears in a minority of Hulk comics.
Because that is what people think of when they think of the Hulk.
And hey, guess what, [/i]that's the version all the adaptations use[/i], just like "villain Venom" is the take almost all of the adaptations use.