The days when you had to earn your superhero chops with several decades’ worth of shinning up the greasy pole to pop-cultural icon status before they’d let you make the leap from printed page to on-screen live-action are well and truly over. The announcement that DC’s Black Lightning and Marvel’s The Runaways are heading to TV show proves that it’s not just the headline acts who are getting some action.
Both of those comics are respected by fans but even the most venerable characters can raise an eyebrow when they slip from cult status to the mainstream. Anyone who’s grown up with comics won’t bat an eyelid at the prospect of Aquaman getting his own movie. But as the Guardian’s Sian Cain pointed out last week, when you think about it, a guy whose major USPs are yakking with fish and getting weaker the longer he’s out of water, the sound of a barrel being scraped starts to resonate. So how far can the studios go? Let’s have a look at 10 comic book backwaters (with equal weighting for Marvel and DC) where even the most ambitious executives might fear to tread.
The Legion of Superheroes (DC)
Team movies work. The Avengers, the X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Justice League of America (well, fingers crossed on that one). So why not The Legion of Superheroes? Their adventures are set in the far future, so there’s chance for a Guardians-style sci-fi extravaganza. But the roster (and there are a lot of these guys) is made up of heroes with pretty much the crappiest, hokiest names you can imagine. Chameleon Boy! He changes shape! Invisible Kid! He can turn invisible! Bouncing Boy! He can inflate himself! And bounce! Matter-Eater Lad! He can eat anything! Guess which one of those I made up? That’s right. None of them.
Squirrel Girl (Marvel)
Remember in the 80s when everyone was keen to point out that comics weren’t just for kids, and to prove it they let Batman kill people with a big gun and showed Superman and Wonder Woman having hot sexytime in the sky? Yeah, well, here’s the antidote to all that: Squirrel Girl. Look, before you go bonkers in the comments, I know that superhero comics are all about suspending disbelief and they are innately ridiculous really, but come on. Squirrel Girl can talk to squirrels and climb trees and has a bushy tail. And yes, I know the comic is smart and funny, but I do fear we’d be getting into Michael Crawford Condorman territory with a movie. And nobody wants that.
Danny The Street (DC)
Look, I have nothing against sentient streets that can materialise anywhere in the universe, especially when they’re created by Grant Morrison and Brendan McCarthy. Extra kudos comes from the fact it featured in the magnificently surreal run of Doom Patrol for DC’s mature readers imprint Vertigo, and has a name that riffs off the wonderfully over-the-top Danny La Rue. Honestly. Some of my best friends are sentient, cross-dressing streets. But I think it would be political correctness gone mad to have one star in a movie. America isn’t ready for this.
US1 (Marvel)
This was a bad comic so it follows that it would have to be an appalling movie. It was about some kid whose trucker parents were killed in a crash (because, comics and orphans, yeah?) and then he and his brother were run off the road in their truck by some shadowy laughing goon. Our protagonist – Ulysses Solomon Archer – is given an experimental metal skull which has the unexpected side-effect of allowing him to pick up CB broadcasts. He fits out a super-truck with loads of gadgets (the eponymous US1) and goes on the road to catch the dastardly villain The Highwayman who did in his loved ones. Like Convoy-meets-Duel but unimaginably more rubbish.
The Red Bee (DC)
OK, OK, I know we all thought Ant-Man was going to be a bust. But I reckon The Red Bee proves lightning is unlikely to strike twice. A district attorney called Rick Raleigh puts on some stripy red and yellow tights and a little mask and hauls off to fight mobsters and Nazis with the aid of a “stinger gun” and a host of trained bees. He has a special bee friend called Michael who lives in his belt buckle and comes out to sting bad guys. I’m not making this up. Actually, the more I think about it, this would make an awesome movie.
Dazzler (Marvel)
You could always rely on the big comics publishers in the 80s to buy into a trend just as everyone else was getting the hell out, which is why Marvel gave their disco-inspired Dazzler her own book in 1981. Dazzler was a mutant, like the X-Men, and her power was that she could transform sound into coloured lights. And that was about it. Great at parties; maybe not so handy when Galactus rocks up with his bib on and his favourite spoon in his hand, ready to eat your planet. Would be an utterly brilliant soundtrack, though.
Mister Terrific (DC)
Michael Holt has 14 (count ’em) PhDs, is a gold medal-winning Olympic decathlete and made millions from his own company that he flogged off for a tasty price to Batman’s alter-ego Bruce Wayne. Let’s face it, nobody likes a smart arse. He even picked a fight with his pregnant wife to mansplain religion to her, making her late for church, so she went and got herself and their unborn child killed in an accident.
Did that humble him in any way? Well, he decided to become a superhero called Mister Terrific, so what do you think? And if Reed Richards, aka Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four, isn’t getting his lawyers to draw up some cease-and-desists, then he’s not the man I thought he was.
Gin Genie (Marvel)
We have to cut Gin Genie a little slack because she was created by Peter Milligan and Mike Allred for their wonderfully off-the-wall X-Force, which was part of the X-Men family of titles in the 90s but was nicely subversive and satirical. Still, what sort of message are we sending out to the kids if we make a movie about a superhero whose powers only kick in when she gets absolutely shedded on booze? I mean, the David Bowie connotations might be just too good to ignore, but can you imagine the outcry? Pretty good sponsorship opportunity for Hendricks or Bombay Sapphire, mind.
Bat-mite (DC)
You know how some people thought Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice was … well, a little dull? And that on the back of that they tried to spice up Suicide Squad but that turned out, well, a little dull too? You can bet your bat-ass that someone’s at the studio’s going through some old Batman comics looking for ways to brighten up the whole bleak-fest for next time round. Someone who obviously didn’t watch the ludicrously camp TV series in the 60s. Someone who’s saying, “So there’s this imp, right, from another dimension, and he’s got magical powers and he idolises Batman and dresses up as him and causes all kinds of funny chaos, right?” Find this person and fire them immediately.
Thundra (Marvel)
“So this Wonder Woman movie from DC starring Gal Gadot is gonna be a hit,” says the guy at Marvel Studios. “Whadda we got?” Hesitantly, someone suggests Thundra. Oh, man, if you’re one of those alt-right creeps who whines on Twitter all day about feminazis, snowflakes and making America great again, you’re going to love Thundra. Appearing in the pages of the Fantastic Four, she’s a Femizon, right, from a far future where women have subjugated men and rule an America known as the United Sisterhood Republic. She’s come back in time to kick some male butt, but really she just wants to find a man strong enough to best her in battle so she can fall in love. Which, really, is what all women want, right? Nobody show this to Steve Bannon, just to be on the safe side, OK?
