Majestic Twelve: Best Comic Book Movies Ever

Comic-book and super hero movies are probably Hollywood’s biggest commodity at this point in time give the overwhelming success of the popular Avengers franchise. And while other studios (Sony, Fox, and Warner) are desperately trying to get their hands on that cashflow with their super hero franchises, Marvel is still dominating… for now. So here’s a valid question… what are the best comic-book-super-hero movies we’ve seen thus far? 

#12 – Batman Returns – Of the original run of Batman films (Burton/Schumauker, not Adam West), Batman Returns was easily the most controversial but also the most satisfying in many ways. The film-auteur styling of Tim Burton break out in full force with fetish-heavy Catwoman who would only ever be outdone by Ann Hathaway, and that’s still a close contest, honestly. We also get DeVito’s infamous but almost perfect monster-Penguin that would go on to haunt the marketing campaign of this film for its duration in theaters, and possibly well afterwards. But this is the film that made Catwoman even sexier, though admittedly mentally disturbed which isn’t accurate to Catwoman. It also gave us the first satisfyingly creepy Penguin prior to Gotham’s understandably disturbed Penguin. The only flaw is that we see Batman enjoying the fact he straight up murders people in this film. And not only does Batman not kill… he also does not enjoy killing. Gotta do your research Burton.

#11 – Kick-Ass – I only have two words for you on this film… Nic Cage. Nicholas Cage really did kind of the steal the show with his Big Daddy character, which just boils down to an even more insane Batman with a shotgun. But the character worked and Cage brought out the best in him. This isn’t dismissing the other actors, however, or the ridiculous premise of the story. All of it works really well to provide a very fun and interesting story in a somewhat short and ridiculous film. Kick-Ass tries to be a hero and his horrible failure gets internet fame and the attention of other would-be heroes Big Daddy and Hit Girl. From there things just escalate out of control when a mob boss kills one of the aforementioned characters and it becomes a revenge plot in the name of justice. Fun stuff.

#10 – Men In Black – First, I had no idea Marvel owned Men In Black. So my follow up question is when will we see Agents K and J in Avengers? In all seriousness, when MIB became a film, it was one of the most unique and fun films out there. And while I’ll argue each subsequent sequel fails to expand on the universe of MIB to, instead, just focus on the same plot of Agent J not knowing enough to do his job and needing Agent K for help, the first film is the best at delivering that plotline. The acting in it is fun and entertaining, the aliens are just cool to see with the only thing missing being a xenomorph reference. Or a predator reference would have been cool too.

#09 – X-Men: First Class – This was the film that basically saved the franchise (for me anyway). X-Men started off great with two solid films that, in hindsight, are mostly just okay and kind of bland. But First Class brought in the old-school comic aesthetics, gave us a storyline more focused on characters that aren’t Wolverine, and delivered some of the best acting the series had up to this point. I can’t say it made up entirely for the disaster that was Wolverine Origins, but it was good enough to give me hope the series could move on. Yes, it is better than Days of Future Past because while the latter is good, it only exists to remove the bad films from the canon and “reboot” the series. First Class exists to reboot the series as well, but in a more traditional way that didn’t require loads of time-travel bullshit.

#08 – Dark Knight – If you had asked me years ago what my favorite comic-book movie was, I’d probably have said Dark Knight. But I’ve grown up, acquired different tastes, and while I still love LOTS of what Dark Knight offers, I’ve also gained an ability to look back and see how it really isn’t the best comic-book film out there. I love Heath Ledgers Joker, but Mark Hamill is still the one and only clown-prince-of-crime. The death of Two-Face is disappointing, though Ekhart’s performance was basically perfect. Of course, there’s also that big gap of time between this and Rises in which Batman does nothing and that’s also kind of a disappointment. I guess you could argue that my change of heart in loving this film less stems from Dark Knight Rises bringing the trilogy down. But don’t get me wrong, Dark Knight is still a stellar film. Just not as fun and exciting as say…

#07 – Spider-Man 1 / Spider-Man 2 – And we’re not talking that new Mark Webb nonsense, we’re talking the good Sam-Raimi nonsense. While Tobey McGuire isn’t the best Spiderman, he’s still a better Peter Parker, which is more important than having a perfect Spider-Man. We had the best villains show up here (Frank Molina’s Doc Ock will never be forgotten). J. Jonah Jameson shows here why the Amazing Spider-man films will NEVER be anywhere near as good as these original classics. Also, Willem Dafoe. I don’t care about your Christian Bale’s, your Michael Keeton’s, or your Nic Cage’s. Bring me more Dafoe and bring him now. Truth be told, the cast was perfectly solid of the first two films and everything was visually so well done (at least at the time) that these first two films were basically flawless works of art. What about the third one? Had it not been for The Amazing Spider-Man films that followed, it would have left a black stain on the series much akin to Dark Knight Rises. But since worse Spider-Man films have come into existence… I can say that I’m more or less okay with it. So now we just need The Amazing Batman to reboot Batman and make it shit and that retroactively would make me like Dark Knight Rises more… theoretically.

#06 -  Iron Man 3 – One of the more controversial films Marvel has done, Iron Man 3 is, to me, the best ending film to the Iron Man series we could have asked for and it does so with the same Jackie-Chan-like action-comedy style that fits Iron Man better than it could have fit ANY of the other heroes. It was also the first post-Avengers film and it was a runaway success both critically and financially, showing that these heroes do, in fact, have legs outside of Avengers team-up films. But, honestly, it’s just more silly Robert Downey Jr. action supported by a still amazing cast and giving us one of the biggest plot-twist upsets in years. Admittedly, it was a polarizing plot-twist in regards to the Mandarin, but given the silly-nature of the film as a whole, it fit the tone perfectly and while I’d like to see a real Mandarin in the films someday, people forget the real story behind the Iron Man series. Unlike Batman, Iron Man isn’t about the villains, it’s about the internal struggles of the hero and this film tackles that logic almost perfectly.

#05 – The Avengers – This could have been ranked higher… but you’ll see why it’s not soon enough. Avengers while not perfect, didn’t really have to be. It wasn’t so much an movie for art as it was a movie to celebrate the massive achievement Marvel had made. Never in the history of film had comic-continuity become a way to connect different franchises together and bring collections of heroes together for something this gigantic. It is up there with massive projects like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter as long multi-film endeavors that generally aren’t done like they are. It’s a testament to filmmaking in general and Marvel is a well-oiled machine that just keeps pumping them out there. The fatal flaw with the success of Avengers is now EVERYONE wants in on this action. While a cool idea, it’s been done sloppy by many imitators like Amazing Spiderman, Green Lantern, or even the recently released Dracula Untold. No one seems to remember that each film PRIOR to Avengers (save for Iron Man 2) managed to hold up on their own as a singular story with a beginning, middle, and end. Do that first and then consider making your work into a bigger, multi-film world.

#04 – Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World – This one is a bit of biasness on my part. I love games, anime, comics, and movies. So a movie about a hero who’s world is basically an homage to various games, anime, comics, and movies and is thrown into a video-game-like situation in which he must defeat seven evil ex-boyfriends to get the girl of his dreams to take him seriously… yeah… I really like that. Everything in this movie is still and over-the-top. The animations for the special effects are great references to classic games. The only other film that has flipped my various fanboy triggers this much is Wreck-It Ralph but that cheated because Sonic also got a cameo. Damn you, Sonic and your superfast cameos! Only downside is Michael Cera isn’t my favorite actor and while he fits this role fine, there are other actors who I think could have brought more life to the role of Scott Pilgrim. That said, everyone else is phenomenal.

#03 – Captain America: Winter Soldier – Captain America: The First Avenger was probably one of the most boring films in the original wave of Marvel films (though narratively better than Iron Man 2). So expectations were low going into the sequel as another boring romp with the Avengers’ least interesting hero. When I left the theater after Winter Soldier, I can safely say I shut up and fell in love with the idea of more Captain America films. It takes a lot of effort to make something boring and un-cool into something badass and fun. It takes even more effort to do that while still keeping Captain America who he is and that is was the best part of the whole endeavor. Captain America doesn’t compromise on who he is, but the world around him and the situations he gets involved in are so much bigger and more impressive that it makes us realize WHY he’s basically the leader of the Avengers. With all the recent news of Captain America in the comics, it makes me wonder if we’ll be seeing Bucky Barnes take the shield like he does at some point or if we’ll just skip to fan-favorite Falcon being the next Captain America. I’m looking forward to seeing how that unfolds.

#02 – Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker – Is it cheating to have an animated film up here with the rest of these live-action adaptations? Maybe. But considering half the films are CGI animations… I think that argument is almost invalid. Batman Beyond has been and will always be my favorite iteration of Batman and this movie brings up the best of both the original animated series of Batman and the Batman Beyond series. But, mostly importantly, it delivers to us the best Joker in any TV show, movie, or game… the Mark Hamill Joker. With only the Arkham games (and that’s the first two, not that crappy Origins shit) as the other perfect source of our Mark-Hamill-Joker, this is my go-to Batman film of the entire series. Plus it also serves as a great film to show how good Terry can be as Batman without the aid of the old man, as Bruce kind of goes out of commission partway through the film, leaving Terry to deal with Joker on his own. It’s dark, but not so far gone that it’s depressing. It’s just the right mix of everything to keep this film fun. Now if we could get a live action Batman Beyond anything (TV show or movie or web series) I would probably just lose my shit.

#01 - Guardians of the Galaxy – Never been a fan of the comic and I always considered them the least interesting characters to make appearances on the Avengers cartoons. But the movie did a lot right to change that impression of them almost immediately. It’s colorful, funny, looks amazing in almost every shot, and has one of the best soundtracks in films in recent memory. More than that, everyone in the film as just having fun being assholes-in-space. Performances were some of the best Marvel has delivered yet with Dave Bautista being a surprisingly good wrestler-gone-actor. Not to be outdone, Bradley Cooper and Vin Disel give us excellent voice-acting performances for both Rocket Raccoon and Groot respectively, and they stole the show, removing ANY worries that goofy CGI characters like them would ruin the movie. It also serves as a teaser for events to come for Avengers 3 when we’ll likely see Thanos (the main villain) take a more active role with the Infinity Stones. This is one movie that reminded us of what fun was in a summer movie season lacking really any fun movies to be had. Great job Marvel for giving us what we wanted. Dicks-in-space.